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Best Free Service

Denver Public Library website

The Denver Public Library's newly revamped website offers a welcome selection of no-hassle, no-cost online resources for cardholders, from complete car-repair manuals (wiring diagrams included!) to Bradford legal forms and movie, music and book reviews. An astonishing range of periodical databases offer full-text articles from health, business, popular and scholarly publications. And don't get us started on the genealogical tools and links. Log on and dig in.

Best Free Service for Smokers

Colorado Quitline/Colorado QuitNet

Cold sweats, cravings, minor panic attacks. Never mind actually quitting -- these are some sensations experienced by dedicated smokers who simply stop to contemplate a puff-free life. But deep down, even the heaviest huffers know what a wretched, toxic habit smoking is. It's just that giving it up is so damn...hard. Colorado Quitline and QuitNet, free services operated by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, make it easier by offering online and telephone counseling, referrals and medical info to those hoping to snuff their addiction. Funded by money from the huge multi-state tobacco settlement of 1998, Quitline and QuitNet are known to be effective strategies: Smokers who use the services are three times more likely to stay smoke-free for at least six months longer than those who never pick up the phone or log on. Ready to kick? Reach out and touch someone.

Best Free Service for Gardeners

CSU Master Gardener website

Aspiring gardeners who don't know the difference between a weed and a seed pod will find plenty to dig into on Colorado State University's Master Gardener website. So will those looking for specific information on delightfully dirty subjects like composting and mealworms. The site is an exhaustive font of information for both the seasoned and the stupefied, with tips on everything from lawn care and pest control to plant selection and keeping your window fern alive. Visitors can also ask questions directly of those earthy wizards known as master gardeners. It isn't easy being a green thumb, but CSU's site makes it a little less mind-boggling.

Best Downtown Service

Tabor Center parking garage

Face it: Parking downtown will always be a pain. But the Tabor Center parking garage is an oasis in a desert of parking meters. It costs twelve bucks to park there all day, but the garage is much more than just an auto warehouse. Different services are available on different levels of the structure: Leave your car on Level E, and Center Line Detailing Car Wash will clean it ($15 to $25) while you shop. On Level C is same-day dry-cleaning and auto repair: Midas Auto Service Experts will pick up your vehicle, change the oil or whatever else you need and return it to the garage. Speedy Auto Glass will even come and fix windshields. What parking meter can do all that?

Best Way to Reduce Your Parking Fine by 37 Cents

www.denverpvb.com

Yeah, parking tickets suck. What makes them even worse is writing a check to cover the cost, tracking down an envelope and a stamp, and remembering to put the hateful package in the mail. While the Denver Parking Violations Bureau's website doesn't entirely take the sting out of the process, it does eliminate some of the additional tasks. By clicking the "Pay-By-Web" button on the home page and following along step by step, users can charge a ticket to their Visa or MasterCard, saving a few pennies and some additional frustration in the process.

Best Mall to Shop With a Pug

Aspen Grove Lifestyle Center

The Germans took things to the extreme for years, allowing their beloved hounds to eat at the table in public restaurants. And while nobody here is advocating that (at least not openly), there are folks who like to take their favorite pup out for a round of relaxing shopping. If they visit Aspen Grove, they won't be in the doghouse: While there are a few dog-dissers (hello, Starbucks) at the outdoor mall, most stores post signs welcoming their four-legged friends.

Best Urban Funk in a Mall

Urban Outfitters

Cherry Creek got a much-needed boost of flava with Urban Outfitters, a welcome outpost of urbanity in the shopping center's rarefied air. The only store in the mall to display its goods in plywood crates, the chain retailer is both outlandish and practical. A pop-up version of the Kama Sutra sits next to a book on how to build an outdoor shed; rugs made of shredded T-shirts share space with teapot lamps and Snoop Dogg action figures. Urban Outfitters is a relatively inexpensive and fun place to find a book of vintage Playboy centerfolds, Day-Glo jewelry and a T-shirt collection that's worth a visit on its own; one top features a pig bearing flowers and pleading, "Please don't eat me...I love you." We'll oink to that.

Best Shopping Center/Mall

Far East Center

The Far East Center is more of a vicarious travel experience than a shopping mall -- an exotic otherworld seated at the corner of Federal Boulevard and Alameda Avenue. The double-decker complex boasts a Vietnamese bakery, a couple of hair and nail salons and two well-stocked Asian grocery stores that traffic in fresh, live fish, cookware, tea and spices. At Truong An, you'll find unique and affordable gifts such as bamboo plants, paper lanterns and cute Korean stationery. The center's always-packed parking lot's a pickle, but the prices are right and the offerings endlessly interesting. And when the shopping weakens your knees, there's plenty to eat: We'll take the Far East noodle joints over the food court any day. Celebrate the Year of the Monkey: Go East.

Best Anti-Mall

Pod

Artist Lauri Lynnxe Murphy and collector Barbara Pooler recently changed the location of Pod from a spot within the Andenken Gallery to new digs on Santa Fe Drive, in a space that once housed the ILK Gallery as well as Murphy's own studio. But Pod's purpose remains the same: to support artists by selling the one-of-a-kind things they make. And what things they are! Pod swells with Murphy's own Sugarpuss bags made of recycled fur coats and wig hair; Chinese-print brocade bustiers; beadwork; small framed works; tiny signed prints sold in vending-machine eggs; and a huge selection of local Squid Works comics. Overhead flies a creepy-cute brigade of ceiling-hung angels, complete with felted human hair and tea-stained teeth. (According to Murphy, they're made by a Danish artist who smuggles them into the States.) Pod may soon expand further into the storefront space and offer workshops and other activities; in the meantime, it's a place where you can shop without feeling vacuously shallow about it. It's for art, after all.

Best Store on the 16th Street Mall

Tattered Cover Book Store

The Tattered Cover revolves around language. So why is it so hard to find words to adequately praise it? Not content to simply be the region's finest bookstore, the Denver landmark became a symbol of our times in 2000, when owner Joyce Meskis refused to turn over buyer info to police, a move that made her a hero among booksellers and civil libertarians alike. On a less grand scale, her stores are comfy, community-oriented and pleasantly stuffed with a vast stock of new and used titles. The LoDo store's activity calendar is exhaustive, as well, with near-nightly readings by authors both obscure and internationally known. But wait -- there's more! The store's coffee is yummy and cheap! And this year, the TC began carrying parking-meter keys, available for purchase in any amount -- which makes so much sense, we wonder why every LoDo business doesn't do it. Then again, if every business operated like the Tattered Cover, we'd never run out of interesting things to look at, think about, participate in, discuss, admire and, yes, buy. And what fun would that be?

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