Fun around town, for $10 or less: Swinging: John Clark Big Band sponsored by the Chestnut Hill Community Association at Pastorius Park (Abington and Lincoln Drive), 7:30PM. Free Local Flavor: Wednesday Night Out, featuring 15 local performers including Bunny Sigler, MFSB, Soul Survivors, and others on the Avenue of the Arts and in The Kimmel Center (Broad between Locust and Pine), 6:30PM. Free Quizzo Mania: Get your Quizzo on at 12 Steps Down (831 Christian),......

Fun around town, for $10 or less: FRIDAY: We Were Framed!: Phillyist Framed, a photo exhibit with works from Phillyist readers, at Studio 34 (4522 Baltimore), 7PM. $5 suggested donation (plus free beer) Hype: the HYPE! presents Boy Wonder, Nicole Lynn, Steve Hackman, Swift Technique, Laura Cheadle, and Half Evil Half Good at Upstairs at World Café Live (3025 Walnut), 8PM. $9 The N Crowd: Improv comedy troupe the N Crowd perform at the Actors......

Fun around town, for $10 or less: We Can Yap With the Best of Them: Inaugural Yappy Hour featuring a full dog menu for your furry friend and specialty cocktails for you, proceeds of which benefit the PA SPCA, at Tavern 17 (220 S 17th), 5-7PM every last Thursday through September. Free + food and drink Nice Way to Wind Down: Music on the Mall, a free summer concert series, featuring local four-man vocal group......

Fun around town, for $10 or less: FRIDAY Outdoor Music: Friday Night Summer Jazz Concerts every Friday in Cedar Park (50th and Baltimore), 6-8PM. Free The N Crowd: Improv comedy troupe the N Crowd perform at the Actors Center (257 N 3rd), 8PM. $10 Brakes CD Release Party: XPN welcomes The Brakes with Ben Arnold and Carney at Johnny Brenda’s (1201 N Frankford), 8PM. $10 SATURDAY The Kids Are All Right: Paul Green School of......

Fun around town, for $10 or less: FRIDAY Try Not to Get Sick on Your Shoes: Positively Sick on South Street, featuring Jukebox Zeros, The Victims, and Women, all to the backdrop of Santa Claus Conquers The Martians at Tritone (1508 South), 9PM. $6 Philabundance Benefit: Featuring Lizanne Knot, John Conahan, the Hustle, and Kuf Knotz at Upstairs at World Café Live (3025 Walnut), 7PM. $8 + a canned good SATURDAY Could You Hold the......

A steaming hot pile of our favorite things from around the internets. Seth Rogen is going to write and star in a feature film version of The Green Hornet. Wait... Seth Rogen? Knocked Up guy? WTF?! That ain't right, people. They're releasing an 160 GB external USB hard drive for the PS3... in Japan. Harry Potter 7 finally comes out at midnight tonight! You better believe this Phillyist has his pre-order in and his wristband......

What's new and/or interesting on TV this week. Animal Battlegrounds (Tue, 9:30PM-10PM, Animal Planet) - Are the parts in nature shows where the animals eat each other your favorite bits? Then this show is for you! It seems to look exclusively at such conflicts. This episode focuses on wetland environments, particularly Africa, and features archerfish shooting their prey down out of the trees, and black egrets catching fish by tricking them with shadows. Globe Trekker......

To state the obvious: Spiral Q Puppet Theater is a Philadelphia institution. Combining social activism with larger-than-life puppetry has made the organization a neighborhood favorite in, well, many neighborhoods in the city, seeing as how their folks partner with the community to put on fantastic parades and pageants. You'll be able to see puppets in action this Saturday at 1 pm, rain or shine, when Spiral Q presents the 3rd annual UP North Parade and......

A mother who had been barred from contact with her son for being physically abusive towards him managed to sign him out of his elementary school on Tuesday and police are now searching for her and the boy. The boy is seven years old and asthmatic. Call Southwest Detectives at 215-686-3183 if you have any information. "A recently completed 'citizens' inspection' of a third of the 140 parks operated by the Fairmount Park Commission and......

