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.

Just in time for the holiday season, Microsoft hosted an exclusive party for its “Inner Circle” members showcasing the latest and greatest Windows Phone product line running the new Mango operating system.

Held on Wednesday, November 11th in Center City at the trendy RAW Sushi & Sake Lounge, guests were permitted some hands on time with the newest features the Mango OS has to offer. The event also featured complementary appetizers, drinks and mingling with Windows Phone product specialists showing off all the new apps and sleek hardware. The great folks at RAW played wonderful hosts with a smorgasbord of fresh sushi, deliciously deep-fried hors d’oeuvres and my favorite, lots and lots of Sapporo!

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

The Mango update added over roughly 500 new features to the Windows Phone. Microsoft finally improved on some of the difficult multitasking issues we experienced during our time with the Samsung Focus. We also noticed the Mango update added push notification functionality to hubs and tiles, which really makes the screen more animated and truly seem alive. (more…)

It’s looking like NBA 2K12 is the closest basketball fans will get to an actual season this year. The league may have failed you this season but 2K Sports has created a worthy successor to last year’s sleeper hit. Regardless of genre, I believe that immersion is a necessary component to an enjoyable gameplay experience. NBA 2K12 acknowledges this while actually improving upon where its critically acclaimed predecessor left off.

The game essentially draws on nostalgia, dream match ups and competitive gameplay to create an accessible, fun product for fans of all ages. This years installment is a lot more than last years addition of Michael Jordan. 2K12 sees the playable debut of 10 new basketball legends including Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Bill Russell and a host of others to create modern-era matchups. NBA fans will surely nerd out at the attention to detail in 2K12. Select to play as circa 1960’s Boston Celtics and witness the transformation of modern day gameplay to a black and white television broadcast throwback with genuine announcers in uncanny detail.

Speaking of the graphics, many of the players have noticeably improved from 2K11’s somewhat extraterrestrial looking player aesthetic. Lebron James and Dirk Nowitzki are crafted meticulously as you control them rather fluidly up and down the court. New players will feel a slight learning curve with the sequence of controls. You can essentially micromanage everything that is going on in the game while on the court, both offensively and defensively. (more…)

Opened in March of 2011, Microsoft’s Technology Center campus in Malvern, Pennsylvania is one of only eleven MTC’s in the United States. The Technology Centers themselves serve as collaborative environments where customers can envision, design and deploy their product while being provided access to innovative technology, specialists and Microsoft staff.

The idea behind these state-of-the-art Technology Centers is to utilize Microsoft resources in order to shorten time-to-market production while conceptualizing the best solutions for customers. By integrating Microsoft products and technologies, companies can benefit from such a powerful organizational resource.

I had the opportunity to take a personalized tour of the Malvern facility. And while I’m far from being Charlie Bucket and finding a golden ticket in my Wonka bar, Microsoft did their best Willy Wonka impression when they gave this geek the keys to their Chocolate Factory! (more…)

On October 4th, Apple announced the successor to the iPhone 4 under a series of speculation, leaks and rumors leading consumers to believe (and some to expect) the debut of the phantom iPhone 5. What we were in fact introduced to was a modified upgrade in the form of iPhone 4S. Subsequently this would be the last Apple product that Steve Jobs would see presented to the world. It’s been heralded as a tremendous leap forward in innovation and technology. Quell all of the hype and settle down the fanboys, I’m here to tell you geeks whether it’s worth the upgrade.

Critics of the iPhone 4 form factor will not see much of an aesthetic upgrade to the case and physical appearance. All of the improvements to the 4S have been made under the hood. Boasting an A5 dual core processor with speeds up to 7x faster, the iPhone 4S posted impressive benchmark scores when compared to its predecessor. Battery life patterns remained relatively similar to that of my iPhone 4. I personally never managed to get more than 4-5MBPS on AT&T’s 3G network here in Philadelphia. The device is still hampered by 3G limitations in the absence of a true high speed LTE connection even with improvements made to the Safari browser in iOS5. On the bright side, Apple did finally correct the antenna death-grip issues that plagued users of the iPhone 4 causing loss of cellular reception simply by holding it a certain way. (more…)

The Misanthropes Guide To Life reads like an excerpt out of a Larry David memoir, chock-full of sardonic, insightful commentary and situational based instances of what is commonly misconstrued as anti-social behavior. A misanthrope is defined as “one who hates mankind; a curmudgeon or a realist”.

