What do recycling broken umbrellas, puppies in raincoats and a serious self-starter all have in common? Well, you’re about to find out in today’s Geek of the Week, a weekly column on some of the finest folks in Philly up to some crazy/awesome things.

This week we talk to Taryn Zychal, product designer, recycler and out-spoken entrepreneur.

Let’s hear it, Taryn. Tell me about yourself. What do you do?

I’m a 26-year old eco-minded product designer originally from Scranton, PA. I came here in 2004 to pursue a degree in Industrial Design. Since graduating, I’ve done a plethora of different things such as extensive marketing work for some of the country’s most recognizable brands to heading a graphic design department literally Photoshopping models’ imperfections for 8 hours a day.

However, the job that essentially changed my life was a brief stint I did at Terracycle, designing a laptop carriers from reclaimed billboard material and pet products from cardboard. I was hired as a fulltime employee and eventually got pushed down to freelance after the huge economic crisis hit.

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Guest Post by Sarah Solomon

But seriously, where has all the rum gone?

Swashbucklers unite! The Captain Jack Sparrow Handbook is the swarthy sailors guide to a life of debauchery on the high seas and beyond.

Whether you need a lesson on How To Cheat Death ranging from How To Fight A Tavern Full of Angry Men or The Legend of the Fountain of Youth you’ll be entertained from start to finish.

Author Jason Heller leaves no stone- or rum barrel unturned as he covers every topic imaginable from pirate fashion to ship parts. Delightful illustrations and Pirates Of The Caribbean movie stills are throughout the book, and no fan will be left disappointed.

Whether you want to learn the ways of a pirate or just have a thing for Johnny Depp (It’s okay, the first step is always admitting it) then I wholeheartedly suggest The Captain Jack Sparrow Handbook, yet another delightful read from Quirk Books.

Interested in a copy? I’ve got one to giveaway to a lucky reader. Just leave a comment about your favorite movie pirate, and I’ll pick one of you at random sometime next week. Good luck!

The Conserve Socket is a part of Belkin’s eco-friendly product line aimed to reduce energy consumption. How? Well with an easy to set timer, it completely shuts off whatever device is plugged into it once the preset time expires. This durable product can be used throughout the house for multiple devices.

In my experience with the product, which Belkin was kind enough to send over, I’ve found it to be ideal for cell phone chargers, most consumer electronics, space heaters, coffee makers and irons. Clearly labeled buttons, simple packaging and reasonable pricing make it a no brainer for your average technophile.

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Attention local artists!

Our good friends ALBOTAS (A Little Bit of Awesome on the Side) are putting together a custom toy show at the 1UP Collectibles comic shop out in Reading, PA. It’s a great collectibles joint about 45 minutes outside of Philadelphia.

Right now they’re shooting for early July, and need custom toys sent in by the end of June. Artists will be able to sell / display their work in the shop, and the works will be up in the store the entire month.

Interested? Drop Rob a line. And be sure to follow ALBOTAS and 1UP on Facebook for more information as it comes.

ALBOTAS
www.albotas.com/contact

This week in the Comic Roundup we look at DC’s big summer event Flashpoint, celebrate the new Jim Starlin series Breed III and sniff that new mutant smell with the New Mutants.

Flashpoint #1
By Geoff Johns and Andy Kubert

I have always been a sucker for alternate universe stories. The Age of Apocalypse, DC’s Elseworlds titles and House of M are some of my favorite comics. So I assumed that Flashpoint would be right up my alley. A new and dangerous reality that only The Flash can fix, I thought “sign me up”.

But maybe I should have read the fine print first…

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Last year, Geekadelphia teamed up with Gillette to dish out nearly five hundred free Gillette Fusion razors. It was incredible. You all went nuts. And somehow along the line, I got quoted in GQ talking about how I started shaving when I was 10. It was embarrassing. I hope you’re all happy.

Well, we’ve teamed up for yet another giveaway.

