Boyd Performing in Beecake, Live Photography by C&J Photos

The other day, I was fortunate enough to talk on the phone with Scottish actor Billy Boyd, best known for his role as the troublesome Pippin Took in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings Trilogy, as well as ill-fated Barett Barden in Peter Weir’s Master & Commander: The Far Side of the World

Boyd’s band, Beecake, is on their first American tour, and will be visiting Philadelphia next Wednesday, October 7th. They’ll be performing at the Tin Angel, a small, cozy music venue located right outside of Old City. Rest assured, the Geekadelphia crew will be there, psyched to welcome Boyd and his band. After all, it’s their first time coming to Philadelphia, and we’re gonna have to show them around.

Boyd (Right) as Pippin in Lord of the Rings

In a phone conversation that lasted nearly 40 minutes, Boyd talked about his upcoming show at Radio City Music Hall with composer Howard Shore, his musical influences, his favorite video games and graphic novels, what it’s like partying with Russell Crowe, and the origin of his band’s name. He even mentioned his favorite kind of cupcake, the sort that our friends at Open Source Cupcakes will probably be supplying.

So read on! Boyd’s a great guy, and I can’t wait to his band next Wednesday.

So, Beecake is coming to Philly! Is this your first time visiting Philadelphia? Are you excited about seeing anything here in particular?

Yeah! Well, what we’re doing at the moment is trying to get together some suggestions from American friends who have been to the city. People we know are putting together a list of things we can’t afford to miss while we’re here. Gonna wait and see. Definitely going to have to walk around Old City. Looking forward to it.

Tell our readers about your band. Who are some of your influences?

Me and the guitarist BJ [Billy Johnson] went to school together, played music together all our lives. John, the drummer, we had our first band together when we like… 15 years old. So I played with him a lot. And Rick the bassist, he played in bands, and we knew him as a great musician. When we got this together, it was just friends getting back together again. And as I started writing, it became a lot more serious. It took off from there. We didn’t want it to be a serious thing, but the music is serious, but the more we got into it, the more serious it became. Spent a lot of energy trying to get the music right.

Influences? Everything from the Beatles to the Who kind of influence us. And Radiohead. Huge strain of influences. On our Myspace page, we have it written down. There’s like one hundred on there [laughs]. We tried to narrow it down to about 30.

And Beecake? What can you tell us about the name?

That came from Dom [Dominic Monaghan], a great friend of mine. He played Merry in Lord of the Rings. He was on holiday from Lost and took three months off, decided to go Spain. While he was in Spain he was sending me the photographs of everywhere he was. One day on a beach, one day in a pub with people he met, etc… and one day he sent me a picture of a cake cooovered in bees. He went into a bakery and one of the cakes was just covered in bees. All the way. There were bees flying around, but they absolutely loved this cake. He sent me the picture, calling it a “the beecake” and I just thought it was a great sounding word. That’s how we came up with Beecake.

Boyd talks about this favorite comics, video games, being an actor-in-a-band, Howard Shore, and more, after the jump!

(more…)

Last week I got the opportunity to have a chat with Jeff Witzke whom you might recognize as the star of House Husbands, the web series I previously reviewed earlier this week on Geekadelphia. Jeff is an actor and writer from Los Angeles, California. Some of Jeff’s most memorable roles include the kidnapper in Jason Reitman’s film Thank You For Smoking, the uber-Hollywood baby talent agent in last season’s Nip/Tuck, and on stage as Brother Brightbee, in the eleven month Los Angeles run of the smash-hit Book Of Liz, by Amy and David Sedaris.

Recently, Jeff just celebrated the world premiere of Reitman’s newest film, Up In The Air, where he has a cameo opposite George Clooney. Jeff will also be in the season premiere of The Mentalist opposite Simon Baker. I had a lot of fun chatting with Jeff about everything from why he decided to produce his own web series to what was his favorite Star Wars film.

Can you tell me a bit about how a your background, and why you decided to become an actor?

I guess my major interest started in high school, my best friend and I always just loved fooling around and making our own home videos. So then we decided to get involved with school plays as well. We both got cast in the various plays, and acting in those really got me into loving acting. I still continued to make home videos for our friends and family, and that really solidified “Oh this is fun, I like doing this!”.

I saw you continued your career in college, on a student produced college sitcom. How was the transition from a college run sitcom to national TV and film?

You know that was actually a fantastic opportunity, because I haven’t since heard of many colleges that have a school sitcom being produced on campus. The great double edge sword of that is, it was student produced, student written and student acted as well. There was little bit of faculty oversight, but they really let us do whatever we wanted so we could learn from our successes and on the other side of it, we learn from our failures as well. So it was a fantastic learning experience, and one of those great exercises in learning by doing. Some of the skills I learned by doing that I completely carried it over to working on professional TV shows. So in some of my acting classes I was proud to say, “Oh I’ve done some sitcom work in my college.” The great thing is that show it’s called The Show at Michigan State is still being produced today, 20 years later it’s still running and is known as the longest running sitcoms in college history.

