Well, Geekadelphians, you damn well should be after watching its creator’s most recent video. We know, it’s awesome and more importantly looks legit (enough). Commence drooling.

But wait, there’s more: this nifty peripheral’s father, known on YouTube as the Red Neck Techie, is planning for a Christmas retail release. He will be taking pre-orders for this bad boy soon enough here but unfortunately has not yet released his asking price.

So, loyal readers, excited yet? If not for the possibilities this brings to the first-person shooter genre, be excited for what this technology (an apparent combination of existing retail items) could mean for other genres. Replace the gun portion of the controller with a wand and boom, you got a first-person adventure controller in vein of today’s point-and-click adventures. Let us know why you’re psyched (or not so much) in the comments section and be creative!

(Via Big Download)

Nom nom nom nom! Ben Kessler of Unbreaded

Philadelphia is a city full of geeks. Me and my pals here on Geekadelphia love to show that fact off, and now, once a week, we’ll be highlighting individual geeks here on the blog with Geek of the Week. The featured geek will have a little thumbnail over there on the right, along with their lovely face in our featured content section. Just another way for us to show off our awesome community, and hopefully, introduce you to some great people doing awesome things. Think you should be featured? Have a friend you’d like to see on here? Email us.

One of my favorite internet pals and food blogger extraordinaire, Ben Kessler, is unfortunate lucky enough to be our first Geek of the Week. For those of you who haven’t heard of Ben… well, that surprises me. Ben is one of the founders of Unbreaded, an excellent sandwich blog that recently won Best Food Blog in Best Of Philly. Needless to say, we were quite proud of this extremely justified award. Ben and his team update the site daily, with fresh reviews of sandwiches from around the city, each post accompanied by stunning photos and an in-depth review. And as you can imagine, Unbreaded has a Flickr feed that will make your mouth water.

So what’s the deal with Ben and his blog? What famous comic book hero would he split a sandwich with? Read on to find out!

Hey there Ben! Tell us a bit about yourself and Unbreaded!

I just officially graduated from Drexel University with a B.S. in Business Administration, but mostly I concentrated on Marketing. At Drexel we participate in a co-op program, which means 6 months out of the year I worked a full time job. I met Jeff Vogel at one of these jobs, and we soon became friends. Our daily conversations on food, blogging, technology and other things eventually lead to the idea of starting our own website. When we realized that there was no one writing about the most universal meal, sandwiches, Unbreaded was born!

Rest of the interview, after the jump!

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Last weekend I drove up to Jersey to attend Monster Mania Con 13, at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Cherry Hill, NJ.  One thing I do have to say is on arrival at the con it was packed, the parking lot and the con itself was literally bursting at the seems with people. When I finally found a parking spot and entered the hotel(parking was indeed free, but hard to find), something that became apparent and a reoccurring theme for me throughout the day was the lack of organization of the con.  There were no signs visibly posted to tell you where to go to check in at the con, and I actually ended up waiting in the wrong line thinking it was for registration.  Once I got checked in at con registration which was $20 for Saturday only, which I was actually pretty happy with, not only did they offer a one day pass but considering most con rates run $30-$60 for Saturday alone, I thought it was a pretty good deal.

Once I received my schedule I realized at a 3 day convention there was only one panel track with 14 panels, that were all held in the same room. There was no map in the program either, which would have been a bit helpful considering that things were not clearly labeled, and it took some wandering around to find out what was where. I have been to several horror cons in the past and honestly Wizard World(which is NOT a horror con) had more horror content(panel wise) than this convention. The panels were not moderated most had no introductions by the speakers, this led to a lot of awkward silence during the panels. One suggestion I have is in choosing cast members for these reunion panels, I really thought they should have chosen quality over quantity. A perfect example was the Halloween Reunion panel where one of the 3 panelists was the boy who played Michael Myers when he was 6 who really didn’t have much to offer on his experiences in the film, I mean he was after all he was only 6 years old.

