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In the next Bite Me, you can read all about the rest of the Best of Denver. But in the meantime, I have a major correction on the Best Free Chips and Salsa. I gave the award to Los Carboncitos, which definitely has the Best Free Salsa. Just one problem: Los Carboncitos doesn't serves chips. Not for love or money. Never has, not at either location.

Still, Los Carboncitos does serve incredible salsas -- four varieties, brought free to every table. They're meant to be used as condiments, slathered across everything on the menu -- except chips, of course, of which there are none. The fact that I would sit there pulling apart tortillas or tearing the ends off my huaraches in order to sop up every drop of salsa does not change that.

So, okay. I fucked up. Los Carboncitos' award should be for Best Free Salsa; I'll discuss my back-up choice in Bite Me. And in the meantime, the readers chose Benny's for Best Free Chips and Salsa, and that's always a good bet. -- Jason Sheehan

We're almost through the full dozen designers competing in the Tamarac Square Fashion Project. Here's to Alec, who loves Jackie O and Maris the Great!

Name: Alec Smith

Company name: Aki Getsu

Years designing: 10

Bio: Alec Smith's obsession with design started when he attended Denver School of the Arts and majored in costuming and stage tech. He produced his first collection and show at thirteen. Since then, Alec has been going almost non-stop. Currently, he is working on his associate's degree at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in Los Angeles. After graduation, he hopes to earn his bachelor's at Central Saint Martins and London College of Fashion. Eventually, Alec would love to head my own design house.

Denver celebrity you'd most like to design for?
Maris the Great and the Faggots of Death

It's time for Jack Kerouac to blow this cowtown again, to rush off into the good night. But instead of heading west to 'Frisco, Denver's favorite adopted son is moving on to summer in his real hometown of Lowell, Massachusetts.

This Saturday, March 31, is the last chance to catch Kerouac's mythic On the Road scroll before it says adios to the Denver Central Public Library, where it's been in residence since January 4. Slip up to the fifth floor and ogle the last sixty feet of the literary masterwork (the first sixty were displayed earlier this year), let old Denver flow through you as you read about Dean Moriarty -- otherwise known as Denver's favorite scoundrel, Neal Cassady -- as well as Champa Street and Five Points and Capitol Hill and Sonny Lawson Field and all of the other places that Kerouac left his indelible mark on.

We wish you well, son of ours, on the next step of your journey. May the top always be down, the wind always blow through your hair and the next adventure always appear on the horizon. — Amy Haimerl

With this unexpected late-season snow, are you dreaming of a stint under the Tuscan sun--but don't know how on earth you'll afford the inter-continental journey? The all-seeing, all-knowing Google has the answer.

Just go to Google Maps and get directions from "Denver, CO" to "Florence, Italy." The program's solution is uncanny in its practicality and simplicity. Just look at step 31: "Swim across the Atlantic Ocean," for 3,462 miles. Why didn't we think of that?

Of course, these directions are inherently impossible. Before hopping into the Atlantic, the directions expect you to blithely drive through downtown Boston--yeah, like that's going to happen. -- Joel Warner

The installations and posters created by a Los Angeles street artist known as Buff Monster may be all pink and cartoony, but it's probably not wise to bring the kiddies to the "Super Happy Pink" show opening at Andenken Gallery tomorrow night, March 30.

Andenken owner Hyland Mather says that he's been excited about the Buff Monster showcase for months, and not just because it will include something called the "Porno Shack" and massively drawn boobies. It's because Buff Monster has been spreading his unique style of graffiti-inspired art across the urban landscape of cities like Tokyo, New York and San Francisco for years, and will no doubt drop some pieces in the Mile High City as well.

But just in case you aren't fortunate to spot a Buff Monster guerilla work outside, hit up Andenken from 6 — 10 p.m. at 2110 Market Street to check out his prints and paintings — and stay for some table tennis and beer.

Here's some footage of some after-hours Buff action in L.A. — Jared Jacang Maher

For a full slideshow of the activity on Wednesday, March 28, click here.

Five minutes, a dress form, a swath of fabric, some pins and a belt. What could you make out of that?

Cat's guessing she could make a giant ball of nothingness. Yes, she's pretty sure she would have melted down on the runway if she'd had to compete in last night's 5 Minute Fashion Challenge that kicked off the Tamarac Square Fashion Project.

Before a crowded house, a ton of flashing cameras, god and everyone, the twelve competing designers had just five minutes to pin, push and prod the fabric into something that would wow the judges (Cat included).

To the right are a few of the looks — but you'll have to go watch the slideshow here to see who won!

Agree? Disagree? Post your vote below. The designer who wins the most online comments will score some free tickets to something cool!

Next week's challenge: For the runway show on Wednesday, April 4, each designer must create the pefect little black dress, using only a $150 voucher from Denver Fabric.

Many of you met Crystal Sharp on March 28 during the kick-off of the Tamarac Square Fashion Project, but do you know if she prefers Tim or Heidi, polkadots or camo? Keep reading to find out!

Name: Crystal Sharp

Company name: She She Boutique

Years designing: 10+

Bio: Tucked away between Lincoln and Broadway on Bayaud Street near the Baker District, the ambiance of boutique She She revolves around custom and one-of-a-kind designs created by proprietor Crystal Sharp. Ensembles are made from the finest fabrics available, with touches of super "femme" details like Chantilly lace and elaborate beadwork. Gemstones adorn tables in the form of whimsical jewelry. Rarely working from a pattern, the modern Victorian fashions of Crystal Sharp are made to be sophisticated while retaining a lust-worthy feel to them. Filling a much-needed niche in the Denver metro area, boutique She She stands out as a hidden treasure; where one can find unique clothing and innovative, yet feminine, accessories.

