Over the past few weeks, a number of insightful, hilarious, and occasionally heartwarming videos have been popping up on the new hyperlocal video platform, Philly In Focus. My favorite? This clip about cheesesteaks being created by aliens.

The site has been on our radar for a while, but today Comcast officially announced the launch of the website in public beta at a press conference.

New hyperlocal websites seem to pop up every other day, but this particular site is definitely worth adding to your reader. The website, spearheaded by Comcast’s Project Open Voice, is “a dynamic new platform and OnDemand initiative dedicated to making local videos and other interactive media easier to discover and share.”

Basically, it’ll get locally produced online video onto your television. Awesome.

In a press release from Comcast, Mayor Nutter was quoted as saying that “Philly In Focus is a portal that will centrally showcase Philadelphia’s innovative, real, and engaged residents, businesses, and institutions. This project – undertaken in a broad partnership with Comcast and others – advances the City’s goal of being open, transparent, and communicative with each other and the rest of the region, nation, and world.”

Speaking of the rest of the nation, Philly is one of six cities involved in the initiative, others including Fresno, CA; Houston, TX; Hialeah, FL; Peterborough, NH; and Medford, MA.

So go scope out the site, and maybe submit your own content. There are a surprising amount of quality videos on there. I expect you’ll get lost on there for a while.

Philly In Focus
www.phillyinfocus.com

No no, not that kind of flashdance (what a feeling!). I’m talking about the impromptu kind, from the era when flashmobs didn’t mean you were going to get beaten up on South Street.

Some dancers from the Pennsylvania Ballet popped into the Comcast Center and surprised folks watching their Holiday Spectacular with a short performance in their lobby. Love it.

Thanks to J.T. for the tip!

Neverwhere is a trippy view of “London Below,” the world that exists in parallel to our own. The story follows Richard Mayhew (Gary Bakewell), who stops to help an injured woman over the protestations of his fiancée. The woman is actually a dweller of London Below named Door (Laura Fraser), whose entire family has just been murdered and is being chased by the menacing assassins, Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar.

By helping Door, Richard is lost to the people above and can only be seen by the people of London Below. Richard and Door travel together to try and find answers to both their questions – how can Richard regain his life above and why is Door being hunted? They look for the Angel of Islington, with the assistance of the Marquis de Carabas and Old Bailey.

The DVD includes loads of commentary from Neil Gaiman, from when the series was originally released as well as from more recently, a photo gallery, and character descriptions. The box, notably, features the original version of the cover art. The original picture of a fist brandishing what I can only describe as “stabby rings” had the rings changed to flames. Plus, it comes with an actual map of Neverwhere, which should come in handy if you ever find yourself stopping to help an injured girl on the streets of London.

We’ve got a copy to give away. Leave a comment below with your favorite Neil Gaiman character!

Any hardcore Star Wars fan knows that the dogfights from the original trilogy were inspired by the old news reel footage of World War 2 fighter planes. In fact there, is even rumored to be a black and white workprint of Star Wars where that very footage was used as a placeholder until the final effects shots were complete.

So it really came as no surprise when George Lucas announced producing Red Tails. The film is about one of the greatest and most controversial fighter squadrons to come out of World War 2. The Tuskegee Airmen.

The Tuskegee Airmen were the first African American military aviators allowed to fly and fight on behalf of the United States.  In a country still knee deep in Jim Crow the Tuskegee Airmen were the lone exception to a country still in the grip of both racism and segregation. With their courage and perseverance they started a chain reaction that paved the way for the world in which we live in today.

Recently I got to attend a screening of the George Lucas directed documentary Double Victory at the National Constitution Center, about the real life struggle of the Tuskegee Airmen from Red Tails. The documentary, which was followed by a thought provoking Q&A with two Tuskegee Airman and Nate Parker (one of the stars of the film), was a great look at the struggle, trials and tribulations of these pioneers.

While most will settle for Red Tails I can’t suggest checking out this great doc enough for the whole story when it becomes available, it could honestly be on of the best things Lucas has done in a long time.  Check out a short video of the Q&A below.

Special Thanks to Steven Rivera for our awesome new Geekadelphia video bumpers!

