Hey there Geeks.

You might have noticed some changes around here. Welcome to the new Geekadelphia 4.0. Tim and I have been hard at work getting this thing ready. There’s the new header, a pretty new layout, some cute fancy fonts… and really, that’s about it. Hope you enjoy your sta…

• Oh wait, that store button on the right. Yeah, get ready for some cool news in the coming days. Or maybe weeks. We’re finally going to have some shirts, stickers, and other misc. swag that you’ll be able to pick up and sport around town. We figured that hey, instead of nagging you to buy ads… we’ll pester you to buy shirts to keep us going.

• Oh! And those new ad windows over there. You’ll note the larger one up on the top (currently reserved for Lebowski Fest, sorry kids), and other options around the blog. For information on ad rates, check out our ad page. It’ll give you some details.

• OH! And the interviews page! At last, all our interviews have been collected in one spot. Took forever, but you’ll note some of our biggest Q&A’s rounded up on one page, complete with thumbnails. We also have a review page up, aggregating all our product and movie reviews. It’ll get a little flashier soon. Promise.

• GAH! How could I forget. You’ll also note the social media widgets over there. Remember to follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, and stalk through our pictures on Flickr.

Alright, that’s it. We’ve got some more stuff coming your way. Any ideas, suggestions, etc? Let us know. Enjoy your stay, and thanks for sticking with us. <3

Eric & Tim

I love genre films… and it was inevitable that someday I’d try to make one of my own. I decided I wanted to start small by doing a 9-12 minute short and thanks to some of the great films I saw at the Philadelphia Film Festival I thought, how hard could that be?

So I came up with an idea, wrote a script (which I sent to my friends to make sure it didn’t suck), and started pitching the film to people. I also started asking for favors, a lot of them. Luckily I know a lot of bored film geeks with nothing better to do.

I wanted to wait until the project had congealed into something a bit more substantial to start talking about it here on Geek, since Eric offered me the chance to share my experiences in this endeavor of mine with our readers.

So we cast the film and we shot a trailer to put on Kickstarter.com (to help raise funds) during our preproduction. Making films, even short ones, isn’t cheap. So even though we did make our goal, I am still accepting donations up until we begin principal production Saturday April 2nd.

The short is very Dario Argento Italian Giallo. I haven’t really directed anything substantial, which is why I am riding shotgun on this film, co-directing with my Cinedork.com podcast partner in crime Steve Denisevicz. So check out the trailer below after the jump and visit the Kickstarter here.

Readers will also recognize the very lovely and talented Jo in the trailer, who also is a writer here on Geek too. She was kind enough to get suckered into this project as well.

Warning the trailer is NSFW. Leave a comment and let me know what you think!

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For the past month, Tek Lado has been missing from your local honor boxes, taking a month long hiatus from the world of print. The bilingual magazine about the local and national techie scene is happily returning, but as a strictly online outlet.

Alas, it’s true. The print publication is going the way of many magazines, becoming an online-only product. Thanks to Area52 Media (a partnership between Tek Lado’s former publisher, Mel Gomez, and editor-in-chief / ultra crush Liz Spikol) the zine will continue online. Unfortunately Spikol can’t divulge any details about the shuttering of the print edition of the magazine.

In a press release issued from Area52, Mel and Spikol explained the reason for the hiatus and changes:

“By focusing on the print publication, we were limiting ourselves geographically. If we devote our energies to the digital product exclusively, we’ll be able to expand our reach.” – Mel Gomez

“We realized the website’s international potential when we started posting in Spanish about WikiLeaks. Suddenly, we had dramatically increased readership from pretty much every country in Latin America.” – Liz Spikol

We’ll miss you Tek Lado! We supported the launch of the magazine, and believed in the new print mag. It was a brave venture, leaping into print in the age of print media dying.

The website version of the magazine plans to continue covering gaming, gadgets, social media, and tech culture. You can read Liz’s column about the change, here.

Seems like the National Constitution Center really knows how to throw down.

Tomorrow, the NCC is hosting a State of the Union Bingo Party, inviting guests to experience the museum for free from 7:30pm to 10pm. That’s right, free. Before the rousing game of bingo starts, guests can explore the museum free of charge.

But what’s really got our attention about this bash? This happens to be the official launch of the Constitution Daily, the NCC’s blog. A joint effort between the Constitution Center and our friends Technically Philly, we’re excited to see where this bold new venture goes for this constantly evolving institution.

After-all, they’ve incorporated iPads into their exhibits and use iPods in their walking tours. They’re becoming more modern every season. We’re proud of ‘em.

The next step? No more bingo parties.

Constitution Daily
blog.constitutioncenter.org

National Constitution Center
525 Arch Street (19106)
(215) 409-6895
www.constitutioncenter.org

Ah, Tumblr. Whether you’re laughing it up over the Tom Selleck Waterfall Sandwich blog or snickering at any of the ones below, Tumblr is full of fantastic Internet memes just waiting to happen.

Below I’ve roped together our top five Tumblrs of 2010. From the hilarious classism that is Holy Maury Mother of God to the “wow I’ve been there” element of Hungover Owls, these are our favorites. A big thank you goes out to Rommel Wood, who introduced me to three out of the five in this list. Follow her on Twitter. Girl is hilarious.

1. Holy Maury Mother of God – THE RESULTS ARE IN… you are our favorite Tumblr of 2010. You also are NOT the Father. It’s hard not to laugh hysterically at this Tumblr’s animated gifs and cleverly produced screengrabs. You’ll read this daily, I promise.

