Best Place to Get Your Game On 2008 | Arizona Arcade and Pinball Store | Shopping & Services | Phoenix
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Best Place to Get Your Game On

Arizona Arcade and Pinball Store

Today's video games just aren't what they used to be. Million-dollar budgets and expectations for cinematic cut scenes in full rendered video have ruined the once-humble game. Can you imagine Pac-Man as a 70-hour epic MMORPG epic? What's wrong with just eating ghosts and, sometimes, a pretzel?

If you need a fix of nostalgia gaming, we can't recommend Arizona Arcade and Pinball Store enough. Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Dig Dug, and more are waiting for you to rediscover in Arizona Arcade's showroom. Whether you prefer a vertical arcade cabinet or an ultra-retro tabletop version, you can find it here. Don't worry, pinball wizards, they've got you covered too. Best of all, you can buy game cabinets to start building your own in-home arcade. Sure, they're a little pricey, but PS3s aren't exactly cheap, either.

Best Library for DVD Rentals

Scottsdale Public Library system

If you're driving by Burton Barr Central Library and think, "By golly, I think I'll check out a first-run DVD tonight!" — uh, no. Barr's by far the largest repository of municipally owned intellectual property in the state, and the Phoenix library system's flagship is a victim of its own excess. Everybody knows it's the best, so it's not anymore, and the new-release section looks like a wheat field after a locust invasion.

On the other hand, we — and by we, we mean Maricopa County residents — are beneficiaries of Scottsdale's bounty. If you live in the county, you can get a Scottsdale library card. If you get a Scottsdale library card, you've just scored quality time with some highly desirable flicks. There are two ways to go about this: 1) Walk cold into any Scottsdale branch (Civic Center, Arabian, Palomino, or Mustang) and you're a lock to walk out with at least one new release; 2) create an online account and place holds on those new issues you're dying to check out, then pick 'em up a group at a time to save gas. For its relatively small size, Scottsdale purchases an insane number of movie titles — typically 50-plus copies for marquee releases — so the selection is fabulous, and you can conserve those precious slots on your Netflix queue for the rarer, cooler stuff that only Netflix stocks.

Best Magazine Rack

MADE art boutique

What makes a real city? For us, it's always been about the magazines. A good town can't have too many magazine racks. Our favorite local rack is found at one of our favorite local shops, MADE. The selection's not as big as the commercial bookstore departments, but don't let that fool you. The selection here makes the best bedside reading in town: Craft, Art Papers, Sculpture, Juxtapoz, Paste, Venus, Raw Vision, Ad Busters and, to be honest, our favorite: Heeb.

Intrigued? Then get yourself down to MADE for a look-see.

Best Bookstore

Changing Hands Bookstore

Bookstores may be a dime a dozen (the way novels used to be), but there's something priceless about Changing Hands Bookstore, the independently owned Tempe shop that's become a Valley destination for book lovers, shopaholics, and DIY types. Along with a stunning selection of new and used reads — many displayed with insightful comments from bibliophile employees — Changing Hands hosts more public speaking events and book-signings than any other bookstore in the Valley.

Renowned physicist Michio Kaku and bestselling author Stephenie Meyer are just two big names to make recent appearances. In addition, there's a multitude of other interesting events on the Changing Hands calendar, from writing workshops and crafting groups to toddler-parent yoga. Besides books, the gift section has a well-edited variety of quirky finds.

Who can resist a crisp new journal, some exotic incense, or maybe a goofy Blackbeard action figure? Every aisle here is full of temptation. And as a bonus, you can waltz right into Wildflower Bread Co. when you're ready to sip some espresso and ogle the goodies you just bought. We'd probably live at Changing Hands if we could, but then they might just put us to work.

Best Place to Buy a First-Edition Zane Grey

Pages

Considering this just-opened bookstore is in the middle of a brand-new shopping center in Cave Creek, we assumed we'd see a lot of soccer-mom reading, like Jodi Picoult and Mitch Albom. Boy, were we wrong! The husband-and-wife team that owns this friendly shop has carefully assembled some really interesting books, with a great representation of local authors and a respectable antiquarian selection. But we were most impressed to see the collection of Westerns by Zane Grey. It's a touch of old Carefree even in the middle of new Cave Creek — and though the books aren't cheap (some cost over $500), they're a dream come true for serious collectors. The rest of us, of course, are welcome to look, too.

