300 director Zack Snyder understands and appreciates the fanboy brain. Realizing that Watchmen, the sacred graphic-novel text he's been entrusted to adapt for Warner Bros. (and that Fox is suing to desist), is now "officially one year and counting" from its premiere, he's posted a series of high-quality photographs of the major characters in costume to tide them over until then. One glimpse at the attention to detail (check out those heavy-duty codpieces!) paid to the Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), Nite-Owl (Patrick Wilson), and Ozymandias (Matthew Goode) is sure to send the legions of fanboys who waited 22 years for this day running directly into their bathrooms, with strict orders to their moms that they aren't to be disturbed.

Valleywag party expert Megan McCarthy crashes Yahoo's bash at the Web 2.0 Summit, sucks on flavored oxygen, and reports.

By Megan McCarthy

Valleywag party correspondent Megan McCarthy double-dipped at last night's parties for phone-privacy service Jangl and canine social network Dogster.

By Megan McCarthy, Valleywag party correspondent

Last night, Digg founder Kevin Rose and pals celebrated the relaunch of his Revision 3 online TV network with a party at Mighty, a San Fran venue currently sporting sculptures of flying underwear (really. Don't know why). Scott Beale provides the photos below.

Now that TechCrunch blog founder Michael Arrington moved his monthly megabashes elsewhere, he can hold intimate house parties again. Last night, Mr. Bubble-blower had some guests over to his Atherton ranch after the Future of Web Apps conference in San Francisco. Scott Beale, the Frank Worth of Web 2.0, shot these pics.

Last night, Yelp held a fantastic bash for its users, giving geeks a lesson in real San Francisco partying. Valleywag intern Beth Gottfried dug through the photos by Mitchell Aidelbaum and added commentary.

What's a little startup to do when it's invited to two schmoozetastic parties in one night? Send the CEO to one and the marketing director to the other, natch. Yes, more than one startup actually did this (and several others hit both parties despite the hour commute) last night with Palo Alto's Stirr Mixer and Om Malik's GigaOM party.

GigaOM blogger Om Malik is taking his tech site from hobby to business. His alma mater, Business 2.0, held a patio party for him at the Hotel Vitale. Guests included B2 editor Josh Quittner, Craigslist creator Craig Newmark, and a whole gang of delightful snarkers. These photos are from Scott Beale (aka "Long Tentacle") from Laughing Squid.

Valleywag usually doesn't run party pics more than a day after the event, but this weekend's bash was way too fun (you should have been there!) to pass up. Valleyschwag, the corporate-goodies-of-the-month-club run by the web developers at Rubyred Labs, hosted a hoedown at its office in San Fran's SOMA district. The dazzling shots above and below are by I-can't-believe-he's-not-pro photographer Scott Beale.

Okay, since everyone asked, here's your fanservice. Now geez, Robert Scoble, stop with the booty calls.

Everyone appreciated a break from sucking down coffee at conferences to suck down free martinis at the Anu Bar for Digg's San Francisco party. The social news site previewed its next version, launching Monday. Thanks to Laughing Squid's Scott Beale for these shots!

Valleywag's first SloshCon at the House of Shields was so successful that my hangover's having baby hangovers. Remember the live-audience interviews and speeches on the game plan? Scrapped. We didn't want to ruin the vibe (half the crowd had arrived in the first 20 minutes), so we all kept on drinking and bullshitting one-on-one. (Top photo by Jeremiah Owyang)

Coders converged in South San Francisco this weekend for SuperHappyDevHouse 10 (or "DHX"), a competitive version of the popular Valley coding fest. Teams cranked out startups that are now running, without any extra admin work, to see which rakes in the most cash. Attendee Tom Harrison let Valleywag abuse his pics of the event.

Dorky button-downs, laptop bags, and ten guys for every girl — welcome back to high school chess club! TechCrunch blogger Michael Arrington held a dorkolicious Web 2.0 (TM) party this weekend in Seattle. An attendee and pic-provider says,

Wrap up the Powerbook cord and follow Esther Dyson to the next con — the D Conference winds down today. For actual news from people who are there, check out the Wall Street Journal's blog. (Favorite post: Turning the schmaltz up to 11.) For trumped-up news filtered through the snark machine, look no further. Photos by ZDNet reporter Dan Farber.

Journos Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher had a grand time hosting the Wall Street Journal's D Conference, or at least they've learned to fake it. Reporter Dan Farber has a write-up at ZDNet, and he kindly lent his event photos. Here they are, misinterpreted.

Hacks and flacks wished Andrew Orlowski (pictured, the one with his hair on top) farewell last night with a calm happy hour at the Edinburgh Castle Pub. His exit dilutes the pool of Valley journalism, as the Register reporter was a long-time snarker and Google hound (one confident enough to snub Google Press Day). Now, after five years in the Valley, he's headed back to England.

The Weber Shandwick takeover of Valleywag continues with WS legal practice guru Lucas Mast's report on this week's Third Thursday. In this edition of the PR and marketing talk series, PR blogger Jeremy Pepper MC'd a panel of corporate-blogging masters. If you're feeling cynical this morning, just read Lucas's three bullets and be done with it. We'll see if our boy Lucas can learn to stop paying attention to the actual talks and give us the nitty gritty, like whether someone got Steve Rubel drunk. In the meantime, Mr. Bright and Sunny pimps Third Thursday.