In the gay bars, on-line at the "party and plays," and in the bathhouses where meth-fueled sex runs rampant, "Tina" is still kicking a lot of ass. But gay men in Denver are preparing for the fight of their lives.

Thanks to a $50,000 grant from the Colorado Department of Public Health, the Mile High Meth Project is official through December. Some of that money is supporting a weekly Matrix group meeting, where gay men addicted to meth meet for two hours in a cognitive behavioral group process that's more sbout educating users to the dangers of meth than it is about therapy.

The first week's discussion focused on how the drug sucks up time. Rod Rushing, a counselor at the Council, a non-profit dedicated to fighting substance abuse, explained that 24 to 36 hours are involved in the process of getting high with meth. That includes getting the drug, prepping it and smoking it, staying high for hours and then spending hours more coming down before you try to find more meth.

"I think that more people are coming out of the woodwork," said Rushing, who still attends twice-weekly Kicking Tina meetings for gay men addicted to meth, a group he helped found. "I don't think we're at the crux of the bottoming out for people. I think there's going to be more people running into problems. It's not over."

In fact, the fight's just beginning, according to Bob Dorshimer, the Council's executive director. "There's a large part of our community using, but they've yet to see the problem," he said. "This drug takes you away from manageability into dependence.:

To help get the word out, the Mile High Meth Project is passing out brochures and has a website up, where information is also available for "Out in Denver," an April 19 forum that Dorshimer and Rushing are hoping to turn into an annual gay men's health symposium.

Tina better watch her back. -- Luke Turf

This is what The Real World is doing to our city's reputation:

This past weekend, I had some guests in from out of town -- a former roommate, her close friend and her close friend's childhood friend, a sorority girl from Fulton, Missouri. While I was at work, the sorority girl decided she wanted to explore the city and set off on her own. I was home when she got back, and I asked her what she managed to see.

"I saw everything," she replied. "I saw the Real World house and I saw a couple of the bars they went to." Yes, Denverites, in the eyes of sorority girls from Fulton, you can see "everything" in Denver with a short stop to Monarck and that one building on Market Street. Sad. Really, really sad.

You know what else was sad? Episode 21. Not in the shed-a-tear sense, more in the holy-shit-when-is-this-going-to-be-over sense.

Casey Holden has a job, a bank account and an identification card issued by the State of Colorado. But in the eyes of many government agencies and private employers, he doesn't quite exist. He lacks the essential paper trail.

Holden, 26, lost track of his vital personal records — birth certificate, Social Security card — over the past decade, most of which has been spent in prisons of one kind or another, including the state supermax. Now that he's out on parole, a journey back to Citizenville he's letting us follow by blog (see previous entries here), he's finding out just how much of a nonperson a former prisoner can be.

Not getting quite enough spam? Then you'll want to enter your info on a web site accessible at RadioVote.com and DenverSurvey.com, which sign up participants to receive cyber-missives from a radio station or stations that aren't even identified.

Radio host and FSN Rocky Mountain personality Dino Costa is at it again. The self-proclaimed "Mile High Mouth," who was profiled in the Message circa February 2006, made the column again on March 22 after being suspended for two episodes of Raw Sports, his FSN signature program. Costa reportedly got into trouble with his superiors after dissing Carmelo Anthony when the Nugget star decided not to guest on the show.

On March 23, Costa returned to Raw Sports -- and to prove he wasn't the Nuggets' bitch, he spent a segment bashing the team's owner, Stan Kroenke.

When journalists try to report the news, words frequently get in the way -- and a web page entitled "I Read the News Today Oh Boy!" offers proof. It hasn't been updated for a while (the most recent entry is from 2006), but the linguistic gaffes generated by a slew of local newspapers, including this one, are as fresh as the day they were made.

Examples? How about a July 2006 Colorado Daily headline reading "Corrupt Politicians Rouse Voter Apathy"? Or a November 2005 Boulder Daily Camera banner that declared "Soldier Who Died in Colo. Springs was in Iraq"? (Must have had a split personality.) But these entries are topped by a September 2005 letter in the Camera that declares, "As if being mauled to death is not punishment enough, Saunders gives Treadwell a good posthumous bashing by stating 'stupidity kills' in reference to his tragic and grizzly death."

As the site's author notes, "I'll bet it was a grisly bear." -- Michael Roberts

The Tamarac Square Fashion Project debuts this evening, March 28, so in honor of that, Cat took a little dose of her own questionnaire. If you wanted to know, Cat has answered... See you on the runway at 7 p.m. , 7777 East Hampden Avenue.

Name: The Cat's Pajamas

Company name: Westword

Years designing: Since I was a kitten.

Denver celebrity you'd most like to design for?
Pam Grier

What inspires you? (No fair saying everything; be specific.)
Fabric. I fall in love with fabric and then decide what to do with it.

Meet Tricia. She likes big Rottie dogs, polkadots and Dr. Suess. What will she send down the runway during the Tamarac Square Fashion Project? Come find out at the kick-off on Wednesday, March 28, at 7 p.m.

Name: Tricia Hoke

Company name: Potential Fashions
Years designing: 7, but I've always made clothes for myself and my friends growing up.

Bio: Tricia Hoke learned how to sew at age five and would "revamp" her paper dolls' wardrobes and create spring and fall collections for them. Tricia went to Emily Griffith Opportunity School and completed the Professional Sewing Program. She also worked at Buffalo Exchange, which gave her experience in fashion-show production and retail.