Best place to watch time fly

Not only fly, but dance, crack apart, pulsate, sing, and play a pipe organ. The Japanese rhythm clocks at Hisa's Flowers and Gifts will provide at last an hour's entertainment in the store, and years of fun, if you purchase one ($79 to $399). These elegant wood-framed wall clocks, with silver or gold ornamentaton, outdo any cuckoo clock you've ever seen (although there is also a cuckoo model among them). On some, the face splits apart, revealing spinning gears or celestial scenes inside; on others, the sides open out and automated musicians play one of 12 different melodies. There are figures that strike bells or play pipe organs, Ferris wheels that rotate, and hot air balloons that float. These combination clock/music boxes even feature a model with six changeable discs, so you can hear one of your favorite songs at the top of each hour. 887 Boston Neck Road, Narragansett, (401) 783-3515, or (800) 453-1956, www.hisasflowers.com.

Best place to find music for an old favorite

Remember how badly you wanted to pick out your favorite pop tune on the piano when you were a teen? Maybe you still do. Or maybe you want to nail the lyrics to a Broadway show tune. Head over to Wakefield Music and peruse their more than 4000 selections of books and sheet music. They have music from pop groups, movie soundtracks, and musicals, plus instrumentals and method books for all instruments. In addition to that broad collection, the shop has an unparalleled array of folk instruments, including banjos, mandolins, dulcimers, fiddles, hand drums, tambourines, penny whistles, gongs, and even a painted PVC didgeridoo knockoff. They carry many electric and acoustic guitars (Martin, Taylor, Lowden, Guild, Alvarez, and Fender); all kinds of band instruments; and -- don that Hawaiian shirt -- ukeleles. Just think: there's still time to learn Christmas carols on the uke! 58 Main Street, Wakefield, (401) 783-5390.

Best place for spokes

Greenway Cycles in Coventry is a goldmine for the BMX enthusiast looking for honest answers and fair prices. Husband and wife tandem Bethany and Richard Duprey are the only two employees here, so there is no Gen-whatever, pushy skater cool guys to deal with. Kids grow up nowadays emulating names like Dave Mirra and Ryan Nyquist, the two big guns both sponsored by Haro Bikes, the reigning king of the bicycle business for BMX, freestyle and jumping, or vert bikes. A Mirra or Nyquist signature bike runs in the neighborhood of $700 to $800, and Greenway offers a great selection (albeit crammed into a small showroom) of Haro bikes starting around $200, along with other brands like Diamond Back and Redline, and mountain bikes. The prices climb when key features like cro-moly cranks and a rotor or "gyro" designed for 360-degree handlebar movement are included. Greenway's hottest seller is the freestyle Haro, a heavy-duty bike fully equipped with front brakes and fat chrome pegs designed for intricate street tricks. But believing that a signature bike is the key ingredient to an aerial artist is akin to purchasing Michael's $150 shoes in order to make a foul line dunk. It takes technique and some painful practice, which is why Greenway also carries helmets and pads, required when ripping up the track, asphalt, or half-pipe. 579 Washington Street, Coventry, (401) 822-2080.

Best TicketMaster hideout

Ever take a Saturday morning drive by the Filene's at Warwick Mall and witnessed a herd of people lining the sidewalk? The guy who slept out in the van with three teeth and one shoe isn't there for the Big 1-Day Sale; most likely he's in line for a major show going on sale through TicketMaster, which has an outlet upstairs in the Customer Service department. Many die-hard fans and entrepreneurs have opted for the drive a bit farther south on Bald Hill Road to Slip Disc, a small CD shop in the Cowesett Plaza. Although many do the computer thing for tickets nowadays, there is nothing like waking up early (or staying up late), dealing with the screwy TicketMaster system, and scoring the best available in person when the tickets go up for grabs at 10 a.m. Although there is no guarantee that front of the line gets front row (or tickets at all, for that matter), an unassuming spot like Slip Disc also comes in handy when second shows, particularly for the Tweeter Center, are announced. 289 Cowesett Avenue, West Warwick, (401) 823-8800.