See that widget over there on the right? Click away. We’ve got 350 in there, and who knows, if we get rid of enough, maybe they’ll fill that widget back up. Share the link with your friends, family, and hairy associates.

Oh, and be sure to follow Gillette on Twitter and Facebook. After-all, they are hooking you up with a free razor.

If you’re a child of the 80s and 90s you no doubt recall the comic stylings of Pauly Shore on MTV and in Encino Man and Bio-Dome. Well Pauly is coming to Philly and will be at The Trocadero (along with Steve Simeone and Pat House) this Thursday, May 19th.

Tickets for the show are $25 and can be purchased here on the Troc’s website. But if you can’t afford to check The Weasel, we have a couple of tickets here on Geekadelphia to give away courtesy of the Troc.

Wanna win? Simply comment with your favorite Pauly Shore film and why and the top answers by Wednesday night will be checking out the show free of charge!

Good luck!

I recently had a nice email chat with Joel Rickenbach, one of the kind gentlemen behind You’ve Got Geek, a local Philadelphia podcast about film, video games, books, music, comics… basically all wakes of media that appeal to us geeks.

Recent episodes have taken a look at Thor, Fast Five (hah!), and Water for Elephants. Stop by and catch up.

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Who doesn’t like cute and cuddly little video game characters? I would happily let a few PopCap zombies through my yard. I might even feed an Angry Bird if it happened to crash through my ceiling. Then I would probably give it directions to the nearest pig with no legs and a flimsy house.

Speaking of cute video game characters… meet Cloudy. He’s your average cloud with a few close friends, but he (and local Philadelphia based game developer Emmanuel Petti) need your help. A Cloudy Adventure is a new game for the iPhone being developed by Petti’s fledgling company SkyKey.

He needs a couple extra dollars to get Cloudy off the ground. Check out Petti’s Kickstarter and help to support a local developer. Then you can download Cloudy to your nifty smartphone and help him to escape the uncharted Pinelands where those devious Cheddar Bandits have marooned him.

Heads up Geeks. Back in March, we were psyched to announce the Academy of Natural Sciences launching their new Fore! exhibit, which will invite visitors to play mini-golf and learn about the environment in the museum.

Well, its May, and the exhibit is opening in two weeks (on Saturday, May 21st!) at this favorite institution of ours. Unlike a lot of the other temporary exhibits, this particular one isn’t a traveling exhibit. It’s an original, created using the research of the Academy’s own scientists.

We’ll be sending Corey to play the holes and take some photos, but until then, for more info on the upcoming exhibit, visit the Academy’s official website.

Environmental Mini Golf @ the Academy
May 21st – September 24th, 2011

Academy of Natural Sciences
1900 Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Philadelphia, PA 19103
(215) 299-1009
www.ansp.org

Zombies seem to be everywhere right now and if you are a horror fan you can’t seem to escape them. Well, local author Dennis Finocchiaro has gotten into the act with his very readable short story collection, The Z Word.

In it we get an assortment of tales from the zombie apocalypse, as found in some books by one of the survivors years later. It makes for an intriguing concept that works well with the short story format.

Each of the tales is a quick read, just vignettes really of lives interrupted by the coming of the undead. What I really thought was interesting was how some characters weave in and out of various stories, giving the book a sense of interconnectedness.

Plus where else are you going to read about geriatric zombies in a nursing home using walkers to creep up and attack people?

Dennis was nice enough to answer a couple questions for us about The Z Word and his other work.

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When it comes to geeky documentaries, I am pretty sure it doesn’t get any geekier than a doc about the Amiga, which was THE computer to have in the late 80s and early 90s.

Well local Philadelphia filmmaker Zack Weddington is sharing his love for the Amiga with his documentary Viva Amiga, currently in production. You can also donate to his Kickstarter here.

I’m quite possibly the only geek on the site to have owned an Amiga during its heyday, and look forward to checking out this great looking documentary when its finished.