Customizing Mini Loop.

The current mini loop i have can be seen at: http://www.deaf-monkey.com and the mini loop that i would like to mimic, in terms of design and style and etc. is at: http://www.dreamten.com at the bottom of their front page.

This is the current code im using for my mini loop:

<?php
$how_many=5; //How many posts do you want to show
require_once('/nfs/c03/h04/mnt/57867/domains/news.deaf-monkey.com/html/wp-config.php'); // Change this for your path to wp-config.php file ?>

<ul id="whats-new">
<?
$news=$wpdb->get_results("SELECT <code>ID</code>, <code>comment_count</code>, <code>post_date</code>, <code>post_title</code> FROM $wpdb->posts
WHERE <code>post_type</code>=\"post\" AND <code>post_status</code>=\"publish\" ORDER BY post_date DESC LIMIT $how_many");
foreach($news as $np){
printf ("<li>%s <a href=\"http://news.deaf-monkey.com/index.php?p=%s\">%s</a> %s</li>", $np->post_date,$np->ID,$np->post_title,$np->comment_count);
}?>
</ul>

Any help will be greatly appreciated, i apologise for my lack of knowledge in modifying this particular aspect of wordpress, so please bare with me for my newbie-ness.