7th Dimension Games is hosting a special pre-release tournament for Magic 2011, the latest core set for the Magic the Gathering collectible card game. Cards are not available for direct sale until July 15th, but players can get a sneak peak at the store’s special pre-release party on Sunday, July 11th.

At noon players can get their 7 booster packs, the promo card Sun Titan, and as many lands as they want. Players then open the packs and create a 40 card deck (the recommended size for a booster draft is 6 packs, but 7th Dimension Games will be using the 7th pack for thematic reasons). The store will be running a “Swiss tournament”, with probably 4 rounds (this will be based on head count). The entry fee for the tournament is $25. For each player that registers for the tournament, there will be 2 booster packs added to the prize pool. The top half of the tournie players will get at least one booster pack (exact counts determined by the head count).

And did I mention there’s free pizza involved?

7th Dimension Games is located at 1128 Easton Road, Rosyln, PA 19001. It is one block away from the Roslyn Train Station (take the R2 Warminster from Philadelphia, then walk north along Easton Road). The event begins at noon this Sunday, July 11th.

Magic the Gathering not your thing? 7th Dimension Games hosts weekly games of D&D Encounters, Legends of the 5 Rings, Blood Bowl, Flames of War, Call of Cthulhu, and more, along with several open gaming sessions. Visit 7thdimensiongames.com for a complete schedule.

Beep blip boop! All aboard the chiptune express.

I remember the very first 8static so many moons ago, when it was just a handful of geeks blasting blips through two amps, projecting neon flashes onto a sheet in Liberty Lands park. The neighbors called the cops, unsure of what was happening. How far it has come!

As we all know, 8static has migrated to West Philly and has had quite a successful run. City geeks are thrilled to welcome chiptune legend Neil Voss to deliver new,  hard-hitting Game Boy tunes. If you aren’t familiar– Neil produced, composed, and engineered the whole soundtrack for Tetrisphere.

Other performances will be by Void Vision, Peter Swimm and Da Pantz with visuals by 8static regular, VBLANK.

Back in June, we were extremely psyched to announce Tesla Fest, a weekend long celebration to the great adventure on Independence Mall.

Well, the weekend is finally here.

The Tesla Science Foundation’s weekend-long bash in honor of the legend-once-played-by-David-Bowie. You can look forward to a special exhibit at the Independence Visitor Center, as well as a dinner and concert at the Arch Street Meeting House.

For more information on the festival, visit the Tesla Science Foundation’s official website.

Enjoy the weekend!

Tesla Fest in Philadelphia [ www.teslasciencefoundation.org ]

Gregory Frost, Appearing at the Festival This Weekend

Don’t be fooled by the website’s flower splattered header. The content inside features a bevy of geek-tastic, science fiction filled awesomeness.

The annual book festival in Chestnut Hill is this weekend, running July 9th through the 11th. The literary celebration brings with it a number of local and nationally recognized science fiction authors.

Included in the line up are Tom Purdon, Gregory Frost, Lawrence Schoen, Gardner Dozois, and Camille Bacon-Smith, reading selections from their respective works and running workshops.

With panels boasting names like An Introduction to Space Westerns (Firefly?!) and Time & Quantum Mechanics, its certainly a weekend worth attending.

Chestnut Hill Book Festival [ www.chestnuthillpa.com ]

Did you hear that? The sound of thousands of angry gamers crying out in unison? Blizzard Entertainment better batten down the hatches, because they have a virtual mob armed with pixel pitchforks headed their way.

Why? It’s all because of a “blue” (i.e., developer) post over on the official Blizzard forums about a key change about to take place. Blizzard is pushing through a significant upgrade to their account system called “Real ID” that will allow their customers to connect to each other across game factions, realms, etc. That doesn’t sound so bad, does it? Except that your Real ID will soon be your username on the Blizzard forums. And thus the angry mob was formed.

More after the jump!

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Ah, the Golden Age of PC adventure gaming. How I long for those simple, point and click days. I spent many hours of my youth playing LucasArts and Sierra adventure RPGs. From Quest for Glory to Police Quest, Day of the Tentacle to Loom… sigh. They just don’t make games like those anymore.

When Quest for Glory II: Trial By Fire was re-released and revamped by ADG Interactive, I was absolutely thrilled. When Phoenix Online Studios’ The Silver Lining was shuttered by Activision, I was heartbroken. This fan-made, labor of love almost didn’t see the light of day. Read more about why on Joystiq.

Well, good news! Phoenix Online and Activision have made an agreement to release the project as a free, downloadable series. The debut episode, What is Decreed Must Be, will be released this Saturday, July 10th, with several more installments coming throughout 2010.

It’s a brand new King’s Quest game, starring King Graham. Get psyched, kids. This is awesome. Check out the trailer below.

Heads up Xbox gamers, Mega Man 10 is currently only 400 MS Points this week, part of Xbox Live’s “Spring ’10 Leftovers” promotion.

