had to turn to the dark side on this one. i ended up using the built-in WP XML parser.
<?php require_once('blah..blah/wp-includes/rss.php'); ?>
<?php $rss = fetch_rss('your feed here');
$ijk = 0;
?>
<?php foreach ( $rss->items as $item ) : ?>
<?php print ("? ");?>
<a href='<?php echo $item['link']; ?>'
title='<?php echo $item['title']; ?>'>
<?php echo $item['title']; ?>
</a>
<br /?>
<?php
$ijk++;
// i want to limit the results to 5
if ($ijk == 5) {
break;
} ?>
<?php endforeach; ?>