Funny thing is there were bigger stars who never left their autograph tables, who I would have loved to see speak and do a panel on their experiences in the genre.  But here comes a big pet peeve of mine about horror cons is the way that “Celebrities” and I use that term loosely, overcharge for autographs at these things. I must have overheard several conversations of attendees complaining that actors were charging $20 for a cell phone picture with them. (more…)

Um, how cute is this for a coder girl? Present company excluded, I only have one or two cool developer gal pals and it’s no secret that the scales tend to tip 70/30 in the field. That’s usually not a big deal, but it seems that boys get to have all the fun with the geeky retail.

I actually don’t know how new this is… and it’s probably because I stopped checking ladies retail online before they did their site re-design, but …. it would appear that Think Geek finally got their act together and have some new shirts for gals! The new shirts are cute, too. Dig this girly sports tee that’s a nod to Douglas Adams, this witty interface tee and the HTTP undies I’ve wanted forever.

Also, this is probably the first of a few times that I’ll be finding myself wishing my new non-techy boyfriend would A) get the joke B) get me the shirt. I realized this after I saw his neighbors doormat, laughed… and explained it to him. He teases me a lot, but it’s fine: I like twitter, tabbed-browsing, InDesign, PHP, syntax jokes and –yes– I’m very opinionated about typefaces. If you ask me, I’m Jessica freaking Rabbit.

But hey, what can I say? I’m a self-rescuing princess. I’ll just end up ordering it and a million other things if I go back on Think Geek, anyway.

And, um, I’m a medium-large for anyone else who’d like to take this matter into their own hands.

Holy crazy packaging, Batman!

When I first heard about the Batman: Arkham Asylum Collector’s Edition(s) I knew, at once, that I had to have one. As anyone here at Geekadelphia will tell you, I am a sucker for limited, special, collector’s, and special-limited-collector’s edition games. I just can’t help myself. Ben has, time and time again, berated me for this vice of mine, especially after he saw my Soulcalibur IV Premium Edition, yet I continue to spend far too much money on pointless extras. And the Batman: AA CE comes with a Batarang (on a stand), a behind the scenes DVD, a ‘journal’ with a leather dust jacket, DLC, a massive plastic batarang case, stickers… just so much! How could I resist?! Stuff like this makes me happy.

What doesn’t make me happy? When advertisements for collector’s edition show off the product in an exaggerated light, leaving the consumer (me) quite upset. The supposedly awesome Batarang that comes with the Batman: AA CE? Made of plastic… and it’s scratched to all hell.The folks over at Ars Technica have a detailed article about the Batarang that perfectly sums up my thoughts. Which are essentially “hmph!” and “bah!” Come on Eidos, that was not cool.

Anyhow, I’ve got a gallery of the ‘unboxing’ after the jump, because Batarang aside, this is a pretty sweet looking CE. The ginormous case is going to look sweet on my shelf. The Batarang… that can stay inside.

Expect a full review in a few days… or whenever I finish this game. Extremely excited, especially with people proclaiming it to be this year’s Bioshock.

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Our boys over at Technically Philly write seriously good pieces. We’re talking quality journalism. We think they deserve more traffic, so we’ll be highlighting their articles at the end of the week. The Internet. It’s about sharing and caring, people.

Q&A With Thomas Morr – This is from last Friday, after I published the round-up. Check out the interview with the CTO of Select Greater Philadelphia

Philly’s Happy Cog Becomes Happy Cog East – That web development company that every Philly freelancer dreams of working for? Changed their name. Neat!

Comcast Roundup – This particular Thursday entry about Comcast is interesting, due to its mention of my homeslice, Scott McNulty (sup Blankbaby!) and his interview with… The Wiggles?

I don’t know about you but I am a big tea drinker and I am also a pretty big geek, that is why this site appealed to me in so many different ways. Adagio tea is a website that allows you create and sell your own blends of tea by first choosing 3 different kinds of tea and their percentage in the blend.  You can then also name your blend, describe it and then design a label. Apparently a lot of sci-fi, horror and fantasy fans seem to enjoy the site because just about every show or property you can image has its own blend of tea from Dexter’s Dark Passenger blend to TruBlood and there is Even a Dollhouse: Echo Blend to tell you the truth I want to try all of them.

