Remind functionality?

[Nicholas S-A <novanasa@gmail.com>]

Hi,
     I am attempting to use org-mode as a replacement for remind. I
currently have it set up with the following in my .bash_profile:

emacs --batch --no-init-file -q  -l ~/.emacs.slim --eval "(progn
(org-agenda-list) (princ (buffer-string)))" 2> /dev/null

Where ~/.emacs.slim is a very small init file which essentially just
loads org-mode and sets the agenda alist.

This works great, but I have a few qualms:
1) Is there any way to just load the agenda part of org-mode? The
current exec time of the line above is around 1s, compared to about .1s
for remind. If not, are there any other tricks to reduce emacs startup
time? If not, I will probably just write an org-agenda clone in some
other language to reduce the overhead.
2) Can I change the format of the Deadline lines to be more obvious by
adding **** Deadline: xxx ****, but *only* in the .emacs.slim executed
version? princ doesn't print in color, so I have to scan through to see
whether something is a deadline or a scheduled item.

Thanks!
nick