In late September, Eastern State Penitentiary places its ominous gargoyles atop of their entranceway, and Philadelphia officially announces the start of the Halloween season. Yes, Eastern State Penitentiary’s Terror Behind the Walls is the official Halloween Mecca of Philadelphia. If you live in the city of Brotherly Love, and HAVEN’T been to Eastern State’s Terror Behind the Walls—you haven’t experienced Halloween in its entirety!

Unless you live under a rock, you already know that Eastern State Penitentiary was the home to questionable Quaker repentance practices in its early days, and famous convicts like Al Capone. Eastern State’s mission is to preserve this historic building, and question the correctional system in America today. Eastern State is an important part of our history, and Terror Behind the Walls is it’s main fundraiser.

Celebrating its 20th anniversary, Terror Behind the Walls has become the must see haunted attraction no only on Philadelphia, but in the entire United States. It has been ranked the #1 Haunted House in America by AOL, and has received countless recognition in mainstream media.

What’s especially exciting about the 2011 season are the two new attractions premiered this year. These attractions make Terror Behind the Walls the largest and longest show in the haunt’s history. The Gauntlet is a new, high energy opening attraction, featuring overhead catwalks and custom props above a massive outdoor maze. This attraction is filled with unexpected obstacles, objects, and very unfriendly creatures blocking your way to freedom. The second new attraction, Break Out!, is a new finale and consists of an outdoor scare zone in the final courtyard before visitors leave the event.

I’m also very excited about their 20th Anniversary Celebration. On November 12th, there will be a special encore performance where you’ll have the opportunity to mix and mingle with hundreds of haunted house owners and operators from around the country! Want more of a reason to go? Get this, paranormal celebrities will be talking about some of the firsthand experiences they’ve had with real ghosts inside Eastern State!

Here are some tips to help you enjoy your experience at Eastern State Penitentiary’s Terror Behind the Walls:

1) Buy your tickets ahead of time! Unlike other local haunts, Terror Behind the Walls actually sells out! If you know you want to go through the haunt on a certain night you should definitely buy your tickets online. You wouldn’t want to show up and find out you can’t get in!

2) Monster be good! Terror Behind the Walls is not only a great haunt, it strives to be a family event! You can bring your brave little ones, but if they’re getting a little too scared just tell them to yell, “Monster be good!” and the ghoul will slink off into its respective corner.

What better place to put a Haunted House than an abandoned Mental Asylum? Before it was was shut down in 1986, Pennhurst catered to individuals with mental disabilities; some of which were the most violent patients in the Tri-State area. This facility hid these individuals away from a society that didn’t understand them. Underfunding and lack of staff eventually led to the neglect and abuse of its patients, and Pennhurst was then shut down.

Left to decay in its remote location, Pennhurst became the stomping grounds for trespassers and was strewed with graffiti. It slowly morphed into the ominous property that you will experience at Pennhurst Asylum. Just walking around the property gives you a sense of eeriness, and the architecture begs you to step inside.

Before you enter the haunt, you’ll pass through a small museum explaining the history of Pennhurst. Owner Richard Chakejian received some backlash for transforming the grounds into a haunt, so this museum educates his customers before leading them into the haunt. This serves two purposes. The first being, you learn a bit of the history of Pennhurst. The second reminds you of the people who inhabited these grounds, and the real life horrors that happened in these rooms.

Do you want to go ghost hunting? At Pennhurst you can! You enter the Mayflower building with just a flashlight and your sixth sense. Some say a little girl roams the first floor, while an angry nurse stabs patrons with a hypodermic needle on the second. And no, I’m not talking about actors. These are the real spirits of Pennhurst!

The haunt itself is a mind-bending experience. Because the actors are working with the atmosphere they are given, they don’t have the luxury of confined spaces. They depend on the characters to scare you. This is what Pennhurst achieves very well. Each doctor and patient has a story, and every room you go into takes you to a place that shoots you out of your comfort zone. Not only do the actors tell you a story, they scare you aggressively. These actors aren’t just popping out of corners. They’re staring you in the face and begging you to interact with them.

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

Here are some helpful tips to give you a great Pennhurst experience:

1. Save time! Go on Thursday or Sunday! The busiest nights are Friday and Saturday. If you don’t want to stand in longs lines Thursday and Sunday are the nights that are the least busy.

