Recommendations for enhanced "recent posts" widget

I’m looking for recommendations for a plugin that would (at least) enhance the recent posts widget to allow for include/exclude of specific categories. [For instance if I’ve got a list of upcoming events in another section of the sidebar, I’d like to exclude the events category from the “recent posts” listing]

The default “recent posts” widget shows all categories — and while, in the past, I’ve done this by dropping PHP into the sidebar, I expect someone’s got a great plugin/widget.

Thanks!