The book aims to give fellow misanthropes a how-to guide on how to cope with a genetically hardcoded disdain for others – in a sarcastically jovial way. Considering myself a part of this demographic, I decided to absorb the book rather thoroughly while only pausing for short breaks to watch fellow misanthrope, Louie C.K.

A running concept throughout the book is essentially how to feign interest in people, a quality that some of the greatest misanthropes pride themselves on. While others on the more extreme side of the spectrum choose to avoid people entirely. The realist in most of us know that this is clearly impossible unless you happen to be the Emperor of Japan or a far eastern monarch of similar equivalence living in a randomly isolated sacred compound.

Misanthropes envy that level of isolation and solitude but can take solace in the guidance of the co-author, Philadelphia’s own Chris Turner-Neal. Neal addresses everyday contradictions for misanthropes like how to engage socially as well as deal with having and maintaining friends when you’d clearly prefer solitary confinement in your bedroom. These are the societal burdens of a common misanthrope and Neal’s writing is clearly at it’s best when dipping into elements of observational black comedy while seeming almost borderline ostentatious.

Another common theme of the misanthrope is social ethics. Neal and co-author Meghan Rowland touch on awkward, social-assassin-esque situations like “the courtesy wave: a vehicular acknowledgment” and focus on advanced defense mechanisms for how to avoid uncomfortable scenarios with strangers, colleagues or family. The authors argue that even though misanthropes are commonly misconstrued as the “anti-social” members of society, they are in fact superior at grasping situational ethics whereas “normal people” cannot.

However, beyond the American Psycho references, witty anecdotes, sarcastic one-liner quips and irrational suggestions (“just taze ‘em” was once proposed as a viable solution in the book), the authors actually sometimes make valid observational points from a logical perspective. Neal and Rowland also openly poke fun at themselves by insinuating that being a writer is an ideal profession, as you are essentially predisposed to being or becoming a misanthrope.

They even take aim at blogging as a misanthropic profession, claiming that it is “the act of sharing your ideas in silence – an obvious defense mechanism for misanthropes”. Although they stopped short of saying IT professional, it was already blatantly obvious that I was a misanthrope after finishing this book. I urge you to find your inner misanthrope and take isolated comfort in some of these anti-social inspired truths. And remember – keep your friends close but your defense mechanisms closer!

Want to win yourself a copy of  The Misanthropes Guide To Life? Leave a comment about your favorite anti-social character, fictional or real, and we’ll select one of you at random sometime next week.

Crazy Machines Elements is the latest entry in a series of wacky physics based puzzle games from German developers FAKT Software. Elements feels like a throwback to the glory days of simple but logical video gaming. Long before being a gamer was defined by how fast you could button mash a keybinding macro on World of Warcraft, puzzle games harken back to the glory days of the 8-bit. All nostalgia aside, what Elements does, it does well… it excels at being widely accessible to all types of gamers while communicating the importance of physics and creativity in solving problems.

In Crazy Machines Elements players must utilize physical and interactive objects in order to create a series of chain reactions in order to advance to the next level. Throughout each level, the player must determine creative ways to harness the elements and objects like pinwheels, cloud machines and flamethrowers in order to meet the puzzle’s objective. Each puzzle gets progressively difficult while involving more and more objects or elements to manipulate within your environment to advance.