2. Wear comfortable shoes! The Pennhurst grounds have only been open to the general public for two seasons, so there are some areas that aren’t paved. Don’t come to this haunt in your heels!

3. Ask questions! There are four can’t miss attractions at Pennhurst, and while the grounds are amazing—it can be hard to find everything. The staff is very friendly and helpful; don’t be afraid to ask where to go next!

Pennhurst Asylum puts on a great show for only being open for two seasons.

Make sure you check it out! Go to their official website for more details! Keep your eyes peeled in the Spring. Owner Richard Chakejian might open Pennhurst’s grounds for a paranormal event you can attend. How awesome is that?

Have you been to Pennhurst? Comment with your favorite attraction or paranormal experience, and you could get a T-shirt!

Special thanks to LaSalle University for helping me put this production. Photography provided by Beth Salazar.

Bates Motel w/Jo Pincushion from Reel 9 Productions on Vimeo.

Halloween is my favorite time of year! The weather changes, the leaves turn, and a good horror movie is the only way to spend a Friday night. What I especially love about this season is the haunted houses. Pennsylvania is home to some of the industry’s top haunts. So, I decided to show Geekadelphia where they need to go to get a good scare!

My first stop is The Bates Motel and Haunted Hayride in Gradyville PA. The Bates Motel has been running since 1991, and has been ranked the best Hayride in the United States numerous times. This Hayride has pyrotechnics, animatronics, and actors that actually jump into your wagon. This isn’t you’re mother’s hayride—this fully charged experience has been bringing thousands of people from the Philadelphia area for years.

Not only does this haunt have a killer hayride, but it also showcases a terrifying Corn Maze and Haunted House. The Corn Maze has a few new features this year—like a Circus Themed clown covered cavern, and a undead Saloon. The detail in these two elements of the Corn Maze are truly amazing, not to mention utterly petrifying! The Haunted House has some sweet features as well! If you want to really scream your head off –I suggest going through the Haunted House in the front of your group.

Some more helpful tips for enjoying your time at The Bates Motel and Haunted Hayride

1. Don’t wait in line! Grab a VIP pass for only $60 on the weekdays, $75 on the weekends!
2. Wear comfortable footgear! This haunt is located on a farm, so don’t think you can show up to this thing in high heels and walk around like it’s nothing.
3. Wear layers! The later in October, the colder it gets. You want to shake from fear—not lack of circulation.

Have you ever been to The Bates Motel? Comment below with your favorite attraction and how is scared the ba-Jesus out of you. You could win a T-Shirt!

Go to the Bates Motel’s official website for more information and operation hours. Special thanks to Reel 9 Productions and LaSalle University for helping me put together this segment. Photography provided by Beth Salazar.

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

WARNING: Video Might Be Slightly NSFW

Jeff Mach successfully pulled off another wonderful Wicked Faire in Somerset New Jersey. The freaks came out to play, and boy were they in full form. Dressed to the nines and ready to explore various methods of expression, Wicked Faire was the perfect playground for the out of the ordinary.

They day started with casual greetings and various costumes sprinkled throughout the lobby floor. The theme, Fairy Tales Gone Awry. Various Riding Hoods, Peter Pans, Snow Whites, and Mad Hatters made their way through the convention. The characters came in all different shapes and sizes, and everyone felt at home.

The place started to get a little mischievous once the sun went down. Voltaire wooed the crowd with his gothic sounds. Dave Ghoul from Philly’s Zombie Prom also lent his services to the evening; bringing all of the deviants to the dance floor. There was a late night screening of Repo! The Genetic Opera as well as a meet and greet!

By the end of Saturday nigh the theme for the 2012 Wicked Faire was announced; HALLOWEEN! So start thinking of your costumes now! You definitely need to dress to impress at this convention!

Don’t forget to check out Jeff Mach’s Alternative Living Expo on March 5th and Sunday March 6th a The Greater Philadelphia Expo Center in Oaks Pennsylvania.

Around Valentine’s Day last year, Abe Greenwald and company launched their site, The Man’s Guide to Love. Since then, The Man’s Guide to Love has been growing daily with new videos of men giving advice on love, relationships, and women in general. Abe was able to sit down with us to talk about Geek Love and his home city of Philadelphia.

Abe, it’s great to sit down with you. Let’s start by talking about your goal when you started The Man’s Guide to Love?

