The other day, Jeff Lyons and his crew over at Used Wigs invited me to be a special guest on their hilarious podcast. The show recorded live upstairs at L’Etage in Queen Village, featured celebrated local artist Yis Goodwin, and was an absolute blast.

Topics range from New Orleans prostitutes to horrible weight loss tips, tertiary Star Wars characters to disbelief in penguins. I chatted about my Master Chief armor, gave away a few Quirk titles, and had a lovely time.

A big thank you to Jess, Linzy, Leah, Chris, and Ben for coming and supporting. You guys rock.

Give it a listen! And thanks for having me on!

Used Wigs Podcast: 93
www.usedwigs.com/podcast-93

So Halo Anniversary came out last Tuesday, and unfortunately, due to a busy work schedule (I was at Random House on Tuesday, SocialMediaPlus on Wednesday, teaching on Thursday…) I was unable to pick it up on its release date.

However, due to being free Saturday morning pre-Friendsgiving, I wrangled up my buddies Jess (featured in the video) and Dan (the videographer) for a stroll to FYE, where I purchased the game wearing my Halo armor. This was something I had always wanted to do, and I look forward to doing the same exact thing when Halo 4 comes out. Maybe at a midnight release, who knows.

Man, I sure do love how the light looks when I hit Rittenhouse Square. Saturday was such a perfect day for this. Anyhow, enjoy. And to see it full rez instead of in a tiny 480x window, hit up my Vimeo page.

I love my walk to work.

Sometimes I cut through Rittenhouse Square. Other days I zig-zag through the tiny hidden side streets in Midtown Village and Old City. And I almost always stroll through Washington Square Park as I get closer to the office.

But lately, I’ve been wandering down Pine Street every single day, because of these strange, cute birdhouses that are currently dotting the way. I’ve been seeing them for… hm. You know, I don’t even know anymore, maybe weeks now. It took me a while to finally take some pictures of them, but here they are.

The fact that they are hanging there isn’t the only odd part about them though. The last few seem to have bits of sad poetry scrawled across.

I loved you
and bled
in a way
that still
belongs to me.

I’ve uploaded the rest of the birdhouse pictures to my Flickr page, there are quite a few of them. And if any of you Philly friends know anything about these, let me know!

So I had another surprise press hit regarding Textual Healing this month. A nice little feature in the Philly music magazine JUMP. I actually met the founder and publisher of the publication at the Technically Philly / 215 / VitaminWater event last week. Nice fellah.

Written by Lauren Gordon, the article talks about how I met Peter Marinari, the local acoustic pop musician that wrote songs based off my book. We’d known of each other through mutual friends, but I’d yet to actually meet the guy or hear his music. It was the start of an epic bromance.

You can scope out the full article (as well as some very silly photos), here.

When Christopher Wink asks me to do something, I can never say no.

I was pretty psyched when he asked me to come be a part of their co-sponsored (with 215 Magazine) Vitamin Water #Uncapped event, a sixteen day celebration of music, media, arts, etc. While a lot of #Uncapped wasn’t necessarily my scene (I don’t know / listen to any of the musicians or artists involved), this New Media Unplugged session was absolutely my territory, full of my people.

Lots of cool folks were there as featured speakers, including my pal Tayyib Smith (215 Magazine), Shannon McDonald (NEPhilly), and Adam Schmidt of DrinkPhilly. Danya Henninger (DrinkPhilly’s new editor) was also in attendance and is pictured above, chilling with me pre-show. You can’t see it in the low rez photo, but I totally have a dreamy look on my face. #swoon.

A solid audience showed up to listen to us ramble about hyperlocal blogging and indie publishing. I often feel somewhat out of place at events like this, as Geekadelphia isn’t a for-profit / monetized blog (and likely never will be). When Wink passed the microphone to me to talk about monetizing and sustainability, the guy knew what he was doing. Turns out, several folks in the room had the same mindset as me, and after the talk, we spoke at length about it. It was great, and made me feel less alone in my “this is just for fun” stance.

