T-Mobile rolls out HTC Athena as "Ameo"

http://www.engadget.com/
Move over, Universal, there's a new sheriff in town. The Athena from HTC is finally starting to make some public appearances in carrier livery, and we've gotta say, T-Mobile Pink is suiting this thing just fine. Specs for the new reigning king of HTC's expansive Windows Mobile lineup include a 5-inch VGA display, an 8GB hard drive to supplement any Flash you might have stowed in the miniSD slot, on-board GPS, quadband GSM plus HSDPA (sorry, yanks -- 2100MHz only), 3 megapixel camera, an XScale core clipping right along at 624MHz, and -- get this -- three styli in the box, two traditional and one multi-function pen. T-Mobile's European division will get this as an exclusive for a few weeks as the "Ameo," at which point we'd imagine a wider European release is in order. American availability, as always, is an open question.

Nintendo shipping ghettostrap replacements to Wii latecomers?

http://www.engadget.com/
Looks like Nintendo got tired of slapping its own branding onto every one of the bazillions of beefed-up replacement straps it's been sending out to butter-fingered Wii owners the world over. Reports are coming in of some sort of ghettostrap, possibly built by a third party, being sent out instead of the fancy Nintendo version, leaving fanboys crestfallen at their newfound lack of total Wii branding. Not exactly the conspiracy of the century, but we want answers, and we want them now!

Kobe Drops 81, Makes History

http://www.nba.com/
Where were you on Jan. 22, 2006? It's a night that will live in basketball lore for quite some time. Kobe Bryant tallied 81 points against the Raptors in a 122-104 Lakers win. The 81 is the second highest single-game point total in NBA history, behind only Wilt Chamberlain's 100 over 40 years ago.

With no footage of Wilt's perfomance around, Kobe's night becomes something that the NBA has never seen before. People across the league are buzzing about the historic night.

"I've seen some remarkable games but I've never seen anything like that before," added Lakers coach Phil Jackson, who played against Chamberlain and coached Jordan.

Grin And Bear It

http://espn.go.com/
Fans of Cinderella stories may not like it, but Chicago doesn't care. For the first time since 1985's Super Bowl Shuffle group, the Bears -- who ended the Saints' dream -- are going to the Super Bowl.