The fairly nerdy game of Scrabble is riding a chic wave at the moment, but some of us have been playing all along -- at home, where no one but our closest friends and family could scoff and roll their eyes at our linguistic exhibitionism. But no more. We're outing ourselves, taking our boards to public spaces, unafraid and (dare we say it?) proud. Playing the game in a coffee house has become a bit of a cliché, but the new wave in Resort Scrabble has bolstered our confidence in public spelling. And there's no better place than the Phoenician's beautiful bar, where you can set up your game on a table outside on the terrace, order a cocktail or a frappuccino and enjoy the scenery. The view is great, the people-watching even better. And as you eye the other patrons of this lovely bar, waiting for your turn, you'll be stared at in return. Your Scrabble game will be met with much curiosity. Enjoy the attention and be proud.

Gosh and Begorrah, isn't this where you'd expect to find great hip-hop? At a strip-mall hangout with an Irish name on the west side of town? O'Mally's has long juggled its two identities: sports bar by day, dance club by night, shifting musical genres depending on the day of the week. A year ago, O'Mally's gave hip-hop a shot on Tuesday nights, and the results have been explosive. The Tuesday night freestyle contests -- in front of packed, hyped-up crowds that form circles around the competitors -- have been so fierce that at least one freestyler had to be carried out of the place when he took umbrage at a rival diss. And the club has become home to Kitch Kitchen, probably the Valley's most charismatic MC and surely the best rapper ever to play point guard for ASU's women's basketball team.

Dark and sultry like a Sinatra song, the Famous Door practically beckons you to pull up a barstool and blow smoke rings toward the bass player. Cigar smoking is almost expected in every dark corner of this swank supper club, with waiters ready to serve -- alongside a chilly martini -- almost any cigar brand you can name. Stogies are burning at the dinner table, at the bar, and all around the jazz performers who play in a haze every night after 8 p.m. Instead of a quiet, smoke-filled cigar room, the Famous Door makes its entire establishment a pseudo-cigar bar.

Added extras like a reverse happy hour every Thursday from 11 p.m. to midnight and a Sunday night jazz workshop have made the Famous Door a happening hangout for the have-a-Havana crowd -- for men both young and old and a surprising number of women.

If you can't afford to live up at Pinnacle Peak in some of the world's most spectacular desert settings, you can at least afford to rent the lifestyle for a few hours. It's easy, actually: Simply head up to Acacia, the Mobil Four-Star restaurant at Four Seasons Resort. Grab a table on the patio and enjoy cocktails in an oasis framed by the 40 acres of towering saguaro, ocotillo cactuses and sagebrush that are Acacia's backyard. Sure, you could grab a seat at the adjacent patio bar, too, but then you would miss out on a fine dinner to follow: Southwestern cuisine like tortilla lobster soup, sautéed jumbo sea scallops with wild forest mushroom ravioli in braised fennel saffron cream with vanilla-bean infusion. Or the roasted California squab laced with salsify and applewood-smoked bacon gratin, served on shallot sage jus. Cheers.

BEST POOL HALL

Pink E's
3227 East Bell
602-482-8350

BEST BREW PUB

Four Peaks Brewing Company
1340 East Eighth Street, Tempe
480-303-9967

BEST DIVE BAR

The Coach House
7011 East Indian School, Scottsdale
480-990-3433

BEST SPORTS BAR

McDuffy's
230 West Fifth Street, Tempe
480-966-5600

BEST BAR TO BE SEEN

Six
7316 East Stetson, Scottsdale
480-663-6620

BEST BAR FOR CONVERSATION

Zipp's Sports Grill
7551 East Camelback, Scottsdale
480-970-9507

BEST GAY BAR

Amsterdam
718 North Central
602-258-6122

BEST LESBIAN BAR

Ain't Nobody's Bizness
3031 East Indian School
602-224-9977

BEST BEER SELECTION

Timber Wolf Pub
740 East Apache, Tempe
480-517-9383

BEST HAPPY HOUR

Applebee's
several Valley locations

BEST BAR FOOD

Zipp's Sports Grill
7551 East Camelback, Scottsdale
480-970-9507

BEST PLACE TO DROWN YOUR SORROWS

Jugheads
5110 East McDowell
602-225-0307

Requirements: Darkness. Wood wall coverings a plus; and a wood bar itself, better. A hard-to-define but present odor, either coming from the belly-up buddy next to you or the ancient, labyrinthine pipes also preferred.

