io9: Swag

Cool Battlestar and Star Wars Collectables of Yesteryear

Annalee Newitz — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 11:21:44 PDT

Back in the early 1980s, little Derek Powazek collected several cups from Burger King with old-school Battlestar Galactica and Return of the Jedi art on them. Now he's rescued them from destruction in his family home, and has turned them into lovely portraits of a bygone era in scifi swag. Here are a few more, below.

Maybe these aren't the coolest, but when I was a kid C3P0 was my favorite. So there. Want to see the whole set? Check out Derek's Flickrstream.

What was in the Dharma Initiative Boxes in Lisbon?

LISA KATAYAMA — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 14:35:57 PDT

To celebrate the premiere of Lost Season 4 in Europe, Portugese guerrilla marketing firm Torke collaborated with Fox to drop Dharma Initiatives boxes onto the streets of Lisbon. A couple of blogs mentioned this yesterday, but nobody has revealed what's in them. What could be in it? A polar bear? Walt? (Maybe Walt.) Boxes of Dharma coke and Dharma cereal? We don't know for sure, but Lost fans in Lisbon were psyched to see artifacts from their favorite TV show appear on their doorsteps in real life.

We Have Some Winners For Our Caption This Photo Contest!

Kevin Kelly — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 08:40:41 PST

You blew us away and nearly terminated our ability to process comment overload with the over 400 comments on our Terminator caption contest, underscoring the fact that io9 readers rule no matter what the current timeline is. We had a lot of great entires, including several dozen that had John and Cameron interfacing intimately, if you know what we mean. We decided to award two honorable mentions because we couldn't narrow it down to one winner. The runners-up will get some prizes too. Find out who won after the jump, and look for more contests from io9 soon!

The two honorable mentions both show a little Joss Whedon love, and we'll be tossing them a bit 'o swag for their efforts.

Honorable Mention #1 goes to cabridges with this entry:

"I'm programmed to protect you, I cannot be stopped by conventional weapons, and nothing can keep me from your side. But if Joss calls I'm outta here so fast your future children will get windburn."

Honorable Mention #2 Kylegonjinn had a slightly longer entry, which also pimps out the Firefly connection:

John: Sooo... you already finished all your homework assignments, right?
Cameron: And all the ones that we'll be given for the rest of the semester. I don't sleep.
John: I might be able to help with that.
Cameron: Really? How?
John: Have you seen this movie called Serenity?
Cameron: ...nooooo.
John: Eta kooram nah shmech!
Cameron: ... (THUD)
John: Mom was right - those Russian classes would pay off one day! (takes Cameron's homework, erases her name, and signs his own)

And the First Placewinner, proving that brevity is sometimes the best policy, goes to Miranda Kali. Her entry made us laugh, and we've been quoting it all day:

"Come with me if you want to pass trigonometry."

Congratulations, winners! Everyone else, you made it extremely difficult to choose winners, so be loud and proud. Special shout-outs to people who noticed the strange bald guy holding the boom mic in the background. If you are a winner, contact me at kevin@io9.com with your shipping information and your Terminator schwag will be on its way to you. Thanks for playing!

Caption this Photo to Win A Cyborg-Sized Load Of Terminator Gear

Kevin Kelly — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 10:33:45 PST

The two-hour season finale of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles airs tonight on Fox, starting at 8pm (so set those clocks early, folks) and we're giving away a giant chunk of swag from the show. See the photo above of John and Cameron sitting at the table? All you have to do is come up with a funny caption. You can try to come up with a deeply moving caption if you want, but it'll probably be easier to come up with something funny than something that will make us re-think out lives. What will you win?

We've got Terminator shirts with silvery writing on the front, military style hats, light-up red glowy bracelets, and Terminator eye window-clings, and Terminator flashlights that throw cool LED logos of the show into dark areas.

Simply submit your caption in the comments below, and you're officially entered. Be as long or as brief as you want, but above all try to be funny. Heck, we'd even take a good Firefly or Buffy joke. Just go nuts, folks. The contest will be open until roughly 10:30pm Pacific Time, right after tonight's finale ends on the West Coast. We'll pick a winner at that time and announce it tomorrow. The contest is open to everyone, unless you're living on the moon, and we'll pick up the shipping charges. However, we are not responsible if actual robots from the future start chasing you.

The window clings are massive and aren't pictured in the top photo, but they'll be included. You'll be the envy of all your friends, or you can just open your own Terminator merchandise store. The future is not yet written.