"Outside intelligences, exploring the Solar System with true impartiality, would be quite likely to enter the Sun in their records thus: Star X, spectral class G0, 4 planets plus debris."¹ If you're going to spend the weekend clinging to a piece of space debris, you might as well have some fun.

Geek Out

Go to a museum. I'll admit right up front that I'm a hypocrite on this one, but my new year's resolution is to visit more of the city's museums.² You won't have to drag me to Digital Play at the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria. Elsewhere, the 50 Years of Helvetica exhibit at MoMA is almost ready to go away—the font is almost 51 years old, after all—so typeface nerds who haven't yet paid their respects to the "font of the 20th century" (love it or hate it) should do so soon.

Scavenge. Watson Adventures has the best approach for making a museum visit more palatable: Turn it into a competition. Bring some friends to Watson's Saturday afternoon Naked at the Met Scavenger Hunt, which transforms the stuffy Met into your personal playground. Unlike a real playground, the winner here is the team who best decodes the hunt's cryptic clues, rather than the kid who eats the most sand. (Watson has a bunch of different hunts every weekend, so check their calendar.)

Geek In

Kill Commies. Or upset their political structure, at least. The rulebook for Cold War simulation Twilight Struggle is intimidating, but don't let that deter you from taking up this clever political thriller/board game. I first played Twilight Struggle last summer and, despite the fact that it took hours to complete, I wanted to play it again immediately. It plays smooth and makes one lust for the days when "red state" meant something more dire than Bible-thumpers and tax cuts. Get the game at The Compleat Strategist (11 E. 33rd St., Manhattan) and, for the full experience, have Kinko's make a full-size copy of the custom board created by BoardGameGeek reader Ries Guillaume—his design is a marked improvement on the original.

Watch football. It's Conference Championship Sunday, the best day of the year for NFL fans who hate the overwrought pageantry of the Super Bowl. What's that? Geeks don't like sports? Don't tell the poindexters at Football Outsiders, who express their love of the game through wonkish play breakdowns and statistical charts. And my hat's off to "Davis21wylie," a Georgia Tech senior who simulates each round of the playoffs with a hacked version of Tecmo Super Bowl. ESPN can have its fancy AccuScore forecasts; I prefer the prognostication powers of a 17-year-old Nintendo game. Enjoy the Tecmo championship game videos in their 8-bit glory.

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1. According to a guy with great muttonchops, so he ought to know. ↑

2. No, actually, my new year's resolution is to become an even bigger hypocrite. ↑