It’s time for our annual Geekadelphia Gift Guide! Hooray!

This year’s guide features a wealth of local wares. From boutiques in Rittenhouse & Northern Liberties to online Etsy shops, bakeries that whip up Ron Swanson cookies to stores in Chinatown that sell copyright infringing paper lanterns. The guide is pretty diverse, dishing out a little bit of everything from a number of Geekadelphia contributors.

Have a look and enjoy. If you have any of your own picks and suggestions, please do leave them in the comments with information for our readers. There are tons of great local shops and artists here in Philly. Buy something nice from them, would ya?

Happy holidays.

@ericsmithrocks: Looking for something handmade and original? Stop by Sara Selepouchin’s South Philadelphia boutique (and online store), Girls Can Tell, where she crafts wonderful, screenprinted housewares and other super cute things, from journals to prints, tote bags to one-of-a-kind greeting cards. For more information on her wares and the boutique’s hours, visit her website.

For those of you with geeky friends that adore vinyl toys and limited editions t-shirts, there are two fantastic shops you should visit that AREN’T Urban Outfitters… Omoi and Jinxed. Omoi, a favorite Geekadelphia window shopping haunt, is located in Rittenhouse Square, and run by Geekadelphia megacrush Elizabeth Seiber.

If you’ve embarrassed yourself swooning over Liz as much as we have, you can also check out Jinxed in Northern Liberties. The former South Street shop now houses a wealth of repurposed vintage artifacts for hip home decor, from old trunks to point-and-shoot cameras from the 1930′s.

And speaking of cute housewares and collectible prints, you may want to check out Hello World in Rittenhouse Square, or its sister shop Hello Home in Washington Square West. Two great local shops you should certainly spend some time in.

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@allieharch: Whipped Bake Shop. You had us at meat tornado, with your Special Edition Ron Swanson Cookie Gift Box . From the bakery that made Geekadelphia’s epic Battlestar Galactica cake, you’ll find cookies expertly created in the image of the manliest man on earth. Plus cookie steaks.

Secret Lovers. These mega-soft cotton tees from Secret Lovers are so perfectly Philly, I bought half a dozen as gifts for friends. We put a jawn on your jawn so you can jawn while you get your jawn on.

After spending a good chunk of my paycheck to pre-order the new Kindle Fire, I’m leaving the accessories work to you, secret admirers. Rouge Theory make snug-fitting cases for every gadget imaginable, in fabulously graphic fabrics. OMG BABY OWLS.

Check out NomNow and their posters. I’d use this poster as my workday pick-me-up, reminding me to get off Facebook and start creating something beautiful.

Duross and Langell. They make Honey Badger Don’t Care soap! Leave it to a specialty soap store in the gayborhood to make this meme into a reality. (seen here: http://twitpic.com/6mhxo9)

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@mikeyil: Philadelphia-based artist, Britt Miller recently started making her paintings, as prints, available on Society6.com. — She specializes in colorful impressionist/post-impressionist artwork inspired by her surroundings, animals, and life in Philadelphia.

Ed Hall, also based in Philadelphia sells prints of his stunning, modern vector-based artwork. His style is vibrant, filled with visual movement and very modern. He specializes in a combination of detailed illustration as well as repeating patterns compounded with a sharp sense of color.

Rachel Goldfarb, of Rachel Shoshana Jewelry creates one-of-a-kind handmade rings, earrings and necklaces. She specializes working with sterling silver and gemstones. Her work is unique, classy yet has a hip appeal.

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@Danthefan: Support local film and buy a membership for a friend to Philadelphia Film Society.

Signing up at the Best Boy / Best Girl level ($150), you score admit-1 to all year-round filmadelphiaEXPERIENCE screenings, discounts & advance sales for Film Festival tickets, badges & events, discounted admission to all PFS special events throughout the year, one Film Festival 6-Pack (good for 6 regular film screenings during the Festival), and way more.

Scope out some details, here.

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Photo via The Jawn

@PhillyGeekMary: For the furrier members on your holiday gift list, head over to Chic Petique at Liberties Walk for all of your dog and pet needs.

The staff is always warm and helpful, and be sure to say hello to Maesha the store cat! My kitty Flip “Bryz” Roswell personally recommends the wet food brand of Tiki Cat and the Yeowww! Catnip Banana. Chip Petique also boasts the Street Tails Animal Rescue program and the “aPAWthecary,” natural medical solutions for your pet.

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@Saint_Jon: Science geeks are notoriously difficult to shop for during the holiday season. Sodium and potassium need to be stored in kerosene. Dissecting frogs preserved in formaldehyde is smelly and messy. Forget about the process involved in getting a gas container full of hydrogen.

