Or watch internet porn. Or get their “news” from Philebrity. Wait, what? Anyway. Philly was just awarded a $6.4  million stimulus grant from the government for a new public computing center project. This means that Philly’s Division of Technology, along with Parks & Recreation, the Free Library of Philadelphia and four other organizations, including the Media [...]

Coming soon: Stephen Starr’s “Life Aquatic” theme restaurant? After years of uncertainty with bits of nearly-certain doom mixed in, the SS United States — which still holds the record for fastest Atlantic crossing of all time, doncha know — has been partially rescued by local philanthropist Gerry Lenfest, who’s just sunk $5.8 million towards the [...]

The hooligans over in Harrisburg have reached a “final agreement in principle” on the state budget, according to State Rep. Dominic Pileggi. This means we’re one step closer to finalizing the budget on time (as opposed to the 3-month late mess last year that screwed state workers, and lots of others, left and right). While [...]

Bros, studies show, may soon stop icing bros.

For the second year in a row, Mayor Michael A. Nutter and the City of Philadelphia were honored at the Annual U.S. Conference of Mayors Meeting, which concludes in Oklahoma City today. Last year, Philadelphia won the 2009 City Livability Award for the Philadelphia Mortgage Foreclosure Prevention Program, which now serves as a model for [...]

As we mentioned this morning, Philly’s new policies regarding how marijuana possession offenses are handled went into effect yesterday, and basically, what happens is now is that you get pretend-arrested. Which, depending on what you like to do when you get high, may be a fun thing you might like to do sometimes. Here’s how [...]

The American Composers Forum, Philadelphia Chapter, was awarded a $45,000 Pew Center For Music & Heritage Music Project Grant for SoundExchange, a three-day residency with Grammy Award and Pulitzer Prize winning composer Steve Reich. The project will culminate in a performance by the Argento Chamber Ensemble of Reich’s Double Sextet, for which he received the [...]

Hard to believe that Greenworks, Mayor Michael Nutter‘s program to make Philadelphia the number one “green city” in America, is already a year old. But it is; and yesterday, Nutter released the Greenworks Philadelphia 2010 Progress Report, detailing everything that’s been done over the last year in the name of making the city a greener [...]

Ask your friends who work in arts orgs: In the middle of this recession thingy, they’ve all been doing more with less. And as brave a face as that is, let’s send congrats to the recipients of this year’s Engage 2020 Innovation Grant Program, a new grantmaking initiative from The Wallace Foundation, The Pew Charitable [...]

The City just released the grand tallys around Spring Cleanup 2010, which occurred on Saturday. And the numbers are very, very impressive. Check ‘em out: 2010 Philly Spring Cleanup in numbers Most project sites in our history – 231 Most registered volunteers in our history – 11,313 Recycling up almost 190% – 139,540 pounds Trash [...]

Some of you may know The Disco Biscuits as the jam band/electronic rock outfit that had themselves better defended on Philebrity that one time than perhaps any other local band, and others among you, of course, recognize the “Bisco” lifestyle as the only true path to enlightenment. But to a group of kids who go [...]

· Not only did some people go to Aramingo Diner and NOT GET SHOT, but also, an anonymous couple started a wave of Christmas cheer by paying the tabs of strangers, which went on throughout all the night until the Baby Jesus wandered in at midnight, hella stoned and wearing a DeSean Jackson jersey, and [...]

· One of our native Allentonian readers writes: Today, Mr. Obama is kicking off his “main street tour” in my hometown of Allentown, Pennsylvania… or as I refer to it as: THE 610 STRUGGLE. His mission, to make sure stimulus money goes to the nation’s cities, where the strain of joblessness is most severe. The [...]

Mayor Nutter announced the launching of RecycleBank in North Philly this afternoon. It will be rolling out across the city throughout next year and will incentivize recycling by awarding participants with points that convert into cold hard cash savings at local and national businesses. The model being used in Philly differs slightly from the one [...]

Hey, you know what’s awesome? THE SUN. And over in Greece, there’s this company called HelioSphera that makes loads and loads of solar panels, which take the awesomeness of the sun and turn it into ENERGY, which is also awesome. And now, guess what: HelioSphera is coming to Philadelphia, where they’ll have a manufacturing facility [...]

· Has Mayor Michael Nutter been weathering shitstorm after shitstorm, just sitting on the fact that he’s about to roll out millions in ObamaCash? On the heels of recent successes like the Residential Mortgage Foreclosure Diversion Pilot Program and Creative Industry Workforce Grants, say hello to another $30 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act [...]

Philadelphia’s Residential Mortgage Foreclosure Diversion Pilot Program — which forces lenders and defaulted homeowners to sit at a city-mediated table before forcing people’s homes into a Sheriff’s Sale — has gotten some good press before, but with this page A1 story in today’s New York Times, it has hit the good-news motherlode. (We’re taking bets [...]

· Awesome upshot of the SEPTA strike, which thus far has been about as anti-Good Motherfucking News as you can get: Based on counts conducted by the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia yesterday, Day Two of the SEPTA strike saw a 38% increase in bicyclists during rush hour. What! That’s awesome! And there’s more: There [...]

· Hey, remember a few weeks back when it rained for like two whole years straight through? We all went batty. In years to come, though, the Philadelphia Water Department will take all of that crazy rain via “green capture,” thereby taking stormwater and running it off to a variety of end purposes (like green [...]

The local ABC affiliate in Los Angeles on Wednesday ran this story a good samaritan who, rather bravely, jumped into the fiery car wreck at right, to successfully rescue a little girl before the car had a chance to fully explode. Pretty cool, right? Well, Philebrity is proud to tell you that the hero was [...]