Best newsstand browsing

With more than 7000 magazine titles, Newsbreak makes avid perusers wish they didn't have to waste time blinking. Customers have said they read on the Internet that the place has the largest selection in the country, says owner Jim Stanton. Since the two stores aren't located in multi-culti cities, newspapers aren't as numerous -- only from a dozen or so US cities and a few European ones (including seven from Great Britain). The real choices are in magazines, with multiple selections in some categories where you wouldn't think there was all that much to say. Into rock climbing? Seven mags. Sculpture? Three. Corvettes? Try Corvette Fever or five alternatives. There are even seven about paintball. "And they all sell -- which is the amazing thing," notes Stanton about the splatter-game mags. 288 East Main Road, Middletown, (401) 848-2150; 579 G.A.R. Highway, Swansea, Massachusetts, (508) 675-9380.

Best safe gifts for newlyweds

One thing not to get them at Pottery Barn is pottery, not with more RISD grads settled around here than you can shake a kiln cone at. But that leaves you plenty of attractive gifts with clean, simple lines. (The prototypical Pottery Barn item is a white circle.) A safe bet for a wedding gift is something anyone could use several of. How about silver picture frames ($20 to $40) to brighten up their suddenly crowded mantelpiece? Neutral color placemat sets would go nicely with polished aluminum napkin ring cubes (six for $24) -- a complement if their dining table is plate-glass modern and an elegant contrast if it is a mahogany heirloom. Or if you're confident that you know their tastes, you can go a different route and get something up close and personal. Maybe monogrammed chenille robes ($59)? Providence Place Mall, (401) 243-0210, www.potterybarn.com.

Best things you never knew you needed

Sometimes they get serious at Signs of Intelligent Life. There are corporate customers who want professional-looking business gifts or promotional items, nicely chromed and engraved. And then there's the Angel Snot ($3). And the Mr. Yuckie-Mouth goofy hand puppet ($6) and the like for pre-school nephews. Such silliness sets the mood for the wind-up Nunzilla ($6), who clomps toward you with ruler in hand, sparks emanating from her eyes. For the interior-decoration-challenged, there is the Inflatable Moose Head ($34). (In the naughty-stuff corner, there are male and female inflatable doll key chains for $7 next to $8 M&F edible undies.) If things get slow in your office, you can schedule races of wind-up sushi ($3). If there's an objection, an Office Voodoo Kit, complete with boss doll and pins, is only $9.95. 29 America's Cup Avenue, Newport, (401) 849-7380, www.signsofintelligentlife.com.

Best place to buy 'soupy' sausage

Who ever said that the Providence metropolitan area had a lock on Italian specialties? Settlers from southern Italy brought their own style of home-cured sausage -- soppresata, or "soupy" in the local vernacular -- to Westerly. Still made by Italian grandmothers in the cold winter months, soupy is a salt-cured pork sausage that is hung for three months and traditionally preserved in buckets of oil. Newer requirements of vacuum-packing and/or keeping it refrigerated mean that soupy can now be made all year long. One of the best places to sample the hot and sweet varieties (or try a soupy and egg grinder) is at Ritacco's Market. The imported cheeses are well worth a taste (especially the dry ricotta and the Crotonese), but you should home in on the homemade: bread, biscotti, and pepper sticks; cavatelli, tortellini, ravioli, et al.; fresh ricotta and fresh sausage; sauces with or without meatballs; hot fish or salt cod salads. And don't forget the soupy! 84 Oak Street, Westerly, (401) 596-1835. Call ahead for special orders.

Best way to satisfy post-summer deprivation

So you love the smell of roses. The cheerfulness of sunflowers. But what happens when summer begins to fade and you need a vision of lush blossoms? You hie yourself over to the Annual Show of the Rhode Island Dahlia Society on the first weekend after Labor Day. This past year's show (the 37th) had 641 entries and 1175 blossoms. Or at least that's how many Walter Taylor, who represents the North Atlantic Conference at American Dahlia Society meetings, counted. "If you want to grow dahlias, take a sanity test," says Taylor. "If you flunk it, grow dahlias." The agony is digging up the tubers every fall (he has 950 this year). The rewards are the endless variations in color, size and shape: a saucer-sized deep red blossom; a fat ball of pink; variegated purple and white; cactus-like whorled petals; puffed-out centers. Discovered wild in Mexico in 1650, Americans have been hybridizing them ever since -- and really digging dahlias. Cold Spring Community Center, Beach Street off Route 1A, North Kingstown, (401) 294-3486.