The teas have reviews as well so you can have an idea of what you’re getting yourself into before your purchase them. The price is about $10 for a 4oz tin, which seems pretty reasonable. I honestly want to try the Zombie Killer blend, that promises to “wake you up with the smokey taste of gunpowder and the vibrant scent of a mint blend”, I’m sold!

Conventions. Every geek likes ‘em. Me and the geeks here at Geekadelphia? We’re no different. And this Fall is shaping up to be one hell of a great season for Cons around Philadelphia. The first one on our radar? Game Core Con out in Oaks, PA. Taking place in the new convention center, Game Core promises video game and playing card (ie: Magic the Gathering, Yu Gi Oh) tournaments galore. Celebrities appearances? Kind of. KITT from Knight Rider will be there, but alas, Mr. Feeney won’t be around to provide his voice. Here’s a bit about the con from the event’s website.

Game Core is not a new show but is really a show in its 5th year. Game Core has evolved from and, is presented by, Too Many Games. Too Many Games was a show that ran 5 times in the Reading, PA area after it evolved from East Coast Gaming Expo an event that ran for 3 years in Reading, PA.

Game Core is just that, the Core of gaming. While we see the differences between people who play video games, Arcade games, role-playing games, miniature games, and others, we don’t see it as a reason to keep them all separate. Game Core gathers the best of all types of gaming, and provides you the vendors, contests, tournaments, guests, and players you’re looking to find.

They’ve also got MC Lars and YT Cracker performing at a concert at the con.

One of the particular events of note, happens to be a birthday celebration for the Sega Dreamcast. With tourneys being held on two original Dreamcast store kiosks, system giveaways, game giveaways, 1,000 cupcakes and everyone singing happy birthday… yeah, this sounds like a proper b’day celebration for a wonderful old console.

Hope to see some of you there. We’ll be on the scene with video cameras, DSLRs, podcasting gear, and riot suits. What? We’ve got to protect Bianca from the inevitable onslaught of nerds amazed by a girl. We’re also looking forward to meeting our bros ALBOTAS. Brown Kidd? You. Me. Soulcalibur II competition. It’s on.

Game Core Con: September 12th, 2009
www.gamecorecon.com

I’ll be honest. I’m not a fan of protesting. I know I should be. I’m young, I’m a minority, and I can be quite the angry liberal. I’m also lazy, and playing video games sure does beat holding a sign up, or signing petitions, or holding up a petition to sign.

However, Philadelphia’s B.A.N.G. (Ban All Nukes Generation) have managed to steal my attention away from video games (where I happily use missiles). Calling themselves the “Millennial Generation”, their mission is clear. To “ban all nuclear weapons, and do it in this generation.” Every aspect of their work is “based on this core mission.”

Some aspects of this work? Dressing up as nukes. Sexy nukes, I might add.

Check out their official website for more information on what they’re doing. They throw events, from classroom video conferences to their recent Summer Film Series, the guys and gals (hi Kim!) do some really great work. They even create YouTube vids. This one stars our own Bianca Cevoli as a Nuclear Bombshell. Did you see that? Did you see what they did there?

Read up.

Bang USA
www.bang-usa.org

If you were lucky enough to attend the Battlestar Galactica panel this summer at Wizard World, you no doubt heard Edward James Olmos talk about the The Plan. The Plan is the follow up to the series, which is a feature length film that chronicles the Cylon side of things, throughout the show. Basically patching up some of the left over plot holes and tying up so loose ends left by the series.

