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?

June 27, 2002

Book of the Week: Dumb College by Christopher Rogers. Is it funny? Or is it a freaking nightmare? It's a bit of both. It's 2049 and America is in decline--not that it's smart enough any more to realize it. Enter Veena Singh. No, she's not German. She comes to Dorothy Underwood Multiversity to do research on the impending doom of Western Civilization, the right wing Center of Hatred and a "postcard from God." It gets stranger...just trust me.

Graphic Novel of the Week: Scary Godmother by Jill Thompson. Warren Ellis said it best. If you have kids, and they find out they've been deprived of Thompson's Scary Godmother books, they will kill you. It's wonderful light-hearted fare that's a helluva lot of fun no matter what your inventory of kids is. Trust me, you need it.

DVD of the Week: Blue Planet. Never seen anything quite like this series of documentaries before. And sure you might have seen them on cable, but the extras are good enough to warrant checking the thing out on DVD. Nothing like spending some time down in the trenches of the ocean to spice up your weekend. Especially when it involves a whale carcass.

CD of the Week: Sarah Brightman's Classics. This collection gathers together some of the pop-opera diva's best and brightest tunes, including "Ave Maria," "La Luna," and "Alhambra." She's gorgeous, her voice is gorgeous, the music is, well, gorgeous... she'll make converts of you all.

Beverage of the Week: Folgers Jakada. So it's not the best coffee drink in the world. In fact, it tastes a lot like chocolate milk. But sometimes you want a latte that tastes like chocolate milk. We can't funnel thai coffee all week long. Sometimes subtle tastes are in order. So for those times, here you go.

Candy of the Week: Turbo Truffles. Dear God. 150 milligrams of caffeine packed into a candy about the size of one of those mini-Reeses cup. Definitely not for the faint of heart, the stuff is so good it's probably as close to psychotropic experimentation I'm ever going to attempt. Man, the colors are pretty. Eight flavors. Dig it.

Epithet of the Week: Jackass. I've rediscovered this one recently. It's been appropriated by Johnny Knoxville and company. And you know, it is actually the name of an animal. But it's so much fun to say. Especially in traffic and especially loudly. Try it some this weekend and see if you don't agree.