Part of the Bishop Arts District's Renaissance, this pleasant shop carries a wide range of gift items and objects from local artists. Among the constants are personal care items from the Thymes Collection and scented candles from Ergo and Votivo. Co-owner Michael Harrity says he has "without a doubt the strongest candle collection in Dallas." About 70 percent of the market's inventory is unique items, many from local artists, including furniture, paintings, pottery, turned wood bowls, handmade jewelry and metal sculpture. Prices range from about $10 to more than $150. Gift wrapping is free. Because the shop serves a wide geographic area, it has a wide price range that in recent years has been trending upward with the revitalization of the neighborhood.

We've had plenty of arguments about whether or not Zeus is the best comics store in town, and we still think if you've never read a comic book before or haven't since you were a kid, this is the best place to start. Owner Richard Neal and the staff don't sit around engaging in impenetrable fanboy discussions, like who was the better Green Lantern: Hal Jordan or Kyle Rayner? (Dude, Hal Jordan. Come on.) They might have an opinion, but they know the Marvel zombies and fans of their Distinguished Competition will come in anyway, so it's best to cater to the people who've never stepped inside a comics store. Maybe the people who just saw Ghost World at the Inwood and want to read the Daniel Clowes comic it was based on, or the people who saw the yanked Spider-Man trailer and want to read about the wall-crawling superhero they forgot they loved as a kid. Part of catering to that audience means stocking their store with bright and shiny baubles that remind you of being a kid, sometimes literally. Not only does Zeus traffic in new action figures--which have more points of articulation than most humans--they also have plenty of the original toys you remember from childhood. An old Aquaman doll? Got it. Ronald McDonald, the Hamburglar, Mayor McCheese and the rest of the McDonaldland gang? Got those, too. It's like going on eBay without having to outbid someone. They've got it all, new and old, from comic book to Star Wars characters to WWF superstars to an entire wall of Barbie dolls for the ladies. If you want it, they probably have it. And on the slim chance they don't, Neal probably remembers it and will reminisce with you as a consolation prize. Come for the toys, stay for the comics. You'll be glad you did.

This bookstore on the first floor of the main Dallas public library is like a perpetual yard sale. You never can tell what books you might find, but they're guaranteed to be cheap. You can walk out the door with an audiotape, a couple of hardcover books and some paperbacks for less than 10 bucks. At these prices, the time spent looking for something interesting is worth it.

As we anticipate Halloween, the fond memories of years past come flooding back--those days of pinning a black bath towel around our shoulders, wedging two pointy candy corn under our top lip and chasing our younger sibling with the forbidding chant, "I vant to suck your blood!" in the best Transylvanian accent we could muster. Now, as an adult, the times we thirst for human blood are rare. Yet, on some level, it would still be fun to have fangs. Enter Pamela Sedmak, owner of Fangtastic Fangs. For $125, she will hand-carve a set of fangs custom-fitted to your mouth. In the past 10 years, Sedmak has made hundreds of fangs for actors and Halloween costumes, but most of her clients are just "normal people." (Once vampirish dental prostheses are involved, "normal" becomes a very subjective term.) The fangs are incredibly realistic and durable--she's had her pair for 12 years--but she doesn't recommend eating ("OK, maybe a Jell-O shot") or trying to open beer cans with them. Plus, if Anne Rice likes them, how can we argue?

Handbooks, mouth books, bum books. Crossroads Market and Bookstore has sex manuals of every type. And they're just there on the shelf, not behind a counter or hidden beyond a velvet curtain. Just there by the cookbooks and romance novels and magazines and various knickknacks and greeting cards. But accessibility is only part of the issue. No one will look at you funny if you browse. Sure, you may giggle and blush to the shade of red found on the rainbow flags all around Cedar Springs, but no one will care. Not even the cashier, the woman standing in line to buy pie at the cafe or the guy using the Internet. Not that we would know, of course.

