You'll have to wait a few months for the next Holiday Fantasy of Lights, but it's worth it. Between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day, Tradewinds Park becomes a drive-through, electrified fantasyland that is guaranteed to please the most jaded junior thrill-seeker. There's simply nothing anywhere at any price to compare with this sensory overload of lumens. Consider the stats: 1.2 million light bulbs, seven miles of cable, more than 50 individual displays. Last year's show included pirate ships, castles, frogs leaping across the road, a 50-foot-tall Christmas tree, an ice castle, and polar bears, to name just a few. Load the Packard with little people until the springs sag, because the cost is the same no matter how many you have in the car -- $5 during the week and $8 on weekends and holidays (unless you have a bus with 20 or more in it; then the price goes up to $35). Our advice: Go during the week. You'll save yourself a few bucks and a lot of time in traffic.

About six months ago, the Nielsen people -- the ones who survey radio and TV audiences -- came to us and wanted to know what we listen to in the car on the way to and from work. They're probably sorry they asked. We flip constantly between public radio (WLRN-FM, 91.3) and WKPX. Neither carries commercials, so the $2 the Nielsens paid us to fill out the little diary was all but wasted. No station manager in his right mind would up his ad rates based on our listening habits. But if our input spiked WKPX's ratings, great. The station deserves it. It's an amateur-hour operation, and the DJs sound like the high-school and college kids that they are. But they spin an eclectic mix of music you won't find on any other station in this sorry radio market. Where else can you get a mix of hip-hop, heavy metal, electronica, and stuff so weird it's unclassifiable, all in a single hour? That and the fact that they produce some of the strangest public service announcements in all of radiodom has earned the station a preset on our dial.

About six months ago, the Nielsen people -- the ones who survey radio and TV audiences -- came to us and wanted to know what we listen to in the car on the way to and from work. They're probably sorry they asked. We flip constantly between public radio (WLRN-FM, 91.3) and WKPX. Neither carries commercials, so the $2 the Nielsens paid us to fill out the little diary was all but wasted. No station manager in his right mind would up his ad rates based on our listening habits. But if our input spiked WKPX's ratings, great. The station deserves it. It's an amateur-hour operation, and the DJs sound like the high-school and college kids that they are. But they spin an eclectic mix of music you won't find on any other station in this sorry radio market. Where else can you get a mix of hip-hop, heavy metal, electronica, and stuff so weird it's unclassifiable, all in a single hour? That and the fact that they produce some of the strangest public service announcements in all of radiodom has earned the station a preset on our dial.

Granted, Fort Lauderdale's Museum of Art may have shaken off some of its stodginess, the Coral Springs Museum of Art may offer the best display space in the area, and the new Palm Beach Institute of Contemporary Art may be the most promising venue in South Florida. But right here, right now, the Art and Culture Center of Hollywood is the most exciting museum around. Credit curator of exhibitions Laurence Pamer for not being hampered by the awkward configuration of a building not originally designed as a museum, but credit him mostly for taking creative risks. In the past year or so, the center has been home to an eclectic array of exhibitions, including such quirky group shows as "The Symphony of Trees: Contemplations of Nature in the Abstract" and "Amalgam: Multi-Media Fusions by Four Florida Artists," not to mention the knockout "American Glass" show. Best of all, with the recent intentionally outrageous "Lowbrow: Up From the Underground" exhibition, Pamer proved he's not reluctant to offend people, which should be part of the job description for any curator.

Granted, Fort Lauderdale's Museum of Art may have shaken off some of its stodginess, the Coral Springs Museum of Art may offer the best display space in the area, and the new Palm Beach Institute of Contemporary Art may be the most promising venue in South Florida. But right here, right now, the Art and Culture Center of Hollywood is the most exciting museum around. Credit curator of exhibitions Laurence Pamer for not being hampered by the awkward configuration of a building not originally designed as a museum, but credit him mostly for taking creative risks. In the past year or so, the center has been home to an eclectic array of exhibitions, including such quirky group shows as "The Symphony of Trees: Contemplations of Nature in the Abstract" and "Amalgam: Multi-Media Fusions by Four Florida Artists," not to mention the knockout "American Glass" show. Best of all, with the recent intentionally outrageous "Lowbrow: Up From the Underground" exhibition, Pamer proved he's not reluctant to offend people, which should be part of the job description for any curator.