Just thought I’d give you the heads up, on this incredibly fun, nostalgia packed, and practically-impossible game.

Other games include After Burner Climax (400MSP) and Scrap Metal (800MSP), but really, all we care about here on Geek is Mega Man 10. Go get it.

Mega Man 10 [ www.xbox.com ]

When you mention anime to almost anyone, the first film that seems to come to the mind of most people is Katsuhiro Otomo’s iconic Akira.

The gateway drug into anime  in the 90’s; Akira has stood the test of time. It’s practically the Snow White of anime. I remember preordering the VHS at Suncoast. Akira changed my perspective on what I thought an animated cartoon was capable of.  That is why, while visiting family in Pittsburgh this July 4th weekend, I stopped off at the excellent Toonseum in Pittsburgh; to check out their Art of Akira exhibit.

This is the largest exhibit of production art from the film available on display to the public, and for a mere $4 you definitely get your money’s worth. While reading about the exhibit I was expecting a lot less than what was actually on display. I was pleasantly surprised to see a number of choice cells of some great scenes in the film.

One thing you don’t get from watching the film is the sense of obsessiveness that went into the production of Akira, and its one thing that comes across very clear in this exhibit. Looking at the artwork up close you can see the insane amount of detail that went into cell and backgrounds that were only on screen for a fraction of a second.

The exhibit will be up until July 18^th and if you can’t make it, check out my Flickr feed of pics here I took on my visit.

Kanedaaaaa!!!!!!!!!

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Swiss Army Knives . All opinions are 100% mine.

Recently, Victorinox was kind enough to send me their latest knife, the Victorinox Dual Pro X. Oddly enough, it was perfect timing, as I was in the process of moving to my new apartment.

I remember my first Swiss Army knife. It was back during my Boy Scout days. It was large, weighed down with a number of things I never used. I mean seriously, who ever uses the toothpick? This new multi-tool is a big step up.

The Dual Pro X isn’t your typical Swiss Army knife, the sort that dishes out a multitude of ultimately never-used tools and gadgets. Ditching the beefy, shorter model for a lengthy, slender, and incredibly attractive design, the Dual Pro X contains the basics. Large blades, screwdrivers (large and small), a can and bottle opener, and a wire stripper. Just the stuff you need to get the job done.

Now, despite my large collection of easily assembled / broken down Ikea furniture, the multi-tool certainly came in handy. The locking screwdriver helped reassemble several large items around my new place, from my bed to my bookshelves, and the bottle opener… well, nothing like rewarding yourself with a bottle of Dogfish Head after a long day of moving, am I right?

The multi-tool current retails for $65 off the Victorinox webstore. Check it out here.

Now, Victorinox is hosting a contest on their Facebook fan page dishing out free products and a chance to win a $25,000 ‘Ultimate Adventure’.

Pay a visit to the fan page, make sure you fan ‘em, and learn all about the contest.

Thanks again to Victorinox for sending the Dual Pro X multi-tool over.

Danger After Dark Philly’s premier international horror and all-things-weird film festival, will be creeping back into the Ritz at the Bourse for its 10th year running; July 9th thru the 19th.  The festival is sponsored by the great folks over at the TLA, who are also running Q Fest from the 8th to the 19th, and will feature several great titles that will have you checking all your inhibitions and good taste at the door.

With such films on the slate as RoboGeisha, Amer, Dogtooth and Big Tits Zombie 3D, this year looks to be full of insanity, and you do not want to miss this.  Tickets are a mere $10 a film and going fast, since this is the first time some of these films are being shown here in the states. For complete ticket information check out their website here.

I honestly can’t wait for Danger After Dark, and haven’t been this excited since last year’s Exhumed 24 Hour Horror-thon!

After the Jump Check out a Full List of Titles and Showtimes

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We don’t necessarily cover corporate acquisitions here, but we’re big fans of Woot! I’m entirely hoping that I’m not alone when I can safely say I’ve spent multiple nights staying up until 1am EST to catch the latest Woot deal. In fact, the neglected PC tower sitting next to me, that seemed like a great idea at the time, even originated from Woot. I’ve amassed a plethora of trinkets and gadgets at bargain rates over the years. Unfortunately, I’m still waiting for the day where I can attain a “Random Bag of Crap”. How many of you have nice collections of t-shirts from Shirt.Woot? Heck, considering SmartPost is literally the slowest and cheapest way to ship something between two points on this continent, I’m still waiting for one.

A at the same time, we’re also big fans of Amazon. Incidentally, I know many folks that would habitually check Woot and then also check Amazon’s Gold Box (Daily Deal) (an idea that essentially morphed into an existence pretty similar to that of Woot). Considering the kind of awesome company that Zappos is, post-acquisition. We’re entirely confident that Woot will retain their culture of being big geeks and weirdos. If their initial letter from their CEO didn’t indicate that more clearly, I don’t know what would.

Depending on how you look at it though, that brilliant writing from Matt Rutledge (CEO – Woot.com) may have been blown away by the video of this rapping monkey. See below.