(more…)

You might have noticed the “JOB BRD” ad on the right hand side of our website. You may have even clicked it. But for those of you who haven’t (note to potential advertisers, almost everyone has, buy ads, now!), you definitely need to check Technically Philly’s job board.

Looking for a job? It’s free to apply for gigs via their job board. They’ve got everything color coded and categorized; freelance jobs, full-time, part-time, internships… everything is easy to look up and easy to sort through, unlike ad-ridden sites like Monster or Career Builder.

A company looking to hire? With Tech Philly’s ever-growing community of loyal, dedicated readers, it’s easily one of the best places to find tech-savvy locals. Listings for full time jobs cost a meager $50, everything else, $25.

So yeah, check it out. You might find a career that suits you, or end up with a fantastic employee.

Technically Philly’s Job Board
www.technicallyphilly.com/jobs

Ever wanted to be able to solve a problem using anything (and we mean anything) you could think up? Welcome to the ultimate sandbox game on the Nintendo DS, 5th Cell’s Scribblenauts. This quirky not-so-little number by the now famed developer literally allows you to create just about anything you could imagine to solve its hundreds of puzzles.

To break it down a bit, the game could be described as a series of critical thinking problems. Think of those word problems in your math classes, but subtract the boredom and numbers. Well, you do need to be mindful of Maxwell’s (that little dude in the rooster hat up there) par, or the number of objects you can create before losing the maximum available reward in Ollars, the currency in the world of Scribblenauts.

The game is separated into 10 worlds each containing 22 levels with 11 action stages and 11 puzzle stages (that’s 220 levels for those who don’t like math). The action stages present a Starite (the goal of each level) immediately, but require you to reach it using the notepad or type mechanic. However, the puzzle stages present a problem for you to solve, using the creation tool, in order to make a Starite appear. More specifics after the break.

(more…)

No, we aren’t just talking about most prime-time reality TV here, folks. This short vlog is a hilarious breakdown about a performance artist who ended up making art that would… help chickens? Pretty cool social commentary and some pretty geeky stats.

Enjoy.

Just because the Geekadelphia crew are geeks, doesn’t mean we don’t like a good party. After-all, there was that crazy VIP Yacht party last week, and our Section 8 celebration back in August. So we can all certainly appreciate this bash at the Chemical Heritage Foundation, the place to get your learn-on about the history of chemicals.

This Thursday night, October 1st, the Chemical Heritage Foundation will host a party to watch the live webcast of the 2009 Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony. Now if that isn’t geek-tastic, I’m not sure what is. But wait… Ig Nobel Prize? Isn’t it just the Nobel Prize? Nope, this isn’t the regular Beautiful Mind sort of award ceremony. The Ig Nobel Prize honors “achievements that first make people laugh and then make them think. The prizes celebrate the unusual, honor the imaginative, and spur interest in science, medicine, and technology.”

You need to register by… well, today. So get on that, and watch it on the big screen at the CHF. They’ll be open late, so attendees can explore the other exhibits.

UPDATE: The CHF has informed us that they’ve extended the registration to include walk-ins. So come on by. There will be cookies.

Ig Nobel Prize Screening Party @ Chemical Heritage Foundation
Thursday, October 1st, 2009
www.chemheritage.org/events/event-detail.asp?id=497

It sure seems that way as DICE’s Battlefield Heroes, the free-to-play (F2P) iteration of Electronic Arts’ (EA) widely popular Battlefield franchise, has just reached 2 million unique user accounts since its June launch. Considering Blizzard’s Word of Warcraft has amassed 12 million subscribers (at $15 monthly) worldwide in the past 5 years, this is quite an achievement.

This trend isn’t exactly new, however it seems EA and DICE have had such large success due to either the Battlefield moniker or they have perhaps done the micro-transaction method right. Perhaps we should elaborate that F2P games, generally PC or Mac only, are games that require no retail purchase nor subscription fee yet offer perks and other little goodies such as experience point bonuses and cosmetic upgrades for bits of cash.

Several developers and publishers have released, or re-released their franchises using this model and have been wildly successful. While there aren’t any official statistics out there to our knowledge, it should be safe to say that millions upon millions of gamers are currently playing at least one F2P game (guilty as charged).

What does this mean for the future of online games like MMOs or online enabled FPS games? Could all games at some point become F2P, in some measure of the word? Would you consider playing one of these increasingly popular F2P titles? Lastly, what do you think of the micro-transaction system and its effect on gameplay? You know where to go!