We probably don't need to say more than "65-cent drafts all day," but we will anyway. Two rooms greet the visitor, one with a faded, red-felt pool table and a jukebox posted on an ancient white-tile floor, and the other a barroom. The bar's surface is dark vinyl, the televisions above the bar are tuned to the National Enquirer channel, and shots are 75 cents. Longneck bottles of Budweiser are a buck, as are Hebrew National hot dogs, and a half-pound hamburger with all the trimmings is just $1.75. There are subs, soup and rolls, and a daily special that'll carry you to Georgia: all you can eat and drink for $6.95, until 6 p.m. After that, and until 2 a.m., it's $9.95. Lest you think that's all you can get, consider this: a 20-ounce "pint" of Guinness, Bass, or Harp is $2.50, and you can buy a bottle of pouilly-fuissé for $35. Note: Wear old clothes. You'll smell like stale beer and cigs when you emerge. If you emerge.

We probably don't need to say more than "65-cent drafts all day," but we will anyway. Two rooms greet the visitor, one with a faded, red-felt pool table and a jukebox posted on an ancient white-tile floor, and the other a barroom. The bar's surface is dark vinyl, the televisions above the bar are tuned to the National Enquirer channel, and shots are 75 cents. Longneck bottles of Budweiser are a buck, as are Hebrew National hot dogs, and a half-pound hamburger with all the trimmings is just $1.75. There are subs, soup and rolls, and a daily special that'll carry you to Georgia: all you can eat and drink for $6.95, until 6 p.m. After that, and until 2 a.m., it's $9.95. Lest you think that's all you can get, consider this: a 20-ounce "pint" of Guinness, Bass, or Harp is $2.50, and you can buy a bottle of pouilly-fuissé for $35. Note: Wear old clothes. You'll smell like stale beer and cigs when you emerge. If you emerge.

Maybe most folks duck in here for their live-music fix, or maybe this bar's one of the last left where you can escape the coifed and lacquered minions of Himmarshee Street. Doesn't really matter. Fact is the Poor House reigns as a fine place to hunker down and drink. Maroon candles and tiny blue Christmas lights provide the front and back bars with the kind of low-key illumination you need after downing numerous pints. Cushy black barstools are plentiful, bartenders are attentive, and no one's trying to get you to buy some dumb-ass overpriced rose. The place gets packed on weekends with music and booze aficionados, but weeknights offer a more intimate, though no more sober, crowd. Instructions for visiting during the workweek: Go on a Tuesday evening. Pull up a stool. Pretend it's Friday and order shots of Rumplemintz with beer chasers. Mix well. Call in sick the next day.

Maybe most folks duck in here for their live-music fix, or maybe this bar's one of the last left where you can escape the coifed and lacquered minions of Himmarshee Street. Doesn't really matter. Fact is the Poor House reigns as a fine place to hunker down and drink. Maroon candles and tiny blue Christmas lights provide the front and back bars with the kind of low-key illumination you need after downing numerous pints. Cushy black barstools are plentiful, bartenders are attentive, and no one's trying to get you to buy some dumb-ass overpriced rose. The place gets packed on weekends with music and booze aficionados, but weeknights offer a more intimate, though no more sober, crowd. Instructions for visiting during the workweek: Go on a Tuesday evening. Pull up a stool. Pretend it's Friday and order shots of Rumplemintz with beer chasers. Mix well. Call in sick the next day.

South Florida is clogged with bands trying to pass off anger, volume, and beefy muscles as some kind of artistic statement. This path-of-least-resistance approach works part of the time, covering up weak spots with a sheen of shouts and bar chords. Enter Hashbrown, a Fort Lauderdale group that's not exactly subtle itself, but there's some real innovation in the band's decibel-heavy onslaught. Starting at slab level, drummer Steve Williams and bassist-singer Clarence Spencer form a perfectly symbiotic rhythm section, laying down guillotine-sharp grooves for guitarist Duncan Cameron to stretch his effects across. Adding turntable master Boogie Waters to the mix last year may have been Hashbrown's smartest move, with the smorgasbord of sound effects adding a new dimension to the rock-solid funk. Hashbrown may be grounded in the old-school machinery of Parliament/ Funkadelic and the like, but the group has obviously spent time plotting the future of the genre, too: Modernizing the sound puts Hashbrown in the same league as industrial-funk powerhouses like Tackhead and Little Axe. The band members are serious, too -- silly stage patter and self-congratulatory back-patting are kept to a minimum. Call it thinking man's hard rock.