As for the audience, almost everyone there was involved in the local media somehow. Some print journalists, some fledgling bloggers, etc. There were also a handful of startup folks and curious students thrown into the mix. I met some interesting new people. But at a Technically Philly event, you always do.

All in all, another ridiculously successful event thrown by the Technically Philly boys. Sean Blanda won an iPad in the Geekadelphia raffle during my talk, but since he wasn’t there, I threw it away.

Couple of pictures after the jump. Apologies for the quality. I was using my iPhone.

Branding outside the studio. Vitamin Water sponsored this jawn.

More branding outside. Nicely done, VM.

The stage before the lights went low.

Friends hanging out. Sup Mikey, Joe, and Lauren.

Light beer. Surprisingly not terrible!

Folks listening in as we chat.

More folks listening in.

So even though I’ve pretty much stopped doing outreach / marketing for my self published novel, Textual Healing, press still continues to roll in here and there. Blogs keep asking for review copies (you can have as many as you want!), people keep writing about it on Goodreads, and oddly enough, a few print people still seem interested in writing about it.

Such as Philly Row Home Magazine.

This story appeared in the August 2011 issue and was written by Lauren Gordon (a friend, I admit). It focuses on the book and Geekadelphia. I was pretty psyched about coming into work wearing a suit, my 8-bit tie and rocking a pair of Nerf Mavericks for the shoot. You can scope out a PDF of the full article, right here.

I’m pretty fortunate to have a circle of incredibly talented, creative friends. Writers, musicians, podcasters, chefs and, of course, artists. My pal Britt Miller falls into the final category, with her absolutely gorgeous paintings.

I make it a point to write about her whenever I can on Geekadelphia, but I’m not the only one who praises the hell out of her work. One of her paintings was recently featured on the boxes of Teuscher’s chocolates, another hangs on the set of CBS3′s Talk Philly… she’s all over the place, from Liberty Place in Center City to the Race Street Cafe in Old City, and is a staple of the Philadelphia First Friday scene.

Alas though, this redheaded vixen is leaving Philadelphia to attend graduate school abroad for a while. This bittersweet news comes with some nice perks though. 1. Making plans to visit her in Paris sometime in the Fall and 2. Buying some of her paintings on the cheap.

Britt frequently sasses me about the various pieces of ‘art’ hanging up in my apartment. And by ‘art’ I mean ‘screenprints purchased on clearance at Urban Outfitters.’ What with all the talented people in the city (her included), why didn’t I have some original works hanging up? Being broke / paying student loans is probably the main issue. But thanks to Britt’s fire sale I’ve finally got some original pieces, like the floral one pictured above (and here on Flickr), hanging in my place.

If you’re unfamiliar with her work, please visit her website. She’s awesome.

Not quite sure why it’s taken me so long to write a little something about this. I guess between redesigning the blog and getting the Geek Awards wrapped up, a few things slipped under the radar. I did manage to upload these to Flickr and Facebook with the quickness, but meh. Those are just pictures and little captions. Where were the real words to accompany the pictures that show off, what was, a really lovely day for two of my favorite people?

Tim (who many of you know as my better half on Geekadelphia) and Melissa’s engagement brunch took place at a lovely little Filipino restaurant nestled in a rather fancy area in Brooklyn. I’d never seen estates in New York. Blew my mind. The place was called The Purple Yam, and oh my God, it was delicious. Owned by Tim’s cousins, the venue did not disappoint, even as it filled with dozens upon dozens of people in the sweltering non-air conditioned heat of NYC. Awesome interior, exotic food, and simple decorations made the whole thing quite lovely.

Speaking of food though, don’t even get me started on the cake. Created by a friend of Melissa’s family, this epic cake had hand-blown sugar bubbles (THIS IS A THING), a bottle that looked like glass (but was made of sugar!), and edible photos of Tim and Melissa.

YOU COULD EAT TIM’S FACE.

None of us did, but I was assured that it would have been delicious. 

