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

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