We wanted people to give their real advice but have some funny moments in there as well. For me, I want to have as broad a range as responses to the question as there are opinions from men. That’s one of my favorite things about it: people think that guys never think of love; never talk about it. I’ve been surprised at how many people have been like ‘yeah sure, I’ll give you my opinion on that’

So, Geek love is very special thing. There’s more of a passion and more of a connection between interests when two geeks are in love, so with that in mind, what kind of advice do you have for geeks who are in love and are trying to keep that spark?

Well there’s one great video that we were really happy to get picked up by io9 that my friend Jesse shot in the Seattle airport. It was about this great geek couple that met at a Live Action Role Playing event and in the video the demonstrate their cthulhu kisses to each other. I just love that moment.

That to me just summed up this great geek love between these two people who shared this great passion together and one of the things that I love about geeks and geek culture is this sense of being completely unashamed and comfortable with who they are and what they love. I think that came out really well in that video.

I have a little bit of a geek background in a documentary way. A friend and I went on a MacGeek cruise about five years ago and this was when I was really wanting to do my own documentary that wouldn’t take forever to shoot. Steve Wozniak was on the cruise and we just spent the week in the Caribbean filming and there were plenty of geek couples that we interviewed. It was just so much fun and, you know, geek culture is something that I have great affinity for. I don’t know if I’m a total geek, just because I don’t have the attention span, but I definitely have my Mac Geek tendencies and my Canon camera geek tendencies.

Oh you’re definitely a geek. Of course you should take that as a compliment.
So, what kind of advice do you have for geeks out there who are trying to find love?

That’s one thing I was so happy about the io9 post is that people started posting in the comments that we need some kind of dating service. And you know what, people started doing it. In the comments they started using something like #io9DatingService and saying stuff like “I’m a geek that’s looking for geek love” and hopefully people found each other. If that’s the case, The Man’s Guide to Love’s mission is complete.

When you are home in Philly, you do some shooting in Rittenhouse square. What other places do you like to film?

Rittenhouse is definitely my favorite spot, but I’d like to shoot more down by the ballpark and get some real Phillies fans on the site. I’m a Phillies fan, so it’s important to have them represented on the site. I’ve already gotten a couple there and sometimes I’ll just walk around and pick up someone who looks approachable. Actually, even if they don’t look approachable, I ask them to be filmed.

There are some intimidating dudes that you’ve gotten to open up on your site. You’ve gotten to interview a lot of men and get a lot of their perspectives. What advice would you give to our geek ladies out there?

Geek ladies…hrm, that’s a good question. Just follow that enthusiasm and passion out there and apply that to love and relationships without apology.

There’s the sound clip I was looking for.
I did see that you are launching MGL 2.0. Are there any new features you want to tell us about?

We’re going to keep the main content the same, but we are going to have a new site that will focus on user-generated content. So, people will be able to submit their advice, men and women are encouraged to post and hopefully generate a conversation about love.



What can I say? Here on Geekadelphia, we like our cars.

Last year we were part of the Fiesta Movement. You might have seen us, driving around town in a super fancy decked out Ford Fiesta, throwing parties, giving away iPads to Sean Blanda our loyal readers at events, hosting movie screenings, etc… all in the name of an automobile we liked. And just last month, Mikey Il took a spin in the brand new Chevy Volt, thanks to their PR team reaching out to us.

Well, our love affair with Chevy continued, blossoming into a week-long loan of a brand new Chevy Camaro. Equipped with all the fancy gadgets you could want (XM Radio, Bluetooth everything, heated leather seats, a HUD display), it was one hell of a nice car, and we were thrilled to have it for a few days. And by we, I mean Mikey.

Mikey was fortunate enough to zip around town in the car for a week. He took some photos, Tweeted about his experiences, and perhaps, most importantly, drove us to White Castle.

There aren’t any White Castles in the Philadelphia area, so a long drive was required to score those tasty little morsels known as Sliders. We shot a video of the fun. You can see the inside of the car, watch how it handles, and at the end, experience the thrill of watching my girlfriend pretend to steal the car, leaving us abandoned in New Jersey.

Big thank you to Chevy for unofficially sponsoring our trip to White Castle. Those burgers were delicious.