Best bathroom fare for the newly coupled

Somewhere along the way the "beyond" took over, like the mother-in-law-in-waiting who has only "a few additions" for the guest list . . . At Bed Bath & Beyond, you can get everything but power tools. Nevertheless, it's still a good place to outfit a starting-from-scratch bathroom and bedroom with accessories in compatible styles. (Yeah, yeah, that tattered Pooh bear and scuffed Nerf football can remain next to the pillows.) Try out those fluffy 100-percent Egyptian cotton towels you can sink into like an overstuffed sofa ($17). Go on to elegant fabric shower curtains ($50 to $80) and maybe that sleek Thinnerreg. chrome and glass scale ($60). In the bedroom, you can start with that Pacific Coast white goose down comforter, king-size and with a 305-thread count ($320). Providence Place Mall, (401) 270-4540; 399 Bald Hill Road, Warwick, (401) 739-6077, www.bedbathandbeyond.com.

Best streets to study our acquisitive heritage

Antique, consignment, and second-hand stores flock together like neighborhood yard sales. What's good for one might be good for everyone else. Thus, in the still-quaint small town of Warren, there are more than a dozen such shops at any given moment. The most visible (on Route 114, Main Street) is the Warren Antique Center, which took over the town's cinema in '93 and made it into a triple-decker antique store, replete with furniture, linens, and knickknacks from many eras. Just across the street, Marie King Antiques specializes in children's books, china, and silver. Two side streets, Market and Water, boast a string of such shops, with The Meeting House devoted to country primitives from the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries and next to it, The Annex, with funky jewelry and other items from the '20s through the '70s. Discover your own favorite store and the treasures therein. Warren Antique Center, (401) 247-7591; Marie King, (401) 245-1020; The Meeting House and The Annex, (401) 247-7043.

Best Paleozoic souvenirs

It's weird to peer into the past, especially if the past is more than 200 million years ago. Fortunately, trilobites were so common back then that plenty of their fossils remain. Before the dinosaurs were lumbering around, these little arthropods (averaging an inch long) were scuttling about like the miniature horseshoe crabs they resemble. At Geoclassics, the mineral samples are beautiful but the fossils are magical. Look in the palm of your hand and enter a time machine. Amidst the $11 to $275 trilobites, also affordable is a $46 clump of spiral shells (aka turatellas) from the Miocene epoch. There are 58-million-year-old fish, ancestors of herring, that were found in hardened silt of the Green River in Wyoming ($14 to $58). Splurge next Halloween -- for $4300, you can spook somebody with a bat trapped in sediment 58 million years ago. Geoclassics, 61 America's Cup Avenue, Newport, (401) 849-5587.

Best way to instantly boost the local economy

Couple hundred Gs burning a hole in your pocket? Start saving now and reserve a brand-spankin' new True North 38 from Pearson Yachts. Handcrafted right here in Warren and brought to life by father-and-son tandem Everett and Mark Pearson (who grew up sailing on the Kickimuit River) at TPI Composites, a longtime local outfit responsible for a breakthrough technique resulting in a lighter and stronger hull and deck, improving the conventional fiberglass. They also build the popular line of J-Boats and Alerion Express sailboats, but the True North 38 is too damn cool to be classified as just another yacht or skiff. Inspired by the classic New England lobster boat, the speedy, 38-foot True North debuted at the Boat Show on Goat Island two months ago to rave reviews, and has since toured the coast through New York, the Intercoastal Waterway and Florida, where it has been named Official Race Committee Boat for Yachting Key West Race Week. Pearson Yachts refers to the True North 38 line as a "top-quality, affordable yacht for the active family." The Sport, Heritage, and Explorer models range from an "affordable" $240,000 to $340,000 -- those are "factory direct" prices, and includes a "Taking the Helm" program, a comprehensive training course on safety, anchoring and maintenance. 373 Market Street, Warren, (401) 247-3000, www.pearsonyachts.com.

Best place to pet emus

Well, one emu, anyway. They used to have 25 at the Riverside Christmas Tree Farm, enough to harness to a Santa sleigh. But the gawky ostrich wannabes were too expensive to feed to ever replace turkeys on your Thanksgiving dinner platter (not to mention your needing one humongous platter). There still are plenty of exotic animals around for the kids to pet -- there's a camel, a llama, and sheep, including a Jacob 4-horn and a Black-faced Barbados. While that's going on, parents can trudge around the 5000 spruces, firs, and Scotch pines and decide whether a debate over a tree should be allowed to break up a marriage. All are $30, and you can tag yours starting November 3. They are open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekends, and other times by appointment. Off Route 91 on Burdickville Road, Charlestown, (401) 364-3038.