You could really feel the love in the room for these two. Melissa and Tim both have enormous families, and it just seemed like everyone was packing the tiny restaurant with smiling faces and hugs.

While I didn’t get any photos of her bridal party (“hey Melissa’s sisters, you don’t know me, let me take a photo of you all” just felt a little creepy), I did capture plenty of shots of the groomsmen, hanging around with the bride and groom-to-be.

A little known fact… I’ve known Tim for the better part of a decade, before even moving to Philadelphia.

Most of our mutal friends think we met as a result of the Internet (or however you people find each other these days) and/or Geekadelphia. But nope. We ran into each other back when I was in college and he was just wrapping up high school. We both played in local ska bands, and had mutual friends in the indie music scene. As I started to veer away from playing music and moved towards photography, and Tim began designing for the very bands he shared the stage with, fate had us teaming up on a couple of projects. Notably, a website for The Academy Is…, a favorite group of ours. He did the site, I provided pictures. Immediate BFFs.

For a few years we swapped links back and forth. Press photos for this band, t-shirts for that band. Tour photography for this group, ecards for that group. Right before I moved to Philadelphia, we hopped in his car to go appear in Fall Out Boy’s Dance Dance music video. Look as closely as you want. You’ll never find us. Our friendship has survived a half dozen relaunches of our blog, some botched projects, smuggling bunnies across three states, him moving me from apartment to apartment in his Ford Focus, crazy social media campaigns that drove us insane, etc.

When he asked me to be in the wedding, the conversation went exactly like this (cut from gchat).

me: It’s like, years away. But I can’t wait for the open bar.
Tim: You do realize you’re in the wedding party right? I’m bad at this, do I have to tell you formally?
me: … wait seriously?
Tim: LMAO. Yes seriously
me:  Aw Tim!
Tim:  Dude!
me: Where’s the emoticon for smiling with the chance of tears.
Tim: Stop! We’re manly men! C’mon.
me: Ahem. Yes.

Sigh.

Would you just look at these two beautiful people? I can’t wait to see them tie the knot. So happy Tim and I are friends, and I get to be there when it all happens.

<3

So I only blog on this personal site two or three times a month, sometimes way more if a lot is going on (see April). So I’m going to start these little monthly recaps of what I’ve been up to, since I feel like I’ve been doing so much… only I don’t have the time to write long drawn out posts about every little thing. So yeah. Here goes. May 2011.

Geekadelphia Highlights:

I was named one of “The 20″ by NBC Philadelphia. It’s a list of influential voices in the social media world here in Philly. A really flattering, sweet gesture… though I’m sure I will be briskly removed once they realize all Geekadelphia does is tweet blog posts, snarky things to Technically Philly, and make silly jokes through out the day. Still, really awesome.

I attended Philadelphia Tech Week and made a fool out of myself. The video is available for the entire world to watch. Apologies, Chris Wink. You know I love you.

I was asked to appear as a celebrity judge for a competitive comedy show called ComedySportz. Despite the fact that the event fell on the same day as the Rittenhouse Row Festival, I agreed, and brought several friends… so they could see what a big deal I was, of course. The event was fabulous. I was genuinely shocked at what a great time I had, and it was nice meeting a lot of Geekadelphia fans. Apparently 75% of the ticket holders got to the event because of Geekadelphia, which thrilled me. Can’t wait to go again.

Writing Highlights:

Textual Healing continues to get reviewed here and there. My friend Allie Harcharek just finished re-editing the thing, and a second printing is in the works.

My essay that’ll be appearing in The Apiary literary journal will pop up in the Winter of 2011. Super psyched.

Quirk & Work Highlights:

I announced that I’d be doing freelance marketing and publicity for my pals Parker and Jake, who have a small video game dev company called Flyclops. It’s always been a little dream of mine to work in gaming, and now, at last, I am. At least a little. And that counts.

The new Quirkbooks.com launched, and looks absolutely fabulous. Designed by the folks at 160/90, it’s a massive improvement on the old website. Especially since… you know, the old website didn’t work and was slammed with infections.

