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?

May 24, 2002

Book of the Week: The True Story of the Three Little Pigs by Jon Scieszka & Lane Smith. From the same possessed madman who brought you The Stinky Cheese Man comes this lovely expose of where the fairy tale went wrong. The book is actually credited to "A. Wolf." If you haven't checked out the work of Scieszka and Smith, this is the perfect place to start. They craft twisted children's books like nobody's business, and in this day and age, we could use the twisted minds of children, right?

Graphic Novel of the Week: 100 Bullets, Vol. 1 by Brian Azzarello & Eduardo Risso. Ah, the anthology that isn't. Although it's foundering right now in search of a cohesive storyline, at the beginning this thing rocked balls. Meet Agent Graves. He's got a case for you. In the case you'll find a gun and one hundred bullets, both untraceable. Also, you'll find irrefutable evidence that points to the person who screwed your life up for you. Have a nice day. Recommended.

DVD of the Week: Spy Kids. A movie that's just entertaining and fun for the entire family--what a rarity. Granted, the special edition of this guy is supposed to come along later this year, so for pity's sake don't buy--but it is worth a rental just to see the two diminutive stars send up the secret agent genre perfectly. It's such clean fun you'll think: wait, this was Rodriguez...?

Off the Beaten Path VHS of the Week: The Kids in the Hall: Brain Candy. It's due out on DVD in July, but why wait when you need to laugh now? These five twisted weirdos saved our lives from the walking corpse of Saturday Night Live and inspired a generation of men to try on ladies' clothes. Underappreciated, but worth digging out a VHS copy of...just to tide you over, of course.

CD of the Week: Dvorak's Slavonic Dances. Victorian music with a distinctly Romani twist. You'll never wish you were Russian so much in your life--listen to the violins sing and dance in the face of Gypsy repression. Joy and grief in perfect balance in a world where sometimes you just have to laugh.

Beverage of the Week: Classique Hot Cocoa from Mont Blanc. A strong flavor of dark chocolate and a deep richness makes this hot cocoa impossible to resist. Inexpensive as gourmet cocoas go, you won't want to go back to that little Swiss trollop anytime soon. For the chocoholic in everyone.

Candy of the Week: Lindt Truffles. These people produce the gourmet confectionary version of crack cocaine. Specifically, I'm talking about the truffles that come in the little gold wrappers. We're talking a hollow white chocolate truffle filled with white chocolate liquid sugar. Will make your ear lobes conflagrate with joy. Any of them are good, though. Use sparingly, for these suckers are strong, man.