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

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

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

• 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
4231 Avenue of the Republic
Philadelphia, PA 19131
(215) 581-3181

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