Heading down to the San Diego Comicon, since 1972 the premiere cartoon, animation and fantasy convention in North America. Lately attendance has exploded since Hollywood found it the best place to sneak preview big budget comic book movies like Iron Man and Spiderman.

This years convention John Lasseter and Hiyao Miyazaki will show some of Ponyo and Toy Story III. This year will also be remembered for the orgy of 3D Stereoptical blockbusters scheduled to screen- Cameron's Avatar, Zemeckis' Christmas Carol, Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, Spike Jones Where the Wild Things Are. Seems like it's the 3D mediums best chance to pitch to a skeptical world that 3D is not a temporary gimmick like it was in 1953, but here to stay. We'll see.

All this Hollywood power and movie stars, its hard to recall when these conventions were just local dealers with cardboard crates of old comics to thumb through. I kind of miss that old ambiance.

I'll report more from the scene of the action.

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Question: What was the Frug, Mash Potato and Watusi?

Yesterday’s Quiz Answered below: What is the Urban Legend about Neil Armstrong on the Moon talking about Mr. Gorski?
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History for 7/22/2009
Birthdays: Emma Lazarus, Eduard Hopper, Gregor Mendel, Alexander Calder, James Whale, Oscar De La Renta, Rose Kennedy, Stephen Vincent Benet, Jason Robards, Bob Dole, David Spade is 45, Terence Stamp is 70, Danny Glover is 63, Alex Trebek, Bobby Sherman, Don Henley, William Dafoe is 54, John Leguizamo, Albert Brooks is 62- real name Albert Einstein, a nice name but already taken

1298- William Wallace's Scottish rebels were defeated by King Edward Ist
Longshanks at the battle of Falkirk.

1378- Viva l’Popolo! Revolt of the Ciompi- Woolworkers seize control of the Florentine
Republic. They were eventually put down. This idea of peasants fed up with the Black
Death and class oppression who rise up against their feudal masters catches on. Peasant revolts break out across Europe- in France the Jacquerie; in England, Wat the Tyner’s revolt.

1502- Amerigo Vespucci and a Portuguese expedition return from exploring the coast
of Brazil. It's popular nowadays to claim Columbus was ripped off by a German
mapmaker from the credit of discovering America, but there's more to it than
that. Columbus went to his grave believing he had discovered the outer coastline
of Asia. Vespucci, after exploring from Brazil to South Carolina was the first to
press the idea that this new coastline was not Asia, but something quite different.
A new continent.

1793- THE MACKENZIE EXPEDITION- No, I’m sorry, but Louis & Clark weren’t the first white men to explore the NorthAmerican Continent to the Pacific. This day a party
of French-Canadian voyageurs and Scottish trappers led by Alexander Mackenzie reached the Georgian Straights in British Columbia ten years earlier. MacKenzie had been trying since 1789 to find the Pacific shore of Canada and stake British claims to
the great Canadian Northwest. In 1790 Mackenzie started out from Lake Athabasca
and followed a river that took him to the Arctic ocean instead of the Pacific -oops!
don’t you hate when that happens !? This time he reached the right salt water. His
1801 book "Travels to the Pacific" was studied and debated intensively
by President Thomas Jefferson and his aide Meriwhether Lewis. It is the prime reason
the U.S. plans for the Lewis & Clark expedition to the Pacific were given a
top priority. For the first time since Christopher Columbus white settlers at last
understood just how big the North American continent was-Mackenzie correctly estimated it was about three thousand miles wide.

1812- Battle of Salamanca. .the Duke of Wellington whips Napoleon’s lieutenant Marshal Marmont in Spain. Wellington wrote in his report: " We have defeated 40,000
men in 40 minutes ". The battle was preceded by one of the most violent thunderstorms
anyone had ever seen. The troops were more afraid of the lightning bolts than the
cannon . The British noted that all of Wellington’s victories including Waterloo
were always preceded by a rainstorm.

1862- EMANCIPATION- President Abraham Lincoln called a secret cabinet meeting at
the White House in the dead of night. Abe opened the session by reading jokes from
a newspaper by humorist Artemus Ward. The cabinet officers exchanged confused glances. Secretary of State William Seward found Abe’s folksy-hillbilly humor annoying. He wondered if the Old Tycoon would ever get to the point. Lincoln then shocked them
all, when he said that he intended to free the slaves by presidential proclamation. This
without the consent of Congress. Seward convinced him not do it until there was
a Union battle victory, because to do so at the then bad state of affairs would
look more like a last act of desperation. In a few weeks the Battle of Antietam
was fought, which wasn’t a great victory, but it was at least it wasn’t an embarrassing
defeat, so then the Emancipation Proclamation was announced.

1893 – Katharine L. Bates wrote the song "America the Beautiful," in Colorado.

1921- Artist Man Ray arrived in Paris determined to go Dada!

1933- Wiley Post completed the first solo flight around the world. The following
year Post would die in the same plane crash as writer Will Rogers.

1934- Public Enemy #1-John Dillinger was shot down by G-Man Melvin Purvis coming
out of the Biograph Theater on Lincoln Ave. in Chicago. He had just seen Clark
Gable and Myrna Loy in Manhattan Melodrama. Dillinger's identity was betrayed
by Anna Sage, the Woman in Red, a German-Romanian prostitute who didn't want
to be deported. As they came out of the theater Purvis shouted “ STICKEM UP JOHNNIE!” Dillinger dropped into a crouch and went for his gun. Purvis blew him away. Anna Sage was deported anyway.

1965- Cary Grant married Dyan Cannon.

1967- Jimi Hendrix quit as opening act for the Monkees.

1977- Walt Disney’s film "The Rescuers" featuring the last work of Disney
master animator Milt Kahl.

2002- Worldcom files for Chapter 11, up to then the largest bankruptcy in US history. This while the CEO Bernard Ebbers was building himself a new $94 million mansion. Ebbers got 25 years in the pen, and Worldcom reorganized as MCI. In 2003 the Bush Administration awarded them a no-bid contract to build a cellular telephone system in Iraq.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: What is the Urban Legend about Neil Armstrong on the Moon talking about Mr. Gorski?

Answer: When Astronaut Neil Armstrong first walked on the moon, just before he re-entered the Lunar lander, Armstrong made this strange remark: "Good luck Mr. Gorsky.."

Many people at NASA thought it was a casual comment concerning some rival Soviet Cosmonaut. However, upon checking, there was no Gorsky in either the Russian or American space programs. Over the years many people questioned Armstrong as to what the "Good luck Mr. Gorsky" statement meant, but Armstrong always just smiled.

On July 5, 1995 in Tampa Bay FL, while answering questions following a speech, a reporter brought up the 26 year old question to Armstrong. This time he finally responded. Mr. Gorsky had finally died and so Neil Armstrong felt he could answer the question. He explained when he was a kid on a farm in Wapakoneta Ohio, he was playing baseball with a friend in the backyard. His friend hit a fly ball, which landed in the front of his neighbor's bedroom windows. His neighbors were Mr. & Mrs. Gorsky.

As he leaned down to pick up the ball, young Armstrong heard Mrs. Gorsky shouting at Mr. Gorsky. "Oral Sex! You want oral sex?! You'll get sex when the kid next door walks on the moon!"