Attach node in block

I am trying to include nodes into blocks. Here's are the attempts and approaches:

1) Attach a node into a block using node_load (http://api.drupal.org/api/5/function/node_view).

<?php
$node = node_load(11); // Change to whatever the nid of your node is
print node_view($node, FALSE, FALSE, FALSE);
?>

This works perfectly but is showing the title of the node in the block. How can it be removed?

2) Using another approach:

<?php
// We save and restore the real path for the page
$q = $_GET['q'];
// Change event to the path you want, this is the part after q= (or after the base path if you have clean URLs enabled)
// The call to drupal_get_normal() allows for using path aliases.
$_GET['q'] = drupal_get_normal_path('contact');
// Get and print the output for just the content associated with the path
// If you see the complete page within a page it means the path callback is probably calling theme('page', ....)
print menu_execute_active_handler();
// Restore the real path for the page
$_GET['q'] = $q;
?>

While this works for attaching a node into another node, it doesn't work for attaching a node into a block. Instead, I get the default node text you see on a clean Drupal install.

3) Installing nodeasablock module. I haven't tested this approach yet.

Any ideas? The outcome of this will be documented in the handbook :)