That’s why I go to Spectrum Scientifics in Manayunk. They have all the safe science stuff that won’t land you in jail or on a watch list. I’m getting a wooden trebuchet perfect for office cubicle warfare. Or I may invest in an army of robots to defend my cube. I should probably pick up a planetarium for my niece. Spectrum Scientifics has something for the physics, life science, or electronics geek of any age.

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@ChrisUrie Philly’s tittleandlobe sell awesome awesome looking decals for your oh so stylish macbook. You can get elements from the periodic chart, the silhouette of Don Draper from Mad Men, or a simply a hand written word. Get this one and let people know who you really are.

Bridget McCafferty-Chodak has the graphic tees that you need… if what you need are Probe Droid and AT-AT shirts. Get one for yourself and one for a friend. You can reenact the Hoth battle when it snows! Just don’t hit the person wearing the Probe Droid shirt too hard with a snowball, they might self-destruct.

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@bionicbigfoot Do you have a retronaut in your life? If so, here are some gifts that will blow their minds.

First up, from Chinatown’s mesmerizing Shanghai Bazaar (1016 Race Street) comes a paper lantern emblazoned with the images of Optimus Prime, Megatron, and, for no good reason, Spider-Man. This copyright-infringing wonder is a steal at $1.89, and is certain to give anyone on your shopping list 1980s flashbacks.

And speaking of the ’80s, Brave New Worlds’ Space Invaders magnets transport the timeless videogame from the arcades to your refrigerator. Each blind box toy costs $3.99 and includes two magnets.

And while at the store, pick up Jeffrey Brown’s Incredible Change Bots Two. This sardonic skewering of the Transformers is one of the funniest graphic novels in recent memory. It will run you $14.99, put can you really put a price on hilarity?

As I have written about before, one of the truly great things about webcomics is just the sheer amount of different types of comics you can find out there. Literally any type of webcomic can be found if you look hard enough. A perfect example is Ace Kilroy, a webcomic by local talent Rob Kelly and Dan O’Connor that I recently had the pleasure of being introduced to.

Ace Kilroy is the story “Special Agent” Ace Kilroy, a man living a life of mystery and intrigue in the world of the 1930s. The opening storyline features Ace going up against vampires in Transylvania as he searches for a fellow agent who ahs gone missing. Part Indiana Jones, part Phantom, part James Bond, the story is a mix of so many of types of genres that it’s hard not to find something to enjoy in his adventures.

Adding to the appeal is the stellar work of Kelly and O’Connor. The story moves at a steady, enjoyable pace and the art is some of the best I’ve ever seen in a new webcomic. You can also follow Ace on Twitter, read the blog and check him out on Facebook. Plus the guys have a Kickstarter campaign so that they can just focus on the comic and nothing else.

All in all, it’s an impressive debut for a webcomic. It updates everyday with a special color comic on Sundays. Getting in on the ground floor of any new comic is always fun, and Ace Kilroy promises to be a hell of a ride.

Ace Kilroy
www.acekilroy.com

Anyone in the Philly area knows that heading into the Big Apple to see the sights is usually a maddening experience around the holidays. This year, however, the folks at Neiman decided to use their digital powers for good by trying to reduce sightseeing stress.

After the success of Philly SteakOut (check out Mikey’s coverage of that, here) the folks involved with Neiman’s R&D unit, Neiman Labs decided to take Foursquare data a step further, and today launched their latest project: Go Crowdless.

I had a chance to chat briefly with George Ward and Chris Reif, two of the brains behind the operation. Go Crowdless focuses on 20 of NYC’s most popular holiday attractions (like Radio City and Rockefeller Center), and attempts to predict the most crowded and least crowded times based on when users “check in” on Foursquare.

“Foursquare data isn’t a perfect snapshot of the overall visiting population, but it’s still helpful. The more visitors check into these venues, the more accurate ‘Go Crowdless’ will be as December rolls on,” George said.

“There’s so much potential to use this check-in data to create useful tools for people,” Chris added. “That’s why we wanted to make something like this. Plus, I really can’t stand crowds, so this one was personally a favorite of mine.”

While Go Crowdless is currently only monitoring venues in Manhattan for the holidays, Neiman Labs plans to adapt it for future uses in other cities. I personally hope it comes to Philly so I’ll know when not to walk past the Liberty Bell.  No matter what city it pops up in next, Go Crowdless is a clean, smart way to use social media for good. Be sure to check it out if you’re heading into NYC this holiday season.

