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According to Footurama the powers that be at Skywalker Ranch and Adidas have finally ackowledged that there's a lot of Star Wars Geek/Sneaker Fetish Geek overlap -- and they've created these to get all of them off:

That's right. Darth Vader sneakers.

You heard me, son.

The Darth Vader sneaker is, reportedly, a patent leather version of the Adidas Superstar with gold tags and lace ring.

Ugly as Vader himself, these things are somehow still just awesome.

Those of you laughing don't know the power of the Dark Side.

No firm release date but rumors have them coming out for the 30th anniversary of Star Wars.

On Thursday the US Postal service is unveiling its Marvel Superheroes postage stamps at the San Diego Comic-Con (known in some circles as the Nerd Prom).

I still have a sheet and a half of the DC Superheroes stamps. Unfortunately, I so seldom use actual stamps that I may have them forever.

Am I going to buy the Marvel ones? Absolutely.

Joss may be one of my favorite people in the entertainment industry. Not only was he responsible for Buffy, Angel and Firefly, but the man's genius also extends to comics, public speaking, writing music, and dancing. (It just doesn't seem fair, does it? Although, maybe the dancing bit is not quite accurate. But Numfar -- aka Joss -- never fails to make me laugh.)

Now, coming from Comic-Con, Joss has revealed that he is talking with the BBC about making a 90-minute movie, "Ripper", about Rupert Giles, Buffy's Watcher on the TV show. And Anthony Stewart Head is apparently already on board.

Also in Joss news, he is already plotting season 9 of the Buffy comic, and Oz will be making an appearance! "The Angel: After the Fall" series will be 12 issues, picking up where season 5 of Angel left off. And here's a free comic he's collaborating on with Fabio Moon, called "Sugarshock" -- I just read it, and I have already bookmarked it for future issues.

Sad news.

The Flash Gordon pilot is not very good.

Now -- let me preface this by saying that the DVD I've seen was a very, very rough cut.

Special effects were missing and text would roll across the screen explaining: "THIS THE PART WHERE A GIANT SPACE SHIP APPEARS, WHICH IS WHY EVERYONE'S LOOKING INTO THE SKY AND GASPING!"

There were a number of scenes where the actors were walking past green screens that I'm assuming will eventually be lavishly created other-worlds or where a pivotal plot point was revealed with an effect that just didn't happen. Some of the sound and music cues weren't there yet, either, or shots were just missing, replaced with black screens that said: "ESTABLISHING SHOT, HOME."

But that's not the real problem. The real problem is that the concept has been reimagined in a way that isn't (yet) very interesting. It's very much like that first season of Smallville where, if it hadn't been for the fact that you know this kid is going to grow up to be Superman, you probably wouldn't have watched a show about a bunch of poorly developed high school characters running around in Kansas fighting a different mutant monster created by meteors every week.

But there are two important differences between these two series....

A few strange and wonderful comic-booky things this week:

- The movie version of Alan Moore's seminal WATCHMEN now has an official Warner Brothers movie site, complete with production blog and cast list. It's happening...

- Edward Norton is not only playing The Incredible Hulk in the new movie (which is rebooting the character and hoping to wash the taste of the last one out of our mouths) -- he also pitched in on the script. Also, TV Hulk Lou Ferrigno, who is now a Los Angeles Reserve Deputy Sheriff, has apparently filmed a cameo for the film.

- Over at Blender, alt-country rocker Ryan Adams (whose new album is doing a lot better than I predicted) gives what should be some obvious advice about starting a comic book collection. Kids -- take it from me, a guy who, years into trying to purge his house of comics, still has boxes of them: if you're not hooked, don't start.

- Director John Singleton is attached to films about two of Marvel Comics' most prominent black characters - The Black Panther and Luke Cage. Singleton isn't talking about which will be produced first, but he does throw out some ideas about casting here. I'd personally be against model Tyrese Gibson as Luke Cage. I'm sure he has the physique but I'm not sure he has the chops. I'd go with Wesley Snipes -- no, I don't care that he already played Blade.

Wow. Props to Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who has announced a $100 Apple Store credit to anyone who bought an iPhone when it was released.

This comes in the wake of the announced $200 price drop just two months after the product was released.

Said Jobs in his statement:

"..even though we are making the right decision to lower the price of iPhone, and even though the technology road is bumpy, we need to do a better job taking care of our early iPhone customers as we aggressively go after new ones with a lower price. Our early customers trusted us, and we must live up to that trust with our actions in moments like these."

Got a sneak-preview DVD of the new Bionic Woman revamp.

My expectations were very low -- but it's really good.

And not just compared to the original, of which I've seen only a few episodes but with which I wasn't terribly impressed.

Like Battlestar Galactica (brought to us by the some of the same folks) this is a darker, scarier, more political version of a 70s classic.

