‘Inquirer’ Turns To Underrepresented Nerd Fanbase

In an apparent effort to boost readership of nerds, the Inquirer covered the live video game concert held Saturday night at the Merriam Theater. In all fairness, this looked pretty cool, but for Inky reporter Rob Watson, it was apparently heaven.

The concert features live orchestras performing the music of video games from Pong to Halo, which is fairly nerdy in itself. But, when you write this, you’ve eclipsed even my nerdiness factor:

Thankfully, I wasn’t alone as other fans of these old school games made their voices heard in the audience.

“Tell me that’s not Dragon’s Lair up there,” a gamer asked his friend in front of me. “That game took all of my allowance for years!”

Me too, brethren, me too.

Coming soon: Inquirer special edition ‘Magic: The Gathering’ cards.

A Q&A On The Philly Papers’ Sale

If you haven’t checked out the Philly.com today, you should. Why, there’s a story even bigger than Barbaro: The sale of the Inquirer and Daily News (and related businesses, including the Northeast Times!).

Why, you just have to click once to see a full list of stories about the big news!

Jesus, even I don’t want to read all of those stories. But, as a service to you, the reader, I did read all 58 stories and have compiled a Q&A about the sale of the papers after the jump.

More »

Congratulations, ‘Daily News’! All That’s Left Are Slow, Painful Contract Negotiations!

Well hot diggity! The Daily News and Inquirer have apparently found a buyer, and his name is Brian Tierney, a local PR executive.

To put this in perspective, this is essentially the equivalent of Philadelphia Weekly being sold to TS Dominique or Betty 38EE. Except neither Dominique nor Betty allegedly threatened to ruin a reporter’s reputation.

But, actually, it’s not just Tierney (who’s in the photo); the Inqurier notes that the group expected to buy the papers, Philadelphia Media Holdings, includes these luminaties:

Investors in the group are led by Bruce E. Toll, whose brother Robert runs the Toll Bros. Inc. home-construction company, and also includes investment manager Leslie Brun, along with other local business executives whose identity the group has declined to confirm.

The group’s advisers include NewSpring Capital of King of Prussia; Doug Alexander of Internet Capital Group; the Philadelphia-based Dilworth Paxson law firm, which counts State Sen. Vincent J. Fumo (D., Phila.) among its influential lawyers; and the Smart & Associates accounting firm, among others. Bank of America, Royal Bank of Scotland, and other banks have agreed to help fund the bid.

To put this in perspective, this is like TS Dominique, Betty 38EE, Bruce Toll, Beanie Sigel, blueberry heir Anthony Dimeo, Rick Mariano, Rick Santorum, President Bush and American Apparel owner Dov Charney forming a coalition to buy PW.

Of course, Tierney — a well-known Republican and Archdiocese of Philadelphia advocate — has pledged to remain out of the newsroom and says his partners will do the same. Fair enough, of course, and hopefully he’ll stick to this promise. (For the record, Yucaipa — no offense to the Newspaper Guild, but thank God they didn’t win; I could never spell this company’s name right — founder Ron Burkle is a buddy o’ Bill Clinton’s.)

What does this all mean? Probably nothing, except that it’s good McClatchey found a buyer that says he’s going to keep both newspapers up and running. Hey, you can only get so much material from Metro — I need the Daliy News.

Deal to buy Inquirer may be near [Inky]
Source: Local group near deal for News, Inquirer [Daily News]
Local newspaper buyers: Be careful what you wish for? [Attytood]

Leftovers: Hey, Mussolini made the trains run on time

• Inquirer writer Marc Narducci pats the 90 percent of Phillies fans that like Chris Wheeler least among the announcers on the head and says, “No, sorry, he’s the man!” Coming up next from Narducci, a stunning defense of Ryan Seacrest. (”No, he’s really not a tool!”) [Inky]

• For you Crash-haters — I’m sort of on the fence — Google has confirmed what you’re thinking. As we all know, Google knows all. [Corporate Casual via Gawker]

• The readers wrote in, and Faye Flam responded with more G-spot goodness! And, yes, the article contains this sentence: “If the vagina is the Amtrak’s Northeast corridor, which starts in Washington, tell your man to stop shooting straight for Springfield, Mass., and try spending more time in Philly.” Even sex is all about Philly right now! [Inky]

• What does the Academy share with Rick Santorum? They’re both a little squeamish when two dudes make out. [Deadline Hollywood Daily]

• Remind me never to argue over e-mail with Joe Rogan. [Best Week Ever Blog]

• And, naturally, NBC has shut down all the sites hosting the Natalie Portman gangster rap. They have it on their own site, though, but it’s not working for me. Erhm. [NBC.com]