Best hairdresser gossip

There's inside skinny and there's Inside Skinny. Well, to be honest, Brenda McNally is too discreet to divulge anything that might embarrass the Hollywood stahs she has trimmed and coifed. Between movie industry regs and union seniority, the hairdresser is called upon a lot when Hollywood is on location in Li'l Rhody. At Scrunch, her hairdressing salon, the walls are adorned with autographed glam shots of the likes of Olympia Dukakis, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Melina Kanakaredes of TV's Providence. An inscription by Dennis Franz thanks Brenda for making "this mug of mine" look good. Yes, in this day and age, even guys can go to what used to be called a "beauty parlor" and dish. So is it true that Dustin Hoffman gets the frizzies if a blow dryer is so much as in the same room with him? 330 Main Street, Wakefield, (401) 782-1730.

Best place to get patriotic by the dozen

Talk about a local company blowing up in a big way. Once a small office space in Warwick, Rhode Island Novelty has flourished into an international, multi-million dollar operation based in Johnston. But it's not all Silly String, disappearing ink, and whoopee cushions. The mammoth warehouse has experienced an obviously feverish increase in all things Americana flying off the shelves, from stars and stripes yo-yo's ($2 per dozen) to pins ($3.50 pergross) and toothpicks by the gross, you name it. The $50 minimum isn't a concern when flipping through the 250-plus-page catalog chock full of, well -- random stuff. Schools, churches, and small businesses nationwide also depend on Rhode Island Novelty for fairly priced supplies and goodies for the kids, eliminating the middle man in the process. And, if you have ever wasted 50 cents trying to win a toy or stuffed animal wedged into one of those joystick-controlled cranes, chances are it came from Rhode Island Novelty. 19 Industrial Lane, Johnston, (401) 274-1818, (800) 528-5599, www.rinovelty.com.

Best place to buy a piece of Rocky Horror nostalgia

Chances are twenty- and thirtysomething Warwick natives grew up with Meadowbrook Cinema, which closed and reopened on a few occasions in the '80s and '90s. In one of many yesteryear plazas in Warwick, the cinema served as the hangout spot for Oakland Beach, Buttonwoods, and Warwick Neck natives back in the day, with mom and dad oblivious to the fact that there would be some serious makeout sessions on the seedy couches located in the back of the well-worn three-theater cinema. But the theater's claim to fame was the unprecedented run of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. The theater, now locked, was known as the Limelight in its last incarnation, but it offers the chance to buy a piece of history, from when the RHPS garnered hardcore cult status amongst the mascara-caked and confetti-strewn freaks who faithfully inhabited the midnight show every Saturday night. You can get a pair of authentic movie seats for only $25, which could also complement the hi-fi DVD geeks as the consummate accompaniment to the 56-inch TV, blaring surround sound, and microwave popcorn. 2452 Warwick Avenue, Warwick, (401) 736-0918.

Best reason to deal with Post Road traffic at 4:20 p.m.

"I had always wanted my own smoke shop since I was 16, and now I have one," said Matt Carter with a smile, co-owner (along with wife Tricia) of Headmasters Smoke Shop in Warwick. And who in their right mind wouldn't want their own head shop? Headmasters is an unassuming goldmine (recently relocated a bit further down Post Road) that has thrived with a little advertising and a lot of far-reaching word of mouth, particularly the prices and assortment of Jerome Baker double-bubble glass pipes, some priced at $250 and worth every penny (don't be fooled by the flea market vendors). But it's not all Phish Heads and homeboys looking for Phillies; Carter says the demographic ranges from 18 to 65, and it's tough for the heavy hitters to hide that secret smile when they spot the three- and four-foot (ouch) glass extensions that continuously "fly off the shelves," Carter said. There's plenty of Inside Out glassware and Graffix pipes, a variety of one-hitters, and the big holiday seller, the "build-your-own" kit. Bring the ID and use proper "for tobacco use only" terminology while browsing. 1265 Post Road, Warwick, (401) 781-3443.