It also manages to be sexy without being cheesecakey or exploitative -- no mean feat. The titular bionic woman is played by the gorgeous Michelle Ryan, who manages to be tough and sexy without (at least in the pilot) overtly exploiting her sexuality or leaning on her good looks as a crutch.

Her adversary, the evil (and beta model) bionic woman is played with femme fatale flare by Battlestar's Katee Sackhoff.

The two manage to have a brutal super-cat fight on a rooftop in a rainstorm without it looking anything like a beer commercial or one of those effing Charlie's Angels movies.

The show's apparently had some creative troubles, but the cast is strong, the writing is good, the effects are impressive and I for one am going to be keeping an eye on it.

The show premieres Sept. 26 on NBC and will air on Wednesdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT.

Less than a week after J.K. Rowling's outing of the Harry Potter series' master wizard Albus Dumbledore more than 7,000 novelty t-shirts have been sold celebrating the occasion.

Above (from left to right): The "I Always Knew" Dumbledore Pride t-shirt and the more pithy "Wizards are Gay."

You can get them here.

Blimey!

Check out this flashlight in the form of the Sonic Screwdriver device from the long running BBC science fiction show Doctor Who.

And it's just $13.

Here's a clip of The Doctor with his favorite tool:

And here's a video review of the actual flashlight (or torch, for you anglophiles):

Check out this totally sweet Iron Man made of LEGOs.

Here's a link to a whole LEGO gallery.

I forgot to mention that I did a feature on cool (and most available and affordable) tech gifts for the holidays.

Here's the list, with links.

People keep laughing at me when I tell them I may make my next car a Smart car.

But I test drove one a few months back for the paper and actually liked it. GQ gave it a spin this month and came away impressed as well.

The fact that they get an estimated 40/city and 45/highway is a huge draw -- but they're also attractive (and attractively priced -- the convertible model is $16K), comfortable (believe it or not) and fun to drive.

I got mine up to 60 mph on the test drive -- but the GQ writer got on the highway and went up to 80 for over an hour. I don't remember the last time I needed to go faster than 90 mph, which is the Smart's top speed -- so I'm not sure what the downside of owning one of these would be.

And here I thought it couldn't get any stranger than House of M or Infinite Crisis.

The United Nations has teamed with Marvel Comics to produce a comic in which the heroes and the U.N. join together to solve conflicts and fight disease worldwide.

The move's supposed to help the U.N. rehabilitate its somewhat tarnished image -- but I'm not sure that saying: "Hey, if we had some super-powered underwear perverts working with us, we could actually get this stuff done." is the best possible message.

Famous (infamous?) hardware hacker Andrew "bunnie" Huang bought one of the One Laptop Per Child XO Laptop, picked it apart (literally and figuratively) and posted this review.

I've written a bit about the XO Laptop and recommended it as a holiday gadget gift in an N&R Life section centerpiece just before the holidays. It's fascinating to see someone get one and look at it with this kind of scrutiny.

LucasFilms released the following photo from the set of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

How excited am I about the new Indiana Jones flick? This is me at a movie theater recently, when I caught sight of the new Indiana Jones poster for the first time...

Wired has a great piece about counter terrorists looking to the online game World of Warcraft for ideas on how to stop real-world terrorism.

From the piece:

"Warcraft has a history of in-game terrorist activity. Early on, players found a curse in a high-level dungeon that would turn them into living bombs. They would then teleport to major cities and detonate themselves, killing nearby players. These suicide bombers gradually began to target areas where large number of players gathered, usually at auction houses or banks. Eventually, attacks occurred with enough frequency that some players simply avoided dangerous cities."

Now this is one strange story:

"This could make for one odd family reunion: Barack Obama is a distant cousin of actor Brad Pitt, and Hillary Rodham Clinton is related to Pitt's girlfriend, Angelina Jolie.

Researchers at the New England Historic Genealogical Society found some remarkable family connections for the three presidential candidates -- Democratic rivals Obama and Clinton, and Republican John McCain."

It was a story some time ago that Obama and George W. Bush are 10th cousins. But the researchers have also found that Obama is distantly related to Harry S. Truman, James Madison, Dick Cheney, Gerald Ford, Lyndon Johnson and General Robert E. Lee.

Clinton has a few notable distant relatives herself -- many of them French Canadians. But Jack Kerouac is canceled out by Camilla Parker-Bowles. A connection to Alanis Morissette is less impressive when we learn she's also related to Celine Dion. A connection to Madonna is, at this point in our cultural history, sort of neutral.

Students at MIT have been tinkering with a 1976 Porsche 914 -- converting it to run on electricity and go 100 mph for 135 miles without a recharge. Plug it in for five hours and it's ready to go again.

Check it out.