Recently I had the chance to check out 2 episodes of the upcoming web-based comedy series House Husbands, not to be confused with the reality show House Husbands of Hollywood currently airing on the Fox Reality Channel.  The basic premise of the show goes like this – Brian, played by Jeff Witzke shows up for work one day, only to be most unceremoniously laid-off from his job. Upon finding this out he does what any guy would do and calls up his two best friends Mark(a stay at home dad-played by Michael Cotter) and Tommy(who just likes to stay home and play Halo 3-played by Darren O’Hare) for a bit of comfort and a bite to eat. At that fateful meal he decides that he is not going to tell his wife that he has been laid-off, out of fear of what might happen to him. He also decides, because he has 6 months of severance pay and finding a job in the current economic climate maybe a bit difficult that he is going to spend that time hanging out with his friends and seeing what is on the other side of the looking glass.

House Husbands follows this geeky trio as they roam the female dominated world of domestic engineering and yes, hilarity does indeed ensue. One thing I immediately noticed about the show was the focus on a demographic other than the 18-24 year old, which I found very refreshing. All the characters are seem to be comfortably married and some with kids, yet they still play videogames and make Star Wars references. It was nice to be watching characters not only could I identify with, but whom I could see myself in some of the same situations.  One scene that really kind of stood out to me was, Brian and Tommy who are waiting for Mark while he visits a pre-school are having a lightsaber duel using iPhones and the Lightsaber app outside in the parking lot. I am over 30, and yes I have done this.

(more…)

Guest Post & Photography by Alexis Lerro

Here at Geekadelphia we aren’t necessarily know for our dancing skills… well, unless you’re talking about DDR. Contrary to what you might think, some of us have been know to cut a rug and enjoy the occasional dance beat, which we did last night at the 23rd Street Armory thanks to Kia. In town for four days promoting their newest car the Soul, Kia hosted the jump off fete last night. We got to mingle, test drive the cars, get our photos taken with robots and hear some fantastic sets by DJ Paul Devro–all before Portland-based Yacht took the stage (and floor) to blow our minds with their performance-art-y / inspirational speaker-ish brand of electronic music for one of the best shows we’d seen.

In case you missed it, you have three more days to check out the event. There are more performances tonight, tomorrow and Sunday by the likes of Popo, Amanda Blank, The Drums, Francis and Lights and MGMT, plus deejay sets by Sammy Slice, Nick the V, Dirty South Joe, DJ Sega and Dave P.

Thanks to Kia for inviting us to this event, and letting us show Philly that even geeks know how to party. It was a blast.

Scope out some more photos from the event here, on Flickr.

Ah, yes. Omoi. Every self respecting Philadelphia geek’s favorite boutique. You can find this unassuming little treasure-of-a-store in Rittenhouse, right on 16th and Pine.

Tomorrow they’ll be hosting a 20% off sale, on everything in the store, all day. There’s a ton of great Japanese toys to choose from, vinyl figures galore. You’ll also find Japanese inspired toys, stationary, clothes, fantastic prints, candles… the list goes on. I could ramble, but you’d be better off checking out their website and online store. Also, be sure to scope out their official blog, where they post about new items and events.

Go hit up the sale, and tell Liz I said hi.

Omoi
www.omoionline.com

Is it already almost time for Ignite Philly 4?! I still remember when the first one was organized. Where does all the time go?!

Ignite 4 is looking for your input (YOU!) for possible speakers at the next Ignite Philly, which will be going down on October 13th at… do I really need to tell you? Johnny Brenda’s. Not familiar with Ignite? Here, let me tell you a tale. A tale directly from Ignite Philly’s about section.

Ignite Philly is part of a worldwide network that entertains and educates people in short 5 minute bursts. Ignite Philly is the local group, and is our way to highlight great ideas coming to life here in Philadelphia. Each presenter is on stage for  a total of 5 minutes (20 slides, at 15 seconds each slide). These talks are a ’spark’ if you will, they are lightening fast and leave people with a new idea to mull over and talk about.

Ignite is all about presenting ideas, and not promoting your company (please see Ideablob for that). Their official website has a couple videos for you to scope out for outstanding examples, and even a wonderful quote from Technically Philly’s Brian James Kirk. They’re seeking passionate folks talking passionately about “inspiring projects (primarily) in the Philadelphia region.” Head over to their website to sign you, or someone you know, up for the bill.

See you there, and be sure to follow Ignite on Twitter.

Ignite Philly 4: October 13th @ Johnny Brenda’s
www.ignitephilly.org

Heroes premiered it’s 4^th season Monday night, and while I sat there passively watching, I felt much like you do when you have decided you have broken up with someone, but you still show up to their birthday. Because even though you know in your heart it’s over – it’s a really crappy thing to do, breaking up with someone on their birthday. Well now that the premier is over I am taking my toothbrush and my DVDs and getting out of this relationship – while I still can hold my head up high. I’m not the only one, apparently 60% of their audience has also said, very awkwardly “It’s not you it’s me. But let’s just be friends, ok?”.  As this is like most break-ups in my life, it is a bit of a messy one. So to air my dirty laundry here are my 6 reasons why I am dumping this loser series and why you should too. Warning there are spoilers to be had.

(more…)