Snowbound simple pleasures: Pac-Man, Panthers, and LEGO

This past Friday (January 9) saw the first real snow of the season (well, 2nd if you count the one the week before Christmas, but that technically wasn't winter yet) so rather than risk the icy streets, Lisa and I chose to stay inside the apartment. She finally beat Super Mario Bros. 3 for Gameboy Advance (played via the Gamecube Player) then headed into Pac-Man World 2. Definitely ain't your father's Pac-Man... I mean, what the heck is Packy doing jumping over buzzsaws anyway?

While she did that, I contentedly lay in the floor not far away, just as I did as a wee-lad, and put together most of the rest of the Star Wars LEGO sets that I got for Christmas. Yeah yeah, going to be 30 years old in two and a half months and still playing with LEGOs... but it just ain't Christmas for me without getting something either Star Wars or LEGO so since LEGO got the license in '99 a lotta fans have been living in the best of both worlds. This year's haul included the new version of the X-Wing (much improved over the '99 original), two of the new wave minis (Imperial Shuttle and Star Destroyer) and Episode II's Republic Gunship, which was the biggest set I've put together to date. That'll be dwarfed come next snowday (which looks like might come later this week) with the last LEGO set remaining, something from the dear wife: the AT-AT Walker, weighing in at a honking 1064 pieces! Lisa's promised to help... but not too much...

Big story of the weekend was the Carolina Panthers, who almost snatched defeat from the jaws of victory over St. Louis. It was a fourth-quarter fiasco that allowed the Rams to rally and make a field goal at the 2-second mark to send the game into overtime. Then it was The Game That Could Not End(tm), with endless repossessions and near-hits that almost saw either team scoring. In the first seconds of double-overtime, Panthers quarterback Jake Dehomme telegraphed to wide receiver Steve Smith who tore through the Rams' defense for 69 yards to plunk down a 29-23 win that'll see the Panthers play the Eagles next week in Philadelphia.

Let's see... carnivorous cats versus plump birds. Yeah, go Panthers!!

More later.