Plus: a sense of history (in Phoenix, this means at least 25 years old). Draft beer, of maximum three flavors. A less than six-dollar pitcher. A cold-ass bottle of Bud for around two bucks. Affordable shots of your favorite amnesia. At least one pool table and one pinball game; shuffleboard and darts a bonus.

Finally, a jukebox featuring '70s rock, tear-in-my-beer country and eclectic oldies. And a good, take-no-shit bartender.

Mecca fills the bill. It's dark and smoky, old and wonderfully worn. The indoor/outdoor carpet was once burgundy, the patrons range from neighborhoody to weekend hipsters to indigent.

Having opened in 1933, it boasts the second-oldest continuous liquor license in the county. The paneled-cum-patchwork ceiling droops poetically in the right places, making the average Joe feel 10 feet tall. The bar has a seasick quality to it, seemingly designed by munchkins with a desire to add on, like a vortex house on the side of the highway.

And if you have to break the seal, the rest room features a green shower curtain tween urinal and toilet for moments of reflection.

No soggy mozzarella sticks or oily potato skins here. Four Peaks offers imaginative appetizers like Arizona chicken rolls (pastry-wrapped chicken, cheese and chiles) and spanakopita (phyllo dough stuffed with spinach, cheese, pine nuts and dill). The soups are homemade, and the salads come with a distinctive sweet jalapeño dressing. Other too-good-to-be-bar snacks include the Bleu Light Special Burger, topped with an amazing amount of tangy bleu cheese; the portabella veggie beer-bread sandwich; and the zippy, slightly sweet barbecued-chicken pizza. And of course, for a Peak experience, don't order any of the above without one of Four Peaks' home-brewed beers. That would be as tragic as missing the food.

Is it nostalgia? Or maybe the sing-along factor? Something about the music at TT Roadhouse (oh, and that hot poster of Brigitte Bardot in leather hiphuggers) sets the place apart from being an ordinary pub. Guinness definitely goes down more easily with a little Ramones, some Bad Brains, and a healthy dose of Misfits. And you can't help feeling camaraderie along with your buzz when everyone around you knows the words to the Johnny Cash song on the jukebox. Throw in some ska and reggae tunes and you've got the perfect soundtrack to your night.

It usually takes more than a discounted pint of cheap beer to lure us into an entertainment venue defined by its amateur status, but out of loyalty to our readers, we braved the karaoke scene. Bill and Twyla, the poster children for the axiom "there's someone for everyone," guide the full-capacity crowd to find their muse with karaoke tracks of everything from "Peggy Sue" to Peggy Lee. Here, the waiters wear cummerbunds, the men dance without coercion, and no one would dare try to sing Linkin Park. Twyla even teaches the Electric Slide during the breaks. Folks with an overly developed sense of cool should avoid the place, but for anyone out for a good, completely unpretentious great time, Bill and Twyla have room in their lineup for you.

Among the titty bars, porn parlors and machine shops of East Washington, it's hard to resist its charms. In the giant asphalt pasture that is the parking lot of the Stockyards steak house, you'll find the 1889. And once you reach its swinging saloon doors, you just might feel like you've stumbled from a dusty frontier street into a Tombstone-style watering hole, complete with card games, whiskey by the bottle and painted ladies.

Only if. But still, while everything outside is blinding heat and stark industry, inside the 1889 is an antiquarian's fantasy of Old West atmosphere. The back bar is a colonnade of cherry wood, mirrors and brass. A baroque glass chandelier hangs overhead. And below, fat guys in neckties drink Bud Light, and girls'-night-out types drink Burgundy by the balloonful. Maybe best known as a happy-hour spot for east-downtowners, the 1889 still earns its keep as the standard-bearer of the frontier-saloon mystique, which it flaunts with the bar's most famous trademark: the antique-style murals you find on every wall -- scenes of vaudeville starlets turning away suitors, coquettes in neck-to-ankle swimsuits retaining their virtue, and the like. Plus, it features one of the Valley's truest and fastest-vanishing bar experiences: coming in from the blazing sunlight and into a windowless darkness so total that you have to stand at the door for 30 seconds, let your pupils dilate, and then step up to the bar for the business at hand.