The developers did a tremendous job making the player feel rewarded along the way as you progress throughout the game, unlocking more levels and miscellaneous challenges. Elements also features a level editor mode which enables the player to create custom puzzles, sans the ability to share with friends on XBOX Live unfortunately. While Crazy Machines Elements is no Limbo, it’s still an ambitious puzzle game with solid positives – hypnotic replay-ability, immersive soundtrack and old school puzzler roots – that make it worth a look! Crazy Machines Elements is available for download on the XBOX Live Marketplace for 800 Microsoft Points.

I spent two weeks with the Samsung Focus Windows Phone, Microsoft’s thinnest smart phone running the Windows-powered mobile operating system. The phone was clearly engineered with users in mind who communicate through social platforms. Boasting a gorgeous four-inch LED display, the Samsung Focus has a 1GHz CPU and 8GB of internal storage under its compact hood.

The five-megapixel camera has native zoom and flash capability. Navigating on the Windows Phone is a cohesive, side-scrolling experience that’s actually quite refreshing. The software has a keen sense of responsiveness and reaction time while typing on the keyboard was just remarkably accurate.

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The Conserve Socket is a part of Belkin’s eco-friendly product line aimed to reduce energy consumption. How? Well with an easy to set timer, it completely shuts off whatever device is plugged into it once the preset time expires. This durable product can be used throughout the house for multiple devices.

In my experience with the product, which Belkin was kind enough to send over, I’ve found it to be ideal for cell phone chargers, most consumer electronics, space heaters, coffee makers and irons. Clearly labeled buttons, simple packaging and reasonable pricing make it a no brainer for your average technophile.

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Top Spin 4 is the latest entry in the popular tennis series from 2K Sports released on the XBOX360, Playstation 3 and Nintendo Wii consoles. The game features a laundry list of officially licensed professional players, equipment and venues. Most of the usual suspects have returned (Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, Andy Roddick, etc.) from the previous installment and 2K have actually stepped it up by incorporating Playstation Move compatibility as well as 3D support for the XBOX360 version.

There is a copious amount of content here that can be appreciated by tennis fans, players and sports gamers alike. Top Spin 4 allows you to create a character to participate in a professional career mode where you can customize facial characteristics and utilize clothing and equipment from real companies. This gives your character a sense of identity and offers a real incentive to invest your time in the game moving forward.

Read on to find out how you can win a copy!

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Most Philadelphia Phillies fans were bummed out last year when they missed an opportunity to advance to their third consecutive World Series. Fortunately, Take Two’s 2K Sports has got your woes covered for the 2011 season with their annual MLB 2K franchise, Major League Baseball 2K11.

Through superb play-by-play analysis and color commentary delivered by ESPN personalities Gary Thorne, Steve Phillips and former Phillie John Kruk, we are immersed into a game very similar to it’s predecessor, Major League Baseball 2K10.

From the get-go, you will notice one of Major League Baseball 2K11’s greatest attributes; it’s highly customizable gameplay modes and options in a slightly overwhelming amount of menus. Specific automations can be configured to allow the player to micromanage a plethora of options during franchise, seasonal and postseason gameplay.

This is where MLB2K11 really shines. Eventually though, you may began to feel overwhelmed by the increased customization and abundance of menus… but I was still anxious to begin my journey to the World Series!

Read on to win a copy of MLB2k11 for the Xbox 360!

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“Sci-Fi starlet, Jody Thompson guest stars this season on Fox’s hit TV series, Fringe. Jody stars as Sara Downey, a casualty of an experiment gone horrifically wrong. I had the opportunity to sit down with Jody for an exclusive Geekadelphia interview and discuss in depth her special guest role on Fringe, past roles on Smallville and Stargate, what it’s like working with J.J. Abrams, growing up in Vancouver and more!”

• Hi Jody, thanks for taking time to speak with Geekadelphia! You are appearing on Fringe this season, can you tell us a little bit about your role on the series?

My character’s name is Sara Downey. She and her husband are the unfortunate casualties of a research experiment gone really, really wrong… I’m not sure how much more I can say without giving away anything!

