Each Thursday (or Friday, since some weeks we seem to be running behind on everything), Needcoffee.com's staff of whackos will wrack our brains to give you interesting and new things to do over the weekend. Books, movies, whatever. We'll throw them out, you do with them what you will. And hey...if you have something you want to recommend--whatever it is--drop us a line.

Incidentally, we've provided links where we can for you to buy the stuff or find out more if you're interested, courtesy of those Amazon types. Hey, come on, we can't be totally selfless in this, can we?

February 21, 2002

Book of the Week: Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu. This tome of wisdom is good for flipping through at random and good for sitting down and drinking in in one fell swoop. There are many editions of this tome, but we've picked Stephen Mitchell's to link to because it's apparently the latest version and quite accessible from what we've heard--without losing any of the impact.

Graphic Novel of the Week: Promethea, Vol. 1 by Alan Moore & J.H. Williams III. It's no secret that we think Alan Moore is a literary god. And with the creation of his America's Best Comics imprint over at DC, he tried to go back to comics that were, you know, interesting, fun and well-written. Whereas Extraordinary Gentlemen was for the literature whackos among us and Top 10 was for the Hill Street Blues fans--Promethea is Moore's playground for dealing with science, mysticism and fantasy. And he does it with a vengeance. One of the best comics on the market today.

DVD of the Week: The Last Temptation of Christ. No stranger to lists of faves, forget the controversy and just check out an incredible movie and a moving interpretation of the Christos story from the Christian mythos. Dafoe as Jesus? Keitel as Judas? Settle down, spend the few hours and enjoy a film that deals with Jesus the divine and Jesus the man in one being. Highly recommended.

Off the Beaten Path VHS of the Week: Strange Brew. An absolute crime that it's not on DVD. Bob and Doug McKenzie. Max Von Sydow. A series of bizarre references to Hamlet. A flying dog named "Hosehead." Mel Blanc. Everything you need for a classic. Still in print on VHS and worth the cheapo price they have for it over at Amazon.

CD of the Week: Audio by Blue Man Group. A show on Off-Broadway that we had always meant to see--but had no idea what it was about. Then came the Pentium commercials. And the appearances on television. And then...this album. They're not just whackos with their heads painted blue, they're musical pioneers, doing some very weird, wild stuff with instruments that they build. Nice album to work by.

Beverage of the Week: Piranha. It's not the tastiest stuff on the market, but then again none of these energy drinks are perfect, we fear. This contains a lot of impressive sounding stuff that we have no recognition for whatsoever, in addition to taurine and guarana. A moderate kick, a worthwhile chug.

Link of the Week: WilliamShatner.com. New and fairly well populated with information, it's Shatner Central on the Web. Shatner, now 71 (!!!), along with his daughter, Lisabeth, have created a site that features interaction with Clan Shatner, a store for "Shatnerdise", and information on the film Mind Meld: where Shatner and buddy Leonard Nimoy have a sit down, candid talk about the Trek franchise and the effect it had on their lives.