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CSI: The Experience is a hands-on exhibit that showcases the scientific techniques and disciplines used to solve crimes. Visitors interact with multimedia displays that explain different forensic science fields such as DNA identification, toxicology, and blood splatter analysis. Add in a high dosage of the CBS hit TV show and you have a fun way to learn about science.

I walked into CSI: The Experience at the Franklin Institute jaded. These types of experience exhibits always seemed cheesy. I expected a half assed exhibit that used the popularity of the CSI television program to get people to buy tickets. But by the end of my visit, I felt strangely proud that I had solved a pretend crime.

You could say CSI: The Experience needs to be experienced. YEAAAAAAAAAAAH! (more…)

For all you comic book geeks and film fiends, head on over to National Mechanics on Sunday Dec 4th to catch an exclusive screening of the documentary Warren Ellis: Captured Ghosts.

Geekadelphia’s fave comic shop Brave New Worlds has teamed up with Sequart and Respect Films to present this documentary which captures the cult fame that Ellis has achieved as a comic book writer and “internet Jesus”.

Captured Ghosts will begin at National Mechanics in Old City starting at 7pm. Tickets for this one-time Philly viewing are $7 at the door, or better yet stop by Brave New Worlds ahead of time to pick up your ticket and pick up Transmetropolitan, my recommended reading for this event. This event is not to be missed!

Captured Ghosts @ National Mechanics
Sunday, December 4th, 7pm
www.nationalmechanics.com

While some people yearn to climb Mount Everest or find the Higgs boson particle, my inherent loathing of nature and lack of the mathematical acumen required to be a physicist resulted in my dreams being a bit less grandiose. The upside to this realization of my own shortcomings is that some of my life’s ambitions are incredibly easy to fulfill. So for the past couple of years, one of my pet obsessions was to be a Spider-Man balloon handler in Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade.

An unremarkable dream yes, but one that I was shocked to want to make come true. You see, along with a hatred of the outdoors and counting stuff, my mental laundry list of various dislikes also includes crowds and parades. So this desire of mine made no sense. Did I want to do something out of character as a way of exploring my personal growth, or did I merely think it would be neat to guide a vinyl doppelganger of Spidey through the streets of New York City?

Grappling with these questions was ultimately futile, as seemingly the only way to be a balloon handler is to be a Macy’s employee or an invited guest of the company.

But instead of letting my dream die, I just did what everyone else seems to be doing these days and lowered my expectations. Thusly, instead of handling Spider-Man in New York City I decided to pursue the much more easily obtainable goal of carrying a balloon in Philly’s parade. This was one of the best decisions I ever made. After looking over the list of balloon possibilities, there was one that seemed like a no-brainer for me: Kermit the Frog.

As a life-long Muppet freak who has contemplated buying The Onion’s “I Appreciate the Muppets on a Much Deeper Level than You” shirt on several occasions, it felt right that Kermit and I finally meet. So within minutes of sending my request to the parade’s Volunteer Coordinator I received my response with my assignment. Kermit was a go. It would soon be time to play the music, time to light the lights…

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My profile on Date My School

Last month, some Philadelphia universities and schools were invited to DateMySchool.com, a dating website designed to connect single students. Any ladies looking for someone tall, dark, and handsome? You can throw in “law student” too.

The main draw of the site was the exclusivity. Only elite schools were invited to the beta test, ensuring the pool of dating candidates was top notch. Users can even make their profiles visible to certain programs and schools. Looking to connect with a future doctor? No problem, just change your privacy settings so only those in the local medical schools can view your profile.

DateMySchool is following in the early footsteps of Facebook by slowly rolling out the service to build excitement. At first, only Columbia University and New York University could use the service. Last month, I received an email to my drexel.edu address to beta test the site. Lucky me! I signed up to see what the big deal was, maybe mack on some post baccalaureate hotties.

The website offers the usual dating profile staples such as photos, interests, and questions. But DateMySchool offers a different dimension since users need a .edu email address. In addition to age and body type, users can filter matches by universities and schools. While that may sound pompous, in practice the user’s preferences determine the search results. Users can also filter out their own program to save themselves the embarrassment of being matched up with someone they know. After trying out a few searches, DateMySchool appears like a run of the mill dating website with an extra way to refine the search for your perfect match.

Based on a handful of searches, there aren’t too many people on the site from Philadelphia schools. This could be a good thing for the single guy looking to connect with an ambitious psychology major studying at Temple University. Given the exclusive nature of the site, there’s probably less competition for female attention. Compared to OKCupid.com, a free dating site with over 7 million active members, a more exclusive dating website may have its place.