Best Place to Find Mystery

The Poisoned Pen

If Edgar Allan Poe were alive and a Phoenician, where would he buy his books? Probably at the Poisoned Pen, the Old Town Scottsdale home of all things mystery and fiction. More likely, Poe would set foot in the Poisoned Pen during a book tour. After all, many of the best mystery authors in the U.S. visit this cozy little shop for book-signings.

The Poisoned Pen boasts a competitive selection of fiction, from mainstream bestsellers to out-of-print titles and autographed first editions. It stocks a bevy of thrillers, historical fiction, sci-fi, and even a fair collection of nonfiction travel and food writing, too.

The Poisoned Pen indulges book nerds with a number of frivolities, including weekly book-signings, writing workshops, the "coffee and crime club," and book-discussion nights. Even if you're not up for the coffee and crime club, you might want to peek inside. There's something delightful and old world about this little bookstore's stone exterior, corner location, and book-shelved walls.

Best High-Stress Used-Book Sale

VNSA Charity Used Book Sale

The meek may inherit the Earth, but it's the cunning and the cocksure who score the cool stuff at this long-lived literary offload. The boldest treasure hunters leave nothing to chance, camping out the night before as if they were trying to score tickets to a Led Zep reunion concert.

All to purchase books. Used books. Perhaps the death of literacy has been greatly exaggerated. Perhaps there are more people than you'd think champing at the bit to help the needy. Or, perhaps, among the 600,000-plus items for sale at very nice prices, there are scads of smokin' deals and rarities lying around waiting to be discovered.

Nah, couldn't be that.

The 53rd annual edition of the VNSA is scheduled for February 14 and 15 at the Arizona State Fairgrounds.

Best Low-Stress Used-Book Sale

Heard Museum Guild Library Book & Treasure Market

If you're an eBay PowerSeller, you'll scoff at this modest sale. The number 30,000 — that's the total quantity of items typically up for grabs — will make you chortle softly. Poor saps, you'll say to yourself, thinking of those potential book buyers who choose to thumb through books, read prefaces and inscriptions, feel the heft of the tomes in their hand, and generally lollygag their way through the selection process. "Thirty thousand books," you sniff. "Hmph! They'd have to add another zero to get me there."

Good! Stay home, you resale vulture! There's more to life than first editions and publishing gaffes!

We go to this low-key annual affair 'cause we like books. We like choosing them. We like reading them. When we've finished the last line, we like placing them on a shelf and feeling a small ping! of joy when we encounter them again in the future. People who get the ping! will understand the Market. When the sale opens, you just kinda, well, walk through a door — which isn't jammed with pushing, shoving people — take a few steps to a long table filled with books, which isn't overly crowded, and start looking.

It's pretty revolutionary. You should try it.

Best Place to Find a Typewriter

Mesa Typewriter Exchange

Before desktop and laptop computers, there were typewriters. Remember? Well, we do, and we even use them from time to time to type up to-do lists and letters to be sent in the mail. (Yes, people still do that, too.) Our favorite place to browse for these time-tested machines is the Mesa Typewriter Exchange. Bill Wahl's shop in downtown Mesa carries workable manual and electric typewriters, including the most popular back-in-the-day brands such as Underwood, Royal, and IBM. Unlike thrift-store typewriters, which have zero chance of working, Wahl personally repairs and puts 50-plus years of typewriter TLC into refurbishing and repairing the machines. Business hours are limited, so make sure you call ahead before stepping back into the past.

Best Boutique

Frances

We've given owner Georganne Bryant a nod in our Sideshow profiles but really, an issue of Best of Phoenix just wouldn't be complete without an award for Best Boutique, and we've gotta hand it to Frances.

From carefully chosen vintage clothing (we even noticed the Goldwater's Department Store tag still affixed to one item, and a picture of the original owner on another!), thick Mexican leather purses and belts to pendants and rings so whimsical they'll take your breath away, this space rivals any specialty boutique we've been in, anywhere. Toss in housewares, stationery, baby gifts, and new clothing (mostly women's but with a few men's T's thrown in for good measure). The signature touches on everything from the Web site to the wall displays just ooze style — and put our fair city on the shopping map, for sure.

Best Of Phoenix®

Best Of

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