Spring is when we get busy here in the Ist-A-Verse. Very busy. But, after staying bundled-up indoors all winter, it's nice for us to be out, about, and collecting things to write about for you. Here's a glimpse at what's been keeping your favorite citybloggers busily away from home and out of bed. For LAist, strong winds attacked LA on the same day the Feds raided the Crips. Not to fear, though: the Japanese version......

A Quirky Column about Dog Walking Adventures in the City of Dog-Owning Love Dogs in Film Seeing as how there is so much coverage of the Philly Film Festival going on right now, and seeing as how so many dog walkers search for yet another interesting topic to discuss with their peers at the local parks, I figured, hey, why not compile a list of dogs in film. From this list, all dog owners and......

There are tons of follow-up articles on that mass murder down at the offices of Zigzag at the Naval Yard. The Daily News has a general article about the tragedy, as well as more on Zigzag and their clients, a timeline of the day's events, and profiles of the victims. Meanwhile, the Inquirer covers the story in detail, as well. As we suspected, lots of people are not too hot on Fattah's "congestion charge" idea.......

I still hate Valentine’s Day. I’m still bitter and I will still want to throw brightly colored, probably already stale Necco hearts at anyone who wears pink or red today. But, I’m lazy. And bitterness requires more energy than a general acceptance, so Philadelphia, here’s my Valentine of sorts to you (feel honored, I’m not even sending one to my parents): 10 Things I Love About Philadelphia (In no particular order) 1. Brunch at Sabrina’s......

The best of the internet, squirted out in flavorful neon globules, just for you. Cheer up, folks - the worst day of the year is already over! (Via) Gemotion is a new type of screen for projected video that actually bulges and collapses in synch with the graphics on it. It's real 3D! That's kind of cool, but also kind of creepy... (Via) Sigh. We have to add a new blog to our already crowded......

As 2006 ends and 2007 begins, the -ists look back not at the past week, but at the past year. So here it is, your Best of 2006 Spectacular. And from all of us at the -ists, happy New Year! Austinist was all about controversy as new construction to increase urban density ran rampant in 2006, as did threats to the city's image from gigantic corporations looking to set up shop in town, leading......

Rainy Sundays aren't usually good for much. The malls and movie theaters are jammed, the parks in Center City are, shall we say, outdoors, and you can't play baseball. The latter problem applied to the Phillies and Mets yesterday, whose game at Shea Stadium was rained out. But Phillies GM Pat Gillick made the most of his spare time, trading a bag of money and the famous "player to be named later" for Baltimore Orioles......

Fun around town, for $10 or less: Twelfth Night in Clark Park: Free performance of Shakespeare in Clark Park beginning at 7PM. Runs through August 6th. 43rd & Baltimore Vote for Pedro: Commerce bank presents a free screening of Napolean Dynamite, which will be preceded by a series of contests, including a dance-off. And whose life couldn't use a few more dance-offs? Contests start at 7:30, and the movie starts at dusk (9ish). The Silence:......

Fun around town, for $10 or less: The Gathering: "Philly's longest running hip hop and breaking event" from 10pm - 2am at The Rotunda (4014 Walnut Street). Free Free Screenings Under the Stars: Commerce bank presents a FREE screening of Elf, which will be preceded by a series of Christmas in July events. Movie starts at dusk (9ish). Penguins in the Park: March of the Penguins will be screened for free at 8PM in Gold......

Dear America (it’s ambitious, I know – just bear with me): Call me corny. Call me deluded. Call me five years old. I spent my Fourth of July weekend roaming around Disneyworld. My younger sister is working there this summer, as part of the Disney College program, and I was able to spend four days roaming the Disney Parks for free (plus the cost of food and tchotchkes, of course). Last Friday at an office......

Fun around town, for $10 or less: Screenings Under the Stars: Free screening of King Kong (no idea which version) at Penn's Landing courtesy of Commerce Bank. Film begins at Dusk. Also Screening: Big Fish at Gold Star Park (Wharton St, between 6th & 7th). Free at 8PM Word 4 Word: Open mic for "poets, poetesses, freestyle cyphers, singers, rappers" at Art Noir Gallery (7175C Ogontz Ave.) 7-9PM No cover. Sports and the Struggle: Bindlestiff......