You know, just because we call it a “Weekly Kickstarter” doesn’t mean we can’t mix things up from time to time. There are tons of Kickstarter-esque sites out there full of amazing, creative work. Sites like SellaBand and IndieGoGo also allow creative folks to showcase their talents and give you the chance to show your support in the best possible way – with cold, hard cash. This week, Pat Fay and the gang over at Zowee Productions gives us a glimpse at their upcoming project Anhedonia – The Most Amazing Independent Puppet Sitcom Ever. Talk about mixing things up.

Jef Connectorkit is an everyday Joe. He works for his dad, lives with his three life long best friends, and in his spare time is looking for love….it’s just that his dad is a furry blue monster billionaire who married a human woman (making Jef part human, part furry blue monster), then divorced his mother and banished her from the city he runs. Jef’s best friends are maniacal puppets with no sense of right or wrong, (or for that matter, reason), and every woman he meets doesn’t see the appeal in dating a guy who isn’t an autotrophic cyclops, talking broom, or a cloud of pure insecurity.

We’re taking inspiration from PeeWees Playhouse to 70s Punk Rock to the Muppet Show to French New Wave to anywhere where the craft and dedication to the production is just as important as the finished product. We’re building the puppets, writing and recording the music, creating the sets, and making miniatures for all the exterior shots from found objects. Our goal is to make a truly unique show with a protagonist just trying to do the right thing in an exaggerated version of our world.

Zowee Productions is a loving group of artists, musicians, actors, writers and directors working to make fun, unique products.

You may recognize the Zowee folks from their show with State Radio earlier this month at Union Transfer, but the Anhedonia project is sure to be unique. Funding closes soon, so don’t hesitate.

The Project: Anhedonia – The Most Amazing Independent Puppet Sitcom Ever

Creator: Zowee Productions

The Sweet Spot: $50 will get you a a sweet package known as the Fist Bump + Blow Up: a thank you credit in the first episode, a sticker, Zowee’s rock album, an autographed poster, and a DVD of the first episode. The $350 package (the Shimmy Shimmy Coco Puff) gets you all of that plus a tshirt, a puppet of one of the characters, a custom signed sketch, and a pair of non-descript white socks. You know you want it.

Funding Deadline: December 2nd, 2011

More Info: In addition to the main IndieGoGo page you can also find Zowee on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, as well as their own site.

Every Monday Geekadelphia features a Kickstarter (or IndieGOGO!) created by locals. Check ‘em out and support our local geek scene. If you have a project that you’d like featured on site, contact geekadelphia@gmail.com

If you read Geekadelphia, chances are you’ve fooled around in Photoshop once in your lifetime. Weather it be your actual profession, or if you just like to Photoshop yourself into photos with Joseph Gordon Levitt (aka Friday nights) there is a Photoshop event in Philly for you! On December 1st the Adobe Photoshop Philadelphia User Group is holding an event designed to get you in the middle of the Philadelphia Design community.

The event begins 7:15 on the campus of Philadelphia University. Nathaniel Dodson and Tony Profeta will provide a presentation featuring Adobe’s brand new Touch Apps with demonstrations of the applications on an Android tablet. You can check out some of the Adobe touch apps ahead of time at the following links:

• Adobe Touch Apps
• Adobe Touch App Video Demonstrations
• Adobe Creative Cloud Overview
• Adobe Photoshop Touch Overview

The event will also include a presentation from Michele McKeone M. Ed. from the Autism Expressed project. She is an exciting social entrepreneur and recent graduate of the UArts Corzo Center program, and will present the challenges in creating and delivering the unique vision of Autism Expressed. The project aims to help students with autism learn to effectively use various social media platforms and digital software like Photoshop.

And finally, to close out the event Robert M. Hall from Feasible Impossibilities and the Official Adobe User Group manager for the Philadelphia Flash Platform Group will deliver a presentation summarizing Adobe’s recent announcements regarding Flash and Flex.

For more information visit Photoshopphilly.com

As most of you know, we’re huge fans of Chipocrite here on Geekadelphia. You might have caught him performing at Lebowskifest at the TLA earlier this year, and back in the Summer, he wrote the theme song for the Philly Geek Awards, which you can absolutely still download from us.

Well, he was recently nominated for the Deli Philadelphia’s Featured Artist poll, and we sure would love to see him on there. Just head over to the site and look for the voting column on the right hand side there. Select Chipocrite and vote. Note, if you select anyone else, YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG.

Voting ends December 1st, so share the link. Let’s get him up there.