• In addition to Fringe, you’ve guest starred on many other popular sci-fi television series like Stargate, Smallville and Supernatural. Do you have any personal favorite sci-fi films/series?

Lang’s “Metropolis,” ”Soderbergh’s “Solaris,” “2001: A Space Odyssey,” and “Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back.” I will also forever be a fan of, “Star Trek,” and “Star Trek: The Next Generation.”

• I read you were born in Vancouver, BC. How was it filming Fringe in your hometown?

You know what they say. There’s no place like home – especially when your home is in Vancouver.

• Describe what’s it like working with JJ Abrams and Anna Torv on the set of Fringe. Was there mutual chemistry between you and fellow Canadian, Joshua Jackson? Were there any funny moments you would like to share while filming the series?

I have to say, I am continually impressed with big stars like Anna and Josh, as well as industry power players like Abrams, who manage to be enviably smart, cool and nice. When you walk onto a show for a single episode, there is always the possibility of feeling like an unwanted houseguest. The cast and crew are a tight-knit family and you are invading their private domain. But everyone was so welcoming. It was such a pleasure to be there. Anna is, (if it’s possible), even more beautiful in person and Josh is, well – even more charming. Alas, we didn’t do much joking around because the material we were working on was beyond serious…

• Throughout your career, you have done a bit of everything, acting, producing, directing, screenwriting, etc. Which role is your favorite and why>

Acting is my favorite, because I get to completely forget myself and “live” as another character. It’s kind of an out-of-body experience for me. Writing is my other favorite because I get to live inside myself and indulge in over-thinking myself silly, a terrible, wonderful habit of mine. Clear as mud?

• I know you have worked with both executive producers but this one is pretty difficult. JJ Abrams or X-Files’ Bob Goodwin?

Wow. Well, I did have a lot of one-on-one time with Bob, and he was just so amazing, the way he directed me in “Alien Trespass.” That was a scary project for me because my performance as a 1950’s B-movie starlet could have gone way over-the-top wrong. He made me feel so secure, and yet challenged, every step of the way. Goodwin is something of a genius… Though the same should be said for Abrams… And I would work with either again… on absolutely anything… Why would you ask me this unanswerable question! Lol.

• What challenges did you find in your role on Fringe this season?

It is the kind of role that actors dream of. The material was so compelling and perfectly written it was a matter of not getting in the way of what the creators had created. The. Ultimate. Challenge. I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but I’m anxious about how it will come off. Truthfully, I’ve been torturing myself, wondering if I have somehow ruined the beauty of what I read in the script. But, then again, that’s what we actors do to ourselves in our down time. I guess a bit of fear is healthy as long as it doesn’t paralyze you, but drives you to work harder?

• The show thoroughly explores the possibilities and concepts of Fringe science and it’s impact on society. If you were a Fringe scientist, would you use your knowledge for good or evil?

Insert evil laugh here… Just kidding.

I’m not sure if this is the answer you were looking for, but my impulse is to respond by saying that I don’t think it is possible to strive for “evil.” A person with a “cause” thinks he/she is doing the “right” thing. But, obviously, not all perspectives will be compatible – hence good versus evil. Certainly, when I play an evil character, I have to work really hard to find motivations and back-story for that character that will help me to justify even her most unsavory actions. In life, however, we usually only arrive at the “good vs. evil” conflict by way of literature, religion or hindsight.

What JJ Abrams does so well, (as does great sci-fi), is to identify and speak to the spirit of the times – the working zeitgeist. I think projects like “Fringe,” are so important because they provide us with a kind of vantage point, a point near enough to our own lives, yet far enough removed, that we can gain perspective and take stock of our own situations. When we can step back, we can truthfully answer questions like… “are we using our knowledge for good or for evil?”

• Beyond Fringe, where else can we expect to see you in 2011?

“Sanctuary!” I have a couple of episodes coming up as the mysterious (and questionably motivated), Lieutenant Fallon…