About a week ago Drew Bacon of Music Box Dynamo sent me a tweet about his ridiculously geeky guitar, The Poppler. After watching the clip that shows off the axe (and his vocal prowess), I had to post a little something about the instrument.

Drew admits that this isn’t the fanciest guitar in the world, a simple Fender DG8 acoustic guitar… but to him, it’s pretty damn special. It’s the guitar he learned how to play music on back in 2007.

Fast forward to 2011, and he’s regularly performing with a better guitar. He spotted his old ax sitting lonely in the corner and broke out pads of paper and pencils, furiously sketching characters he admired.

“It’s a little bit of good and evil,” says Bacon about the art on the guitar, “Superman, The Death Star, Bender, Leeloo Multipass, Lord Voldemort, The Bride, Spiderman, Philadelphia Skyline, Batman, The Joker, Captain America, A Snow Willow Tree, Wolverine, The Man With No Name, Mickey Mouse, an Iron Man [Arc Reactor], and a hidden hometown logo I don’t mention unless someone spots it.”

The whole thing took a little over two months to create, and it looks awesome. And in case you didn’t know, Poppler is a brilliant Futurama reference.

Make sure to check out Music Box Dynamo as they perform all around the city over the year. The song in the video is actually about their first show together. Hit up the band on their official website and on Facebook.

Being the film geek that I am, when I am not watching movies I’m probably either reading about them or listening to people talk about them.

Speaking of which, Film Versus Film is a great new weekly web series produced at our very own Temple University. The series features a different in-depth film discussion each week by a panel made up of local filmmakers, professors, critics and scholars.

While I am a fan of the series, I only wish that the shows were a bit longer, though the series looks quite polished and well produced. I highly suggest checking it out and you can see a sample episode below, enjoy!

Geekadelphia obviously hearts WordPress: it’s the very foundation of our beloved blog. And, as it turns out, we’re not the only ones in Philly who prefer to manage our content with Automattic’s open source system. There’s a great community of WordPress fans in our fine city, meeting monthly to discuss the popular blogging platform.

On November 5th and 6th at Temple University, that community will gather for the much bigger annual WordCamp Philly conference. With Saturday sessions for users, power users, designers and developers, WordCamp Philly covers all the bases, no matter what your specific interest.

Super-duper WordPress geeks can return to Temple on Sunday for more code-oriented fare like contributing to the underlying codebase that powers the platform and developing plugins that augment the great built-in functionality of WordPress.

The conference will include talks from a wide range of speakers, including one of those guys from that other blog. Of course, you may fancy yourself a WordPress guru, in which case you can cast aside all that humility we know you have for a moment and nominate yourself to speak at the event. And if a solid day or two of WordPress geekery just sounds like the best kind of weekend ever, hit the registration page to secure a spot.

Update: It looks like they’re sold out, but you can get on the waiting list here.

WordCamp Philly 2011
Temple University’s Alter Hall
1801 Liacouras Walk
Philadelphia, PA 19122-6083
Register here

Photo by Danya Henninger

Today’s Geek of the Week column features Collin Flatt, who a lot of you might know from his food writing here in Philadelphia. From Phoodie to the Feast, you’ve surely read his blogs about tasty noms. Read on to learn about how he got into food writing, his massive video game collection (MASSIVE), and his favorite haunts for food and drink.

Let’s start off with you telling me about yourself. People might know you best for your former involvement with Phoodie and presently with The Feast. How did you get into the food scene and blogging about it?

I am a food obsessed individual, like most young Philadelphians, but I just happened to get obsessed a little ahead of the curve. My mom was a bad cook (love you, moms), and because of this, I wasn’t exposed to great vittles when I was little and have no allegiance to her gravy or casseroles, like most food folks I know.

What this did, though, was provide my palate with an early education on odd flavor combinations, and food that was inexplicably out of balance. She made meatloaf that was covered in Rice Krispies, and her Chicken a la King is legendary for it’s bonding properties. Obviously it has scarred me for life. Because of those experiences, I searched out food from cultures all around the world, and made it my mission to be a better cook than she was.

I started writing about wine first, and it spread into food journaling, and then beer as well. Hobbies become your job if you decide to spend more time on them than what you’re paid to do.

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Everybody loves a good story, and local non-profit First Person Arts believes everyone’s got a good one to tell. If you’ve never been to one of their famed slams, you should do yourself a favor and stop by the next one.

Their latest and greatest idea for encouraging us to share our stories with each other comes in the form of a slick little Tumblr page.

