Avoiding a Winter Slump

Exercise routines can fall by the wayside in the deep winter months, as short days and inclement weather restrict our access to the outside world. Stay active year round with these ideas for at-home indoor exercise:

Try some exergaming
Motion sensor games are a fun way to get in some exercise. A large range of games, some specifically designed as exercise programs, will get you moving. If you have an older system, try a dancing game that uses a large mat controller.

Mix up the exercise videos
Streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime offer thousands of exercise videos piped straight to your TV or computer.  It’s a great way to try out a new exercise routine without the commitment of buying a DVD.

Lift weights
Adjustable hand weight sets are fairly inexpensive and the right set can continue to serve you for a good long time as your strength increases. Hand weights and strap-on weights can be used for full body workouts or be lifted when you’re watching TV or listening to music.

Climb stairs
If you have access to a staircase, grab your mp3 player and do some stair climbing… the old fashioned way!

Fond: Seasonal Fare

For an anniversary or birthday, grab your sweetheart and a bottle of wine and head to Fond. Situated on up-and-coming Passyunk Avenue, Fond has simple, sleek decor to create a cozy interior. Fond offers a similarly sparse, yet appetizing, menu of contemporary American cuisine, which varies depending on the season, ensuring the freshest, most seasonal food. Depending on the season, diners can share a garlic-y appetizer of escargot or the popular veal sweetbreads then enjoy entrees of swordfish or strip loin. The light, mostly organic meats come served in moderate portions on appealingly arrayed plates. The modest portion sizes allow diners to save room for the reasonably priced, yet very rich, desserts (Meyer Lemon layer cake, dark chocolate torte, and so on). Make sure to reserve a table online or over the phone to save your place at Fond for that special occasion!

Fond
1617 E. Passyunk Avenue
Philadelphia, PA 19148
(215) 551-5000

Master Tweeter: How To Improve Your Twitter Networking

Twitter is rapidly becoming one of the most important platforms for social marketing in the world. Capable of aiding democratic reforms overseas as well as sharing inconsequential celebrity thoughts, it’s just starting to show its true power. If you want to use Twitter to improve your networking, here are five tips that will help:

• Interact with other users. This is really the core of any social networking experience, but it’s vitally important on Twitter. Use @ replies and direct messages to answer questions, offer comments and more. If you’re lucky, they’ll be retweeted and replied to, gaining you followers.
• Explore other user’s follower lists to find people with similar interests to you. Twitter also suggests recommended users to follow, many of which are worthwhile. Don’t be fooled by the sponsored placements in this category, though.
• Take part in trending topics and other Twitter memes. These will expose you to users you normally wouldn’t interact with. Follow Friday is one of the most useful tools, and you can do it every week.
• Upload media with your tweets. You don’t have to add a photo to every entry you make on Twitter, but it doesn’t hurt to add some visual interest every once in a while.
• Tweet when people are most active – this is usually in the early afternoon, when office workers are returning from lunch, but in some cases it can be other times of the day. It’s much easier to network and hold a conversation during these peak times.

Sugarhouse Casino: Roll The Bones

If you’re looking to gamble in the City of Brotherly Love, locals recommend the Sugarhouse Casino. This popular establishment was opened in 2010 to a mixed response from the community, but it has quickly developed a dedicated clientele for table games and slot machines. Located in the Fishtown neighborhood along the Delaware River, the casino boasts a 1,300,000 square foot facility on the site of the former Jack Frost Sugar refinery. The Sugarhouse Casino floor sports over three thousand slot machines, from penny slots to high roller machines, as well as table games that include blackjack, craps, roulette, and even Pai Gow poker. A variety of dining options are available as well. The Refinery Restaurant and Bar has become a popular party spot, with weekly themed nights focusing on 80s music, reggae and more. The Sugar Express shuttle bus even provides free service from a number of Philly’s neighborhoods right to the Sugarhouse Casino's door.

