Many of our readers know that our level of geekiness is pretty high.  With that in mind — altho’ not Altadena related — we have to pause to acknowledge the passing of Forrest J (no period) Ackerman, who died Thursday at age 92.  Forrey was a major influence in our misspent youth (we read “Famous Monsters of Filmland passionately when we were about 10), and we actually credit him with starting our love of movies.  He was also at one time the world’s largest collector of science fiction memorabilia, and as a literary agent discovered young Ray Bradbury, and even acted as agent for L. Ron Hubbard, but we never held THAT against him.

We were privileged to meet him twice (once in Denver with WSB Business Development, where we conversed in Esperanto and he showed us the Dracula crest ring he received from Bela Lugosi — and once in an Irish bar in LA with Bikinginla, where FJA was a special guest along with Korla Pandit).  He will be missed.