In a truly sad day for the nerd realm, Gary Gygax, co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons, has passed away today.

Gygax (a pretty neat name for a wizard character if you ask me) had been suffering from heart and other health problems over the past few years, including an abdominal aneurysm. He died in his home in Lake Geneva, WI, and is survived by his wife and six children.

Though it’s the butt of many jokes — and certainly has been shrouded in a good deal of controversy over the years — it’s hard to deny Dungeons & Dragons’ influence on popular culture over the past three decades. The tabletop role-playing game spawned a Saturday morning cartoon, countless fantasy novels and films and inspired many fantasy-related video games.

Gygax helped created the Dungeons & Dragons and Advance Dungeon & Dragons game systems in the early 1970s. The first rule books were released in 1974. The game was originally released by TSR, but has since been revamped by Wizards of the Coast, which also produces the popular fantasy-themed card game Magic the Gathering. Though Gygax hadn’t been involved in Dungeons & Dragons for years, he also had a hand in creating other RPGs for Troll Lord Games.

At your next gaming session, raise your goblets and tip a little mead to your buddy Gary. Rest in peace.

Today, Sony Pictures announced that it had acquired all North American and all English-language distribution rights to Peter Jackson’s “secret” sci-fi movie, District 9. The Academy Award winning director and friend to elves, hobbits and any and all demi-humans everywhere, however, will not direct the feature. He will, instead, act as producer through his WingNut Films and Neill Blomkamp will direct. It’s Blomkamp’s feature debut, and he also wrote the film alongside Terri Tatchell. Blomkamp’s previous work includes short films for the Halo 3 launch, titled Landfall, and he’s also been attached to the forthcoming Halo film, which is now in pre-production.

Sony Pictures, understandably, is stoked.

“We have seen some of Neil’s enormously creative work launching Halo 3 and he is a true talent who understands how to use visual effects in full service of the story. With Peter Jackson and his team at WETA workshop working with Neil, we believe District 9 can be a true event tentpole on our release slate,” said Amy Pascal, Co-Chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment

Should you be stoked? I guess. It’s a little tough to get too worked up about a movie you don’t know anything about, but I’d probably watch someone take a dump if Peter Jackson’s name was attached to it. The film begins shooting in South Africa in Spring 2008, and those involved are being pretty tight-lipped about the plot. Expect to read a lot of half-truths and rumors to flooding a nerd-centric message board near you.