Doctors in love will do funny things, especially if they're both fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, now on the verge of its seventh season.

Dr. Chris Preachuk, a Winnipeg radiologist, was surfing the eBay auction site in late June when he came upon an on-line joust for two tickets to attend the shooting of a Buffy episode in Los Angeles this summer. Faster than you can say Sarah Michelle Gellar, Preachuk, 35, started to work his keyboard, thinking the passes, if he could get them, would be the perfect anniversary gift for his wife of four years, Dr. Merliee Zetaruk, 34, a specialist in pediatric sports medicine who's developed a big jones for the show in the last couple of years.

Ten days later, Preachuk found he'd won the on-line war, beating an estimated 30 other bidders. This weekend he and the missus are flying to Los Angeles to pick up their prize and schmooze with the stars. Preachuk isn't saying what his winning bid was -- "Let's just say it was a good anniversary present."

Suffice to say, it's a pricey affair, not least because "all Fox TV is going to be doing is holding two passes for us for the taping of what's probably episode 3." Everything else -- meals, accommodation, transportation, night-clubbing -- is on Preachuk and Zetaruk.

Zetaruk is something of a latecomer to the Buffy cult. In fact, she was first a fan of the series's Angel spinoff, which began in 2000, because she thought the original's title "sounded frivolous and teen-y." However, her husband, who had been catching occasional Buffy episodes on the side, told her, "You know, you should watch it." She did, beginning last fall, and she was hooked. Indeed, in preparation for her Los Angeles visit, Zetaruk was at home earlier this week blitzing on all the episodes of season two which she had purchased on DVD. (She also has all of season one on DVD and while watching the 2001-2002 season, caught up with some of the series' previous instalments on the Space station.)

As someone with a third-degree black belt in karate, Zetaruk said it was "the martial-arts aspect" of Buffy the Vampire Slayer that served as the initial hook. "The choreography there was really well executed." Then she got off on the fact that "here was this young, physically fit lead doing stuff that you usually see male characters doing -- fighting, winning, saving." Now she's impressed with the character relationships, the humour and the writing.

"There's a pretty neat, pretty complex mythology happening," she said. "It's definitely not for kids."

It was announced this week that Toronto's fabled Massey Hall will host a concert next Feb. 24 featuring jazz pianist Ellis Marsalis along with his two, more famous sons -- trumpeter Wynton and saxophonist Branford -- and their siblings, Delfayo on trombone and Jason on drums.

That should be an interesting event for the country's jazz fans. But what could prove even more interesting -- if it comes to pass -- is the hall's plan to mark the 50th anniversary of the epochal May 15, 1953, concert featuring be-bop avatars Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell, Charles Mingus and Max Roach. That was the only occasion that all five of these giants played on the same stage at the same time, and less than two years later Parker was dead in a Manhattan hotel suite.

Sandy Castongay, Massey Hall's programmer, acknowledged this week he's been speaking with Max Roach who, at 78, is the only member of the 1953 quintet still alive, "hoping we can persuade him to attend next year." Whether Roach would actually play on the Massey stage in a reprise of what some still call "the world's greatest jazz concert," remains to be seen. Regardless, Massey Hall is looking at concerts, panel discussions and symposia to mark the event, which serves as the centrepiece of a new book by British author Geoffrey Haydon titled Quintet of the Year.

Castongay said program details will be announced this fall.

Visitors to Licks, the burger and ice-cream chain with 25 locations in Southern Ontario, know that its staffers like to sing while they work. Usually Licks staff riff off familiar pop melodies, like Dream Lover, and substitute relevant lyrics (like "Cheese burger/Where are you?") in an attempt to boost morale and make the customer smile.

Don't be surprised if this fall you find Licks staff emoting burger and fries-related lyrics to songs by the Rolling Stones. Just this week the world's oldest rock 'n' roll band, currently rehearsing and playing surprise gigs in Toronto, announced it was calling its 2002-2003 tour of the Americas the "Licks" tour, after a 40-song "greatest hits" package to be released this fall. In this era of synergy, cross-promotion and branding, it's hardly out of the question for Licks to lick 'n' nick the Stones, and vice-versa.

Anyhow, Licks hopes to contact the Stones, says one of its owners. "I think we can have a lot of fun with this," he said. "Maybe we can become the official burger of the Rolling Stones."

Might I suggest "Hamburger/howcum ya taste so good?" sung to the tune of Brown Sugar. And how about "Cuz in sleepy Kingston town/ There's a place for a milkshake-makin' man (yeah)," set to the famous refrain of Street Fighting Man?

jadams@globeandmail.ca