Awhile back, we got it into our heads that we would enjoy a small pond in our back yard. Maybe a modest waterfall. A couple of fish. Surely, we figured, even a klutz like us could handle a simple project like that. Well, we were wrong. Weeks later, after multiple trips to Home Depot, we were enjoying a black, fetid bog that produced all the mosquitoes we ever could have hoped for. So we found our way to Creative Water Gardens, and, for a couple of hundred dollars, they held our hands (both of them) and set us straight. Not only do they offer the largest selection of koi in the area, from a simple $5.99 version to a 3-year-old costing $2,000; not only do they have the widest selection of aquatic plants, 250 varieties at last count; not only do they carry all the pumps and filtration gadgetry and chemicals and food we needed; but they also have a resident kitty cat who rubs against our leg every time we visit. (Please note: The kitty is as yet unnamed. Suggestions are welcome.)

If you're looking for a way to get on Bowser's good side, this is the place to call. Co-owners Braden Tripp, a former chef, and Jonathan Pickens have a list of freshly made goodies that will have your pet slobbering more than usual. The menu has everything from Bow Wow Bagels ($4 a dozen) to Paw Paw's Old Fashioned Oat Meal Cookies ($5 per dozen) to Canine Cheese Sticks ($6 per dozen). None of the treats contains preservatives, artificial flavoring or color, and they're not all hot out of the oven. They'll even deliver frosty Pupsicles (with peanut butter and bananas) for the pooch who's been in the sun all day.

Bridget Barfield was a teacher for many years but quit her job over frustration with her administrators. Eventually, she found herself at one of those career counseling services that uses a personality test to recommend what course in life for which one is best suited. The test said she should sell shoes. And that is how Heart and Sole came to be. It is the only all-Birkenstock store in town. Barfield opened the store with her daughter Brooke a little more than a year ago. We are very particular about our favorite, hard-to-find model of Birkenstock. Heart and Sole carries it, along with about 400 other styles.

This 1.5 million-square-foot mall near D-FW has everything anybody could possibly want in the way of escaping the weather and wasting time. The 5-year-old mall is one of the largest in Texas and offers a bunch of stuff to do besides shopping. The mall has a 30-screen theater, restaurants and a GameWorks that has a bar. If you get bored with the mall, a Bass Pro Shops Outdoor World is right across the parking lot. There you will see all manner of outdoorsmen and outdoorswomen who make a pilgrimage to this fishing mecca. Also, when you get bored, play "Guess Which Shopper is From Oklahoma." That's always fun.

A few months back, the fine owners of Zeus Comics and Collectibles in Turtle Creek Village took umbrage at our insistence that Titan Comics is "the only comics shop that matters." Hey, we can see why they'd be a little unhappy--you don't advertise in a paper expecting it to label your establishment a moot point--but hear us out. Now, Zeus is a fine place to buy brand-new (or close to it) comics, and it's an excellent store for those in search of action figures, high-priced Barbie dolls and other geek errata (count us in on all of it). It's a dilettante's paradise, actually. But the hard-core collector--the fetishist who still lives with Mom or the fanboy with a wife and mortgage--spends his days and long green over at Titan, tucked away in a predominantly Spanish-speaking shopping center across from Bachman Lake. Jeremy Shorr and his knowledgeable girl wonders (as always, it's refreshing to find women behind the counter in a comic-book shop) preside over a store filled with nothing but comics, many of which date back to the Silver Age and beyond (Shorr recently began purging the action figures at bargain prices). Titan's got what the purist craves: a staggering smorgasbord of boxes filled with bagged-and-boarded back issues, a wall of trade hardbacks and paperbacks, cases crammed with history books about the oft-maligned medium and two walls papered with new and current issues. It doesn't discriminate between DC, Marvel and, oh, Fantagraphics: You can find Chris Ware's hypnotically clever work mixed in among the latest Marvel (ironically named) Ultimate title, and you'll find old Neil Adams' Green Lantern-Green Arrows alongside Kevin Smith's recent take on the subject. Fact is, we're thinking of moving in...or applying for a job when this journalism thing doesn't pan out. It's the dork's home away from home, and we couldn't be more delighted to pay some of the rent.