Sugarhouse Casino
1001 North Delaware Avenue
Philadelphia, PA 19125
(877) 477-3715
www.sugarhousecasino.com

January Events in Philadelphia

Looking for something to do? This January, Philadelphia hosts some exciting events! Check out these four:

Mummer's Parade, January 1, 2012

A Philadelphia tradition, old men in elaborate costumes sit in small go-karts and whiz around the streets along with bands and other festivities. It's supposed to be linked to Celtic customs, but mostly it's a raucous good time.

Story Slam: Daily Grind at World Cafe Live, January 9, 2012

In the new year, make your new favorite hang out the Story Slams at World Cafe Live and L'Etage. Twice every month real people pour their hearts out about a selected theme. You can also compete with your own five minute tale of humorous woe.

City Food Tours, ongoing

Philly's foodie scene is thriving and City Food Tours is offering a fun, social way of experiencing it through restaurant crawls. Look out for special tours like Craft Beer and Artisanal Cheese or Decadent Gourmet.

Jerry Seinfeld at the Academy of Music, January 14, 2012

The original funny man comes to the Academy to talk about nothing. Really. But he'll probably include a few topical quips about the city and his act's guaranteed to be a good time!

Ekta: Passage to India

The word 'authentic' gets thrown around a lot, but it's the only thing to say about the stunning Indian fare at Fishtown's Ekta. There's nothing Westernized about this family-run gem: the flavorful appetizers are served with mint and tamarind chutney. Add a side of made-to-order, oven-warm naan or other bread to sop up the sauces. There's a long list of veggie entrees, including saag aur paneer, Ekta dal, and Bhindi masala. Meat-eaters can select from a list of main courses ranging from lamb korma to shrimp tikki masala to chicken vindaloo. Ekta also prides itself on its traditional fare of slow-cooked Tandoori meat dishes and spicy Biryani rice dishes. BYOB if you're eating in, but Ekta offers free delivery to certain nearby neighborhoods. Check the website for details!

Ekta
250 E. Girard Avenue
Philadelphia, PA 19125
(215) 426-2277

The Consolations of Alain de Botton

Writer Alain de Botton has made it his mission to show how thinking — and acquaintance with some of the greatest thinkers — can offer us solace and enlarge our happiness. Having begun a Ph.D. program in philosophy, de Botton left the ivory tower in order to write books for general readers. De Botton's work engages topics as diverse as airports, cookies, stoicism, and shoe shining while aiming throughout to help us lead better lives. Sound interesting? Read these five books by de Botton:

• In The Consolations of Philosophy de Botton argues that the teachings of the world's most important philosophers concern the day to day business of living in the world. In a tour of philosophical history, de Botton shows how works by great philosophers can help readers overcome everyday difficulties like frustration, heartbreak, and unhappiness.
• How Proust Can Change Your Life, similarly, presents Marcel Proust's novel Remembrance of Things Past as a peculiar sort of self-help book. De Botton culls a number of aphorisms and parables from Proust and presents these lessons in his characteristically witty style.
• De Botton's book The Architecture of Happiness explores the usually unnoticed (yet often quite deep) ways the spaces human beings inhabit affect our emotional lives. This book will change the way you see the physical world.
• A Week at the Airport issued from time de Botton spent as writer-in-residence at England's Heathrow Airport. De Botton sees the airport as a uniquely modern space that concentrates human beings' arrivals, departures, beginnings, and endings in a way made possible only by the miraculous fact of airplane flight. Movingly written and beautifully illustrated, this short book is perhaps the best introduction to de Botton.
• The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work surveys the strange and wonderful world of work. Offering the book as an investigation into a realm that claims itself as one of the principal sources of life's meaning, de Botton turns an anthropologist's eye toward enterprises like logistics, accounting, cookie making, career counseling, and inventing. Listen to an extended interview de Botton gave about the book here.

De Botton also runs The School of Life, a private school based in England that hosts classes, dinners, and a series of "secular sermons." The sermons often reprise de Botton's great theme that philosophy can help human beings with the business of living. View some of these sermons online here.

