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?

March 1, 2002

Book of the Week: Expedition by Wayne Douglas Barlowe. Barlowe knows his stuff. He knows animals, he knows how they evolve to fit their environment, and he knows how to put his ideas on paper with fabulous results. So you can imagine that this book, a journal of an explorer checking out a whacked out alien world, is a helluva read. And it is. It'll make your brain bend over.

Graphic Novel of the Week: V for Vendetta by Alan Moore & David Lloyd. Welcome to England. A fascist England post-apocalypse, really. Freedom is a thing of the past. But enter the mysterious figure known only as V. He's a metahuman anarchist who wants revenge. But for what? And what will he stop at to achieve his goals? Great graphic novel--beware: it'll make you think.

DVD of the Week: Walking With Prehistoric Beasts. An absolutely amazing program from the BBC, which is basically a Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom program but set millions of years ago, featuring creatures that you swear they made up. The three hours of the program are amazing, but just as much fun are the two "making of's" which are part featurette, part more information about the beasts, and part just plain silly. Wonderful stuff.

Off the Beaten Path VHS of the Week: Lost in Yonkers. One of the few Neil Simon films criminally absent from the DVD rosters, it can best be summed up as a tale of coming-of-age... No matter what that age may be... under the iron thumb of a domineering mother whose greatest shortcoming was that she loved too much. Plus it's got a great cast, including Richard Dreyfuss, Mercedes Ruehl, and David Strathairn..

CD of the Week: The Prayer Cycle by Jonathan Elias & Various Artists. A fascinating and emotionally moving work that combines everyone from a non-annoying Alanis to the late Nusret Fateh Ali Khan to James Taylor to Linda Ronstadt. In multiple languages with choirs and orchestral movements, Elias manages to paint a portrait of humanity. Highly recommended. If you must sleep, fall asleep to this.

Beverage of the Week: Purdey's. Expensive? Yes. Tasty? Yes. Effective? We have no idea. We're talking about the Purdey's multivitamin fruit and energy drinks, the latter of which we have pictured here. It's sparkling and a bit tangy, but we dig it. Hard to find, but worth trying at least once.

Link of the Week: The Traffic Cone Preservation Society. The title of this site says it all. For those who think that the orange things have no relevance, think again. With discussions about the evolution and migratory patterns of the beasts outlined and all the information you would need to adopt one, this is a very educational site that really disturbs the hell out of us.