Endless Summer Fun: Keep Cool
Take in a movie
So tired of watching flicks in your private screening room? Why not have Hi-Fi Houses mount a SunBrite 46-inch all-weather indoor-outdoor LCD TV above the hot tub in your yard for around $6,000? Cost: $$$. Various locations; hifihouse.com
Hang out in bars
Karaoke, anyone? Bring the gang to the Secret Karaoke Room
at Jose Garces’s wild and woolly Distrito. The food-and-drink minimum is $300 during the week and $400 Thursday through