2. Bread People – Jean Luc Batard? Robert Brownie Jr? Tim (@bigredtim) introduced me to this clever Tumblr that blends celebrities (or famous pieces of art, in the case of Scona Lisa) with different kinds of bread and pastry.

3. Hungover Owls – Oddly enough, my pal Rommel sent this over to me on a day that I was feeling like a hungover owl. This Tumblr consists of owl photographs, with the birds looking particularly hungover from a night of partying. It helps that owls naturally look hungover.

4. Crap at my Parents’ House – I was introduced to this blog just a few days ago, a Tumblr started back in the Summer. Crap At My Parents house is a collection of… well, all that weird crap you stumble upon when visiting your family. It’s easy to relate.

5. Message With a Bottle – When Chris Illuminati welcome a little munchkin into the world, he left his gig at Philly Burbs to become a stay at home Dad / writer. Coasting on the success of Assholeology, he’s been freelancing like whoa, and maintaining his hilarious Message With a Bottle blog. Read it and experience his hysterical parenting adventures.

The creative folks over at Hive 76 have launched a new blog on their website, Making Makers. According to Sean, the events coordinator at Hive, the new blogging series is…

Basically going to be one-off recollections from some of our members of childhood experiences that made them who they are today.

In their recent posts, they discuss Pipeworks, Constructs, and other toys that helped them become the makers they are now. Read up, and enjoy!

Hive 76 Making Makers Blog [ Hive76.org ]

Earlier this year, none other than Robert De Niro was in our fair city filming Limitless, a movie about a strange drug that boosts intellect.  Well an odd package arrived for me in the mail this weekend amongst my Holiday cards and Amazon Blu-ray fix for the week… and it seemed a little weirder than usual.

You can check out the pictures below. I thought… either this is some new drug aimed exclusively at film bloggers (we are an odd lot) or some sort of viral marketing. Well after some searches it turned out to be a bit of the latter and I thought I would share some pics and the trailer for the film after the jump.

I am actually pretty excited to see this just for the fact that it was filmed in Philadelphia. So check it out and decide for yourself.

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From iPads in their exhibits to broadcasting the Liberty Medal ceremony over the Internets, Philly’s National Constitution Center has been on a streak lately with their venture into techie side of the things. And this Wednesday, they are at it again.

The NCC is helping classrooms across the country celebrate Bill of Rights Day, by launching a free webcast show that will raise and answer questions in classrooms across the country. Experts from the NCC will also be live blogging to dish out all kinds of insight about the Bill of Rights’ history.

You can learn more about this exciting new program at the NCC’s official website.

Bill of Rights Day Webcast
Wednesday, December 15th, 2010
www.constitutioncenter.org/hallpass

Photo Lovingly Stolen from Foobooz

This Thursday, our good friends Phillyist are hosting their relaunch bash, celebrating the epic, triumphant return of their blog last month. We missed them, especially their foxy editorial staff (rawr!), and we’re glad to have them back.

The party hits National Mechanics at 9:30pm and wraps up at 11:30pm. Phillyist’s favorite local rockabilly band (did we mention the theme of the party is Rockabilly?), April Mae & the June Bugs will be performing live at the awesome Old City restaurant. Expect some serious dancing.

Once the live music is done, DJ Tom B will be spinning, and Phillyist will dish out giveaways and prizes from the Arden Theatre, Beggars Group, Reybee, Big Hassle, Helium Comedy Club, Epitaph, Harrah’s , and more.

Come by, hang out, and watch us try to steal more of Phillyist’s writers. It’ll be fun. Promise.

Phillyist’s Relaunch Rockabilly Bash
September 30th, 2010, 9:30pm – 11:30pm

National Mechanics
22 South 3rd Street, Philadelphia, PA 19103
www.nationalmechanics.com

It wouldn’t be a new week without another episode of Cinedork… and now we are on iTunes! You can subscribe here.

In case you didn’t know, at Cinedork we do three weekly podcasts: one for weekly entertainment news, one focusing on DVD releases that came out that week and one focusing on the week’s music offerings as well. Now since we are in the iTunes store, you can easily subscribe and download the podcasts you are interested in for that particular week.

This week for the DVD podcast, since Survival of the Dead just came out, we discuss not only that film, but George Romero in depth as a director as well. For our entertainment-cast, it’s more about Piranha 3D and what that film has to say about us as a generation. We also talk a bit about Miyazaki and his rumored sequel. For this week in music, we are joined by a special guest Rob from Brave New Worlds to reminisce about our favorite tapes from back in the day.

So subscribe here in iTunes and get some dorky goodness!

I honestly can’t decide whether this is the creepiest thing ever or quite possibly the coolest. Skull-A-Day a blog that focuses on you guessed it – a skull image a day, posted an image and some videos from Philadelphia’s own Mütter Museum.

The image in question (above) is a skull created from over 375 pieces human brains embedded in clear acrylic, stacked to form an image of a giant skull. The videos on the site discuss and show the process of creating the image with the acrylic-encased brains, or as they jokingly call them Zombie MREs.

Check out the blog here for more videos and pics!

If you happen to enjoy my ramblings here on Geekadelphia, you might just like a weekly podcast I recently joined with some other local cinephiles called Cinedork. It looks to be a weekly show about all things film related and to keep that local Philly vibe, we recorded in some great local venues.

Last week we recorded in Brave New Worlds and this week we recorded at one of my favorites theaters, the Ritz East. This week’s show is all about Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World and the travesty that is its opening box office. We all lay down our theories as to what happened and also dish out the usual weekly film news.  So check out and download this week’s episode here. We hope to be on the iTunes soon, just like Justin Bieber.