The Plan, which will premiere exclusively on DVD, Blu-ray and digital download on October 27, will be later to be shown on The Syfy channel in late November. The artwork and specs for the release we recently released and are as follows:

Disc Features:
-DELETED SCENES
-FROM ADMIRAL TO DIRECTOR: EDWARD JAMES OLMOS AND THE PLAN – A day-in-the-life with director and actor Edward James Olmos, as he tackles the most ambitious Battlestar Galactica production to date.
-THE CYLONS OF THE PLAN – Features interviews with the actors who play the film’s key Cylons, including Dean Stockwell, Tricia Helfer, Grace Park, Michael Trucco, Rick Worthy and Michael Bennett.
-THE CYLON ATTACK – This featurette takes viewers behind the scenes for the planning and execution of one of Battlestar Galactica: The Plan’s major action sequences.
-BEHIND THE PLAN – An in-depth look at some stunning visual effects and the role post-production plays in bringing the world of Battlestar Galactica to life.
-FILMMAKER COMMENTARY

Sadly the only Blu-ray exclusive content is:

-MY SCENES: Bookmark your favorite scenes from the movie.
-BATTLESTAR GALACTICA TRIVIA: All-new trivia game.

The Blu-ray will be presented in 1080p, with English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 Surround Sound. To tell you the truth I can’t wait for this to be released.

via HighDefDigest

Contest is over! Thanks for entering!

Last week, HP was gracious enough to send me a rather sizable gift card to purchase this HP Mini XP Netbook, which I recently reviewed. The laptop has quickly become my personal, day-to-day computer, and I’m absolutely thrilled with it. You can read the review here. Even my bunny, Rory, seemed to enjoy the computer.

However, there were a lot of funds leftover from my netbook purchase, and HP was kind enough to let me spend the excess money on a good cause. As a result, Geekadelphia will be donating several brand new HP printers (specifically, a handful of these HP Deskjet D2660′s), to some in-need institutions around Philadelphia. We may host a book-drive or something to go along with this. Not sure yet. Details to follow.

In addition to dishing me out that gift card, HP also sent over a $250 gift card for me to give away on the site. That’s right, as much as it pains me, I’m giving away $250 in HP bucks. Want to win the gift card? Like all our contests, this one is easy. Just leave a comment letting us know which HP laptop is your favorite. Hit up their store, look around, and let us know what you liked. Official rules for their contest are located here. Basically, you’ve got to be over the age of 18, a US resident, can’t redeem the gift card for cash, and can’t be related to or living with any of the Geekadelphia crew. One entry per person.

What can you buy with $250 in HP cash? A ton of calculators, a printer (or four!), or even this other Mini Netbook, which’ll end up costing you a little less than $30 after that giftcard. Awesome. HP has also hooked us up with some excellent exclusive coupon deals. We’ve included them after the jump. Have a look.

Contest kicks off today, and will run until September 14th! We’ll randomly select our winner, and you’ll be notified via email. Good luck!

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Section 8 (Left), Tattooed Mom (Right) … Just in case there was any confusion.

Well, it’s here. The Section 8 party at Tattooed Mom. Party kicks off tomorrow at 8PM at our favorite South Street bar. You’ll catch me upstairs, dancing and partying the night away, while I give out posters, raffle off video games, arm wrestle Brian James Kirk (he has the strength of a bear, that has the strength of two bears), and chow down on some tasty custom made cupcakes. You may even catch me talking shop with the Technically Philly boys. After-all, we are throwing the party with ‘em. Where will you be?

The game hits stores on September 1st, but fear not. I’ll have some coupons that I’ll be raffling off, which you can trade in for a free copy of the game. For the PC or the Xbox 360. Your choice, thanks to SouthPeak, Timegate, and their wonderful PR team.

So far we’ve got nearly 50 people RSVP’d on Facebook, including folks from Philadelphia’s VGI, Joystiq, and… according to the rumor mill… a developer or two from Timegate. Awesome. This party is our way of trying to bring monthly video game release parties to our fine city, and we’ve had an excellent response from the community. Come join in the fun. You’ll enjoy it.

Section 8 Bash @ Tattooed Mom
Wednesday, August 26th @ 8PM