Shortly after the launch, I wrote a silly Top 10 Animated Gifs of Michael Bolton blog post on the site, which was immediately picked up and tweeted / Facebooked by Michael Bolton. No, not the guy from Office Space. The actual singer. Yes, I took a screenshot of the Tweet. Yes I printed it out. Yes I have it hanging in my office. What of it?

I attended BEA, my first big book expo, and oh my God, it was awesome. Met lots of bloggers, did some networking, all that good stuff.

Life in General:

I got all the remaining pieces of my Master Chief armor. A process that began last Summer, mostly out of heartache, is finally complete. I own a suit so heavy I can hardly walk in it and can’t put it on without help… and I am unbelievably happy. Spartan-215.com will definitely become more active (though I have been posting pictures almost daily), in the coming weeks. I can’t WAIT for Wizard World with Tim.

Speaking of Tim, he asked me to be in his wedding party. There were tears.

An apiary is a bee yard, a place where these small, life-giving insects are cared for. Their hives are nurtured, their culture sustained.

I spent the greater part of my senior year of college pitching myself to magazines, publishing houses, newspapers… anywhere and any place that could potentially give me an outlet for my writing and love of editorial. It was a challenging time, print media was changing, the digital age was quickly approaching. My junior year, I landed the worst internship in the history of interning at Fader Magazine / Cornerstone Promotions, and come my senior year, I was lucky enough to land a small internship gig at Tango Magazine, right before my epic move to Philadelphia. Here I wrote newsletters, edited columns about dating, and blogged about makeup (shut up).

But alas, this wasn’t what I wanted to do. I wanted to write about comics, video games, gadgets. I kept pitching when I arrived in Philadelphia. Magazines, blogs, local alternative weeklys… again, to no avail. I managed to land a job writing about Philadelphia. Hotels, dining, museums, etc. I wrote about similar things on other local blogs… but still. Not what I was passionate about.

So, when no one wanted to offer me an outlet… I built my own. Geekadelphia was born four years ago today, with the combined powers of myself, Timmy Q, and my lovely friends around Philadelphia who thought it was a clever idea. The site grew and blossomed as more geeks joined the ranks, some writing once every other month, others on a semi-daily basis. Since the launch, the site has gone on to throw enormous parties, video game tournaments, epic movie screenings, concerts, sponsor magazine launches, and we even scored a car from Ford. Members of the blog have appeared in all the local papers, and have been guests on various news networks.

These days, writers come to me. They want to write about beer, about games, about whatever small niche they’re passionate about here in Philadelphia… and I give them all a chance. All of them. Sometimes their grammar sends me into seizures, their spelling mistakes cause me to cry. Occasionally they misspell Philadelphia, as well as my last name. But in a world where few wanted to give me a chance, I carved out a little digital space to give everyone a voice. And I’m proud of that.

This is why I’m supporting The Apiary.

I’ve been ranting about this little Philadelphia based literary journal on Geekadelphia for a while now, from their launch to the co-founder’s current run of featured literary events listings on the blog. It’s an all-ages, anyone-can-submit literary journal produced here in Philly, giving anyone and everyone a chance to be a published writer. Essays, poems, short stories, photography, artwork… you name it. The journal gives budding young writers the chance to be published alongside already established writers. This journal gives a voice to those drowning under the waves of other writers already coasting along. It’s important. It’s necessary.

For their second issue, the journal wants to have enough copies to distribute to classrooms, community and senior centers, as well as youth writing programs. They’re even offering up free writing workshops to every classroom that gets donated copies.

I gave this a lot of thought. I recalled my difficulty in trying to find my niche, thought about my pal Alex Hillman’s decision to support a local blog he admired, and promptly took his mantra’s (JFDI) sage advice. At the start of the New Year, I’ll be donating all of Geekadelphia’s Winter ad revenue to the Apiary’s Kickstarter. And I encourage all of you to do the same. Well, not donate my ad money. Donate your own money. Sheesh.

The Apiary [ www.theapiarycorp.com ]