Please Touch Museum: Interactive Fun

Don’t let the title ‘museum’ scare off your youngsters! The Please Touch Museum is a far-cry from big, quiet halls where you have to keep your hands to yourself. In fact, as the name implies, Please Touch is a highly interactive educational experience. Parents will have fun guiding their children through the varied activities that encourage critical thinking and coordination. Future city planners can build their personal Utopia at City Capers, while future pilots earn their wings at Flight Fantasy. Explorers can tumble through and manipulate various features of Wonderland and Rainforest. For a dose of history, check out Centennial Exploration and Liberty Arm & Touch. Other activities include perusing the extensive contemporary and historical toy collections or seeing a play at the Playhouse Theater. The Please Touch Museum is open daily.

Please Touch Museum
4231 Avenue of the Republic
Philadelphia, PA 19131
(215) 581-3181

100% Invisible: Five Compelling Podcasts

Great radio stories are abundant now. Thanks to the web, inventive producers can create and distribute riveting stories cheaply as podcasts. Discerning listeners, in turn, can listen easily while commuting to work or working out at the gym. Since the form distills storytelling to sound, it's often very intimate and moving. These five smart podcasts show off the possibilities:

99% Invisible
Hosted by Roman Mars, 99% Invisible bills itself as "a tiny radio show about design." 99% Invisible episodes spend 5-10 minutes looking closely at otherwise invisible features of our physical world: for example, the peculiar layouts of check cashing stores, the feedback sounds of tech devices, and the look of municipal flags. Be sure to listen to this episode on Soviet Era Design.

RadioLab
RadioLab host Jad Abumrad recently won one of the MacArthur Foundation's "genius grants." Listen to RadioLab and you'll understand why. Abumrad and cohost Robert Krulwich spend each hour of RadioLab investigating topics philosophical and scientific, like "Time" or "Loops" or "Stochasticity." Yes, stochasticity. It means "randomness" and RadioLab's great production values — and dare-we-call-it-genius writing — help make the topic compelling.

Transom
Transom is a showcase and workshop for new public radio. Its site offers tips and tools for producing radio documentaries along with a selection of shows. Transom's podcasts typically present stories that experiment with documentary form. Transom's experiments are interesting even when they aren't successful.

Re:Sound
A weekly radio show and podcast produced by the Third Coast International Audio Festival, Re:Sound gathers some of the best short-form audio pieces. The Third Coast Festival's website also features a library of short documentaries, including contemporary radio plays, documentaries, and stories.

The Sporkful
Selected by iTunes as one of the Best New Podcasts of 2010, The Sporkful's a show about food that insists "it's not for foodies, it's for eaters." Each week, cohosts Dan Pashman and Mark Garrison ruminate on the minutiae of food. Check out The Sporkful Test Kitchen blog.

Each podcast is available for download in Apple's iTunes Store.

Cafe Lift: Breakfast Delights

Philadelphians love brunch and Cafe Lift serves up a delicious array of breakfast favorites. An oasis in a fairly deserted area, Cafe Lift exudes a hip, industrial aura entered into through a freight lift (hence the moniker). Entrees here run around $8 and the offerings are the typical treats you crave in the morning with a fresh twist. Egg dishes include the Jens Crespelle (scrambled eggs in a crepe smothered in maple syrup) and fried egg paninos: two fried eggs, veggies, and cheese nestled in a warmed panini. The sweet stuff is particularly enticing: you can try lemon ricotta pancakes, cannoli french toast, and nutty monkey crespelle! Lunch offerings include fairly standard and inexpensive paninis and salads. It’s best to visit Cafe Lift in the morning for their breakfast selection. Unlike many Philly brunch places, this cafe is still a hidden gem — so the time you'll wait for a table will be brief!

Cafe Lift
428 N. 13th Street
Philadelphia, PA 19123
(215) 922-3031

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