Comprised of historic and innovative breweries, Philly’s drink culture is rich and plentiful with innovative minds all with the same intention: to get us drunk! Recently I was delighted to speak with DrinkPhilly.com czar, Adam Schmidt about what it takes to be successful in Philly, the Drink brand expansion and everyone’s favorite time of the year for seasonal beer.

How did the Drink Philly project evolve into the Drink Nation expansion?

It has always been my intention to expand to other cities, ever since I started Drink Philly. Philadelphia was effectively a testing ground to see what was involved in running one location. Over summer 2011, we launched DrinkNJShore.com, which provided a great learning experience, and allowed us to see what resources were needed to run a second location and effectively manage it from our Philadelphia office. From these undertakings, we were able to estimate how much time, resources, and personnel were needed – and will be needed – for future expansion.

The Drink Philly community has continued to grow substantially throughout the City of Brotherly Love. How do you evaluate the success of Drink Philly and what are you hoping to accomplish by expanding the Drink Nation Brand?

A lot of people have told me, “If you can make it in Philadelphia, you can make it anywhere.” – I guess referring to Philly as being a difficult audience to sell to. I never really understood that reference myself, because this city has been so open and helpful to us. There’s a really close-knit community in tech, blog, design and journalism – in all these fields, everyone wants to help each other out, and wants to put you in touch with someone that can help you out. I honestly think if we had started anywhere but Philly, we would have had a harder time. Philly’s been good to us.

The first thing we did when we announced our expansion plans was tap into our already existing Philly users. Of course many Philly folks have friends or family in D.C. or Baltimore, so we just asked them to spread the word. And they did. It helped us get started, because one person tells another person, who tells two people, and they tell seven. Before you know it, you’ve got your user base.

Our Drink Nation brand serves as our parent site. Within that we plan to expand to more and more cities gradually. The Nation site holds content that anyone in the country could read, and will really help in determining where major interest is for expansion.

What information can you share about the brand expansions planned for Drink DC, Drink Baltimore and Drink NJ Shore. How do you think your success here in Philly will translate to other cities?

What I can say is this is only the beginning. We are working to build a brand that can expand to many more markets and build a community of our core audience: the intelligent drinker. It’s never easy to go in to another market, but we’ve already received a great reception from Baltimore and Washington DC. We’re filling a niche that needs to be filled, because there really is nothing like our site anywhere else.

Are there any iOS or Android apps in the works for the Drink Nation expansion? How can fans of Drink Philly stay in touch with Drink Nation events and follow the progress of Drink Nation’s expansion to DC, NJ and Baltimore?

We put a lot of time and design work into crafting our mobile site, which works exactly like an app on most smartphones. We wanted to be able to reach all mobile users before we spent a lot of time on building a native app for any one device. Now that we have a solid mobile site, we’re working on developing native apps for iPhone and Android. We’re not sure when they will be ready, but our hope is for it to be on the market by the end of the year.

We do have Twitter and Facebook feeds for The Drink Nation that anyone – including our Philadelphia brethren – are more than welcome to follow to keep updated on all of our happenings. We’ve also got @DrinkBmore, @DrinkDC, as well as Facebook pages for each. We’ll be sure to keep you posted, as well.

With Fall in full swing, now is the time for consuming pumpkin flavored everything. What seasonal beers can you recommend for our viewers?

My personal favorite is Dogfish Head Punkin’, but there are some other great pumpkin beers as well. I’d recommend Southern Tier’s Pumking, Weyerbacher Imperial Pumpkin Ale, and Williamsburg AleWerk’s Pumpkin Ale. If you can find them still…

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To learn more about Drink Philly (and find your way to Drink Nation), visit their official website.

As children we all remember how cool it was to be able to build things. You would take a pile of blocks and suddenly create a skyscraper to rival the Comcast Center. Or you would grab a box of Legos and build the perfect house. Or use an Erector set to build an actual building with real metal girders. It didn’t matter as long as when you were done, there was something there that didn’t exist before.

But you may wonder “Why did I love paying with these toys so much? How did someone come up with the idea for Legos anyway?”

Starting November 25th and running through February 3rd of next year, the Constructing Play Exhibition will attempt to answer those questions. You will be able to learn about all your old favorites as well as some building toys you may never have heard of. But more importantly you can learn why these toys are so vital and why they can play such a critical role in a child’s development.

So get your hardhats out and head over to the Philadelphia Center for Architecture for this FREE exhibition. The hours are Monday thru Saturday, 10:00am – 6:00pm and Sundays, 12:00pm – 5:00pm. The Constructing Play exhibition will make you want to run home, drag those Tinker Toys out of mothballs and get building again like when you were a kid.

Philadelphia Center for Architecture
www.philadelphiacfa.org