Sampaist is on the scene in São Paulo beginning this week to become the only ist south of the Equator. Editor Leandro M. Pinto leads the paulistanos down there. You can protest someone at his office, sure, but when the whistle blows at the end of the day can you follow him home? D.C. has sports fans, apparently, and elephants aren't really cut out for zoos. There's this trick where you can read information from......

Hey, Philly! We have another professional sports team to our name! It's the first of its kind in the state, and features world-renowned athletes. To be exact, it's a women's softball team called the Philadelphia Force. After a couple of rain-outs, they finally had their first game this past weekend. And they may play in Allentown, but they're definitely a Philly team; they lost their home opener. We like them, though, because we're choosing......

LAist has so much fun this week! They go to E3, where they overhear the timeless remark "Man, this is where nerdy girls get laid." Is that a promise? They also give us this week's best CDs and make us realize that LA is the best place to use Zillow. Ah, Houstonist. They're biking to work, that is, if they can figure out how to get there. That's right, Mapquest says "Houston had the......

Tonight at 7PM, three authors who have been published in Philadelphia Stories will be reading their work at the Voices and Visions Bookstore (4th Street between Market and Chestnut). Readers will include Robin Parks, Tamara Oakman and Greg Downs. Philly has lots of stories to offer...who knew you couldn't find them all online? Philadelphia Stories Reading Tuesday, February 7 7:00 PM Lower Level of tthe Bourse Image Credit: ibiblio......

That chill you're feeling? Sure, it could be the frigid temps...but it also might be that you're inadvertantly walking on someone's grave. Sure - we all know that many of our Center City parks are mass burial grounds - but you might be surprised to learn that there are hidden, unmarked graves...in our local cemetaries. According to Philly.com, Christ Church Burial Ground (5th and Arch Streets) recently discovered some graves beneath the pathway that leads......

Are you a "Citizen Journalist? More importantly...are you a Philadelphia-based Citizen Journalist with a video camera and a couple of free minutes on your hands? If so, Discovery Channel wants to hear from you. According to this ad on Craigslist, the cable channel is looking for 2-3 minutes of video on the parts of Philadelphia you find most interesting. (Apparently, they're even willing to pay you. Crazy.) Phillyist hopes you videophiles will get out......

Philly is a liberal town. If President George W. Bush picks a local judge to nominate for Supreme Court justice, that should be a good thing, right? Alas, no -- President Bush managed to find Philadelphia's most extreme Right Wing judge, Samuel Alito, to nominate. He's so conservative that his nickname is 'Scalito', a reference to his Antonin Scalia-like tendencies. So what do we know about Judge Alito? Alito is a Jersey boy and is......

We see dead people. You might too, considering you can't swing a dead cat in Philadelphia without hitting someone with a ghost story. Professional ghost hunters like the Philadelphia Ghost Hunters Alliance probably never have a shortage of haunted sites to investigate. But you don't have to be a professional or go on a tour to find the spirits -- you simply need to know where to look. Phillyist recommends just hanging out in......

Six Flags Great Adventure has gone and scary-upped the park, offering visitors a variety of Halloween-themed rides and shows, in addition to their usual theme park fare. Among the attractions are the Horror Hollow haunted woods, the Monster Bash, the Hollywood Ghoulevard, and the Disco Inferno. Disco. Now that's scary. Great Adventure Fright Fest Through October 31 $47.99 + tax for adults / $29.99+ tax for kids and seniors......

Frugal in Philly is a weekly celebration of all things Philly that are fun, frugal (costing $10 or less) or free! Stop here each week to see what Philly's got to offer for those of us who haven't quite mastered the art of becoming Independently Wealthy (although believe me, we're trying). Featured Pick of the Week: Really - What Good *IS* Sitting Alone in Your Room?: Phillyist has been surprised and delighted by the amount......