The idea is simple: monthly themes are announced and YOU get to submit a story that goes along with it. At the end of the month, a favorite is picked. Even better, in celebration of their 10th anniversary, the stories are limited to just 10 words. (more…)

Welcome to Geek of the Week, where we highlight and profile a special geek in our wonderful city of Brotherly Love. This week we talk to Conrad Benner of Streets Dept, contributor to Phrequency.com and former blogger with Philthy.us.

So, Conrad, I’ve known of you for quite some time. I’m a big fan of your blog. You were with Philthy Blog for a while, how and why did you start that?

Well back in 2007, Paul Thorson (creator of Philthy.us) told me he was going to add a blog to his nightlife photography site, and he asked me if I wanted to run it. I had known Paul for about a year prior, mostly from him taking mine (and everyone else’s) photos all the time at different bars and clubs. And Paul had always liked my little blog, “Ugh News,” that, among other things, made fun of photos of drunk hipsters at clubs, so he asked me to do a similar thing for him. It was a match made in heaven!

Over the two and a half years, [Philthy] turned into a great soapbox for me to voice my opinions on everything. I bought a Flip camera one year and went to Barack Obama’s inauguration, then I’d interview a vegan bakery owner, then I’d go to First Friday with my friends and talk with artists.

It was really just an extension of whatever I was interested in at the time, and it really helped me build a bit of an audience that, I think, has followed me to Streets Dept and to my other freelance writing.

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“A long time ago and far far away,
A story was told of an epic space fray
The good and the bad
In the life of a lad,
How he was lost but then found his way.”

So begins the journey of one man to encompass the entirety of Star Wars into limerick form. But how can one person contain all of the Star Wars universe into a few stanzas with rhyme and meter… and in a format usually reserved for dirty poems? Well it is possible. I have seen it. And it is good. Surprisingly so.

This Death Star sized project is currently right in the middle of Attack of the Clones and is moving along at a clip.

Prepare to experience Star Wars like you never have before… and I’m not talking about the Special Editions with Han Solo stepping on a digital Jabba’s tail. Ugh that squeal.

Check it out.

Star Wars Retold in Limericks
starwarslimerick.blogspot.com

As a native of Atlantic County and a 7 year Philadelphia transplant, I am beyond pleased to learn that the local Philly startup, DrinkPhilly is covering their bases for weekend vacationers with the launch of DrinkJerseyShore.com.

After turning 21 in Philadelphia, the nation’s beer capital and living next to The Foodery, I lamented my first trip back toward the beach that summer, upon discovering the average swig in my hometown was Corona. Many bars supplied a laundry list of crappy domestic light beers — all significantly overpriced. This left me appalled… since when does being on the beach have to equate with terrible taste?

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In today’s Geek of the Week, we talk to Chris Illuminati, celebrated author of Assholeology and Assholeology: The Cheat Sheet, out via Adams Media.

He’s also well known for his popular Message in a Bottle blog, articles in countless magazines, and for being a surprisingly stand-up gentleman, despite his book titles.

Hey Chris, how about you tell me a little bit about yourself.

Well, let me give a super brief overview of how I got where I am; which is in my career, not how I got into my office wearing boxers and a wife beater. That’s a different story.

I always wanted to do something creative, and writing was something I was good at, but I think more because of imagination than anything else. It was very easy to write how I talk which is great for storytelling but awful for grammar. I did writing for personal enjoyment and to pass the time at many, many crappy jobs I had out of college. I also wrote long emails to friends as a way to pass the time.

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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

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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There are a lot of food blogs in Philadelphia. A lot. Just about every self proclaimed foodie has a blogspot up, possibly hooked up to Foodbuzz or Yelp, where they rant about their latest kitchen adventures or outdoor dining mishaps. Everyone wants to be Drew Lazor. So its easy to sometimes pass by, and indeed, ignore some of the truly great ones.

Luckily, Saveur Magazine didn’t do that.

Last Wednesday, Saveur Magazine announced their Best Food Blog Award finalists… and a certain lucky Philadelphian can count herself among the nominees. Marisa McClellan, who a lot of you might know from her work writing for GRID Magazine or her Fork You! vodcast. She also runs a site called Food in Jars, where she writes about the joys of canning. And for this wonderful site, she’s been nominated.

Take the time to register on Saveur (it’s a pain, I know, but shut up), and vote for our lil’ hometown heroine. With her charming writing and brilliant photography, she deserves it.

The whole Geekadelphia crew is rooting for you, Marisa. Give ‘em hell. And if that doesn’t work, give ‘em some of your strawberry preserves or something. Them jawns is delicious.

Saveur Magazine’s Best Food Blog Award Finalists
www.saveur.com/article/Kitchen/2011-Best-Food-Blog-Awards-Finalists

Food in Jars
www.foodinjars.com