Damon Lindelof, a.k.a. the less grumpy of the two former executive producers of LOST, has just sealed the deal for his first solo screenwriting contract since the island adventures ended. Lindelof will be taking on rewrite work for a prequel for the Alien franchise, which could use a jolt of popularity. After all, when Joss Whedon was talking about cool props he has at home, he said “an alien egg, but I had to bury the franchise to get it.” Well let’s hope Lindelof can dig it up and give it some weird alien CPR or something.

For those of you worried that Lindelof might just start over and make up the whole prequel as he goes along, leading to an unsatisfactory, overly spiritual ending, never fear! Lindelof has already met with 20th Century Fox and Ridley Scott, who Fox wants to direct the feature, to discuss ideas for the prequel. See? Planning ahead. But, perhaps unfortunately depending on your sentiments toward the franchise, “the exchange of ideas between them sparked a take that could well turn out to be a free-standing science fiction film,” according to Deadline.

We still don’t officially know when Nintendo’s 3DS is going to be released in North America, but now, we at least know when the 3DS’ release date is going to be released: The company announced today that it will announce the date on September 29th. They’ll also announce the handheld’s price.

We already know that the 3DS will be out in NA by the end of March 2011, and a TV appearance by the president of Nintendo America last month seemed to indicate that the 3DS would be coming in 2011. But does the September 29th announcement spell hope for a 2010 release date after all?

The epic music video sorcerers of OK Go just might have some serious competition in the form of Dancing Pigeons, a French electronica group. Their latest music video, directed by the always-fascinating Tomas Mankovsky, features a slow-motion battle between a flamethrower and a fire extinguisher. It is as awesome as you would expect.

Chalk up another victory for the devious insurgents whose terrorist actions killed millions aboard a single Imperial space station just last year. The Rebels have published leaked documents stolen from under the noses of our brave, honest Imperial troops, possibly through the reported use of one “little droid.”

Seditious citizens have been perusing the data, announcing egregious findings as they encounter them with the hashtag #wookieleaks.

We have reproduced some of the most shocking revelations below, so that you might avoid them in their entirety.

Read on...

‘Dat zebrass: “Zedonk” zebra-donkey hybrid born in Georgia (TDW)

First posts from influential websites (Urlesque)

Is Comic-Con really hurting nerd culture? (Techland)

The end of online anonymity: Why will you be freaking out (Cracked)

Axe Cop meets Dr. McNinja: first look (Axe Cop)

Joystiq reviews StarCraft II (Joystiq)
Nick Fury duster from Iron Man 2 available for preorder (Fashionably Geek)

(title pic via Kotaku)

Marvel’s Judith Stephens snapped this picture of an adorable young thunder god sitting on the throne of Odin at Comic-Con 2010.

(via Marvel.com)

The persistently bewhiskered Jon Stewart took on the latest Wikileaks controversy, which has been labeled “one of the biggest leaks in US military history,” due to the release of tens of thousands of classified “military field reports” about the Afghan war. But while The Daily Show host mocked some absurdities surrounding the individual most responsible for the security breach, his greatest ire was saved for the dispassionate reporting of the story by the usual media pundits.

To be certain, there is no shortage of strange and unfathomable aspects to this story: from the online moniker of the source of the leaked documents (“Bradass87″), to the strange detail that many of the documents were carried on a CD-Rom disguised as a Lady Gaga Disc:

>>>See the video at Mediaite.

No, I haven’t bought a copy of StarCraft 2 yet.  Even if I had, I’m leaving tonight for parts unknown and won’t be back until the second week in August, so I wouldn’t get to play it.

/sigh It’s going to be excruciating, not playing StarCraft 2 whilst sitting on a California beach with a good friend that I hardly ever see anymore.  I’ll just have to watch this to tide me over.

Attention students of Morris County, New Jersey: Those ‘D’s on your report card just aren’t going to cut it anymore. On a meeting Monday night, the School Board approved the decision to eliminate the D grade, making anything below a C- a failing grade.

There has been some serious disagreement about the issue. While everyone supports putting measures in place to ensure that kids succeed and actually grasp their material instead of skating by, not everyone thinks this is the right way to go about it: