San Diego Sunday

Okay... rambling today... not much rhymer reason, just some cool geek goodness from the West Coast:

First, The Examiner has the trailer for Tron: Legacy. Looks cool, even without sound, at credit card size. I think the set design will gain an Oscar nod, as will probably the score. After you watch the YouTube file, there are seven other video links underneath. Nothing much to see. Oh, did I mention it will be Disney 3-D? In IMAX? Yeah... Hope they clean up the original and show that first.

Today's photo montage comes from the New York Daily News... goats outshine a giant rabbit, an awesome eclipse in Asia gives a shout-out to Heroes, Lady GaGa upsets Sesame Street and PETA simultaneously, and I-don't-know-how-to-describe-it.

Here's another cool video... a game called "Ratchet & Clank" involving time travel recording to solve puzzles. Just watch... pretty cool idea. You play with yourself. (No, not that way...geez...)

And another, more fanboy centric photo gallery. Lots of cheesecake, some terrible photography. (Really... you've got a digital camera...you can see the result instantly. If it's out of focus or blurred, take another.)

There are lots of cool exclusives available at the Con, but the coolest is from Gentle Giant. A bubble-gum pink Darth Vader helmet! From their site:

A pop culture icon, if there ever was one. The classic Darth Vader helmet gets an overhaul, and a new PINK paint job for a very important cause. For every pink Darth Vader helmet sold from July 1 - July 26, 2009, Gentle Giant Ltd. will donate 10% of the retail sales price to Susan G. Komen for the Cure® with a minimum guaranteed donation of $5,000, in support of Komen's promise to save lives and end breast cancer forever.

This reminds me of another "limited edition", when Kenner ran one hundred of the Darth Vader Collector's Case through the assembly line to see if the gold coating for the See-Threepio (C3-PO) Collector's Case would work. Yeah, it looks cool.

Geek Dad, over on Wired's website, didn't go to Comic-Con this year, and posts ten excuses. Even better, 100 things today's kids will never experience. The comments list is worth reading.

(Bad thought... slash fiction featuring Quinto Spock/Nimoy Spock.)

I hereby dub Comic-Con International: San Diego 2009 "Cherry Con". So many "Geek Gods" attended for the first time: Peter Jackson, James Cameron, John Lasseter, Hayao Miyazaki, Tim Burton... as well as actors like Tom Welling.

Many noted the "Revenge of Moore" squids off the coast of San Diego. A few days later, I discovered a similar news item of a shark in Miami, which reminded me of an early Astro City story.

And while I'm using Google News, here's the earliest citation I can find for a mention of the San Diego Comic-Con: a UPI dispatch from August 4, 1974. Whatever happened to "Captain Sticky"? His obituary.

And remember all that fuss about how Twilight and girls were ruining Comic-Con? Here's an AP article about a (then) young female fan from Washington State.

It was at the San Diego convention where she purchased her most valuable book, a copy of of the first issue of Spiderman [sic], which sold in the early '60s for 10 cents. She paid $75 for her copy.

"I couldn't pass it up for that price," she said, adding that it will be worth a couple hundred dollars someday.

It originally cost twelve cents. According to Heritage Auctions, a 2/10 rated issue is worth $2400. You can buy one here.

Okay... it's 5:45 PM, and I'm calling it a day... nothing new on Google News.