Yesterday marked the end of an era in free website hosting. Geocities, hosted by Yahoo, officially closed its doors to its hostees after 15 years in business – 10 of which were under Yahoo’s rule.

We have enjoyed hosting web sites created by Yahoo! users all over the world, and we’re proud of the community you’ve built.

However, we have decided to focus on helping our customers explore and build relationships online in other ways. Beginning on October 26, 2009, you can no longer use GeoCities to maintain a free presence online —

It appears users of GeocitiesPlus accounts still are allowed to have their websites up, but can no long access their files, and can supposedly upgrade to Yahoo Web Hosting for free for 5 years. Yahoo now encourages all its former users to switch to its Web Hosting to enjoy its services, for a fee of course.

Of course, who on the internet hadn’t built a crappy little website using Geocities at some point in the past? Nicknamed “Geoshitties” for its small storage capacity and bombardment of ad placement (particularly after Yahoo took over), the free-site provider non-the-less was a intricate part of the internet in the later 1990’s, along with fellow free-provider Angelfire. Truly, the internet has lost one of its key figureheads.

Today marked the start of the pop culture mecca known as San Diego Comic-Con. To celebrate, Google swapped their logo with a rendition done by comic artist legend Jim Lee. Lee posted a link to a larger version on his twitter account @jimlee00. (see larger image after the jump)

Further, the Google blog announced new skins for iGoogle home pages featuring comic art by many known artists. Many of these skins are not just ‘superhero’ comic themed either, though there is plenty of that to go around, too. There happens to be a theme for ‘American Born Chinese’, a wonderful graphic novel I recommended back during the holiday season.

As SDCC progresses, we’ll be posting some round-ups to help everyone stay on the same page of all the great news sure to come from the convention. Stay tuned!
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It’s time for the 2008 Poppies! The Poppies are the Pop Culture Collectibles Industry Awards developed in 2007 by Michael Crawford of http://www.mwctoys.com. Each year judges from all aspects of the industry – from the artists that create them, to the companies that make them, to the retailers that sell them, to the media outlets that report on them, and even to the collectors that buy them – come together to vote on their favorites in over a dozen categories. For 2008, those categories include:

Best Overall Company
Best Overall Line
Best Male or Female Figure 18” and above
Best Male Figure 12 – 18”
Best Male Figure 5 – 11”
Best Male Figure under 5”
Best Female Figure (any size under 18”)
Best Build A Figure
Best Vehicle or Playset
Best Statue
Best Bust
Best Designer/Vinyl Figure
Best Prop Replica
Best Misc

This year, there are 147 judges from within the industry, from every aspect of the business and from across the globe. They have begun their voting as of January 5th, and will complete the process on January 14th. The votes will then be compiled, and the final results announced on January 20th.

But there’s also a chance for readers to give their input! Once again this year, Michael will be running his People’s Picks awards, only this time the readers will be voting using the same categories and nominees as the Poppies Judges. You can vote now for your favorites by going to:

http://www.mwctoys.com/poppies_peoplepicks_2008.htm

Or by going to http://www.mwctoys.com and following the link from the main page. People’s Pick voting will be available during the same period (January 5th until January 14th), and the announcement of winners will also occur on January 20th. Vote for your favorite pop culture collectibles now!

In another kick-back to the beauty of retro gaming, I was called to the attention of a interesting little pocket of nostalgic gold not too long ago – a quaint little album of independently-created fan covers of Sega Genesis music.

LOSER: A Sega Genesis Tribute Album is a collection of fan-made tracks from several of the popular games from the 16-bit era that graced the Genesis console. A wide range of classic and not-so-classic game music from several Genesis games are covered on the album, from the likes of Sonic the Hedgehog, Ecco The Dolphin, Golden Axe, and even John Madden Football. Arrangements come in all sorts of flavors, from totally remastered melodies to those barely above chiptune-level.

Granted, while I may not agree that the Genesis was a “loser” in the 16-bit war of the 1990’s, I do appreciate the fact that a few brave souls managed to gather together to give the console its proper due – even if their choice of titling sucks.

Check out the album – LOSER Website

Vinnk of 4 Color Rebellion and Famicom Dojo has relaunched his Rising Stuff online store with new forums and news articles with a focus on retro Japanese gaming.

In Vinnk’s own words, the new Rising Stuff “will cover classic games and consoles that may have never made it out of the land of the rising sun,” and “will try to cover obscure system like the PC-FX, Wonderswan and Playdia as well as the better-known systems like the Mega Drive, Saturn, PC-Engine and Famicom Disk System.”

This is quite a treat for me, because many of the front-page authors are also long-time friends. Between us we started the unstoppable Midwest force of nature now known as No Brand Con.

So check out the new Rising Stuff! If you head over there RIGHT NOW you will see a repost of the first episode of Famicom Dojo, as well as videos about the 3DO and Playdia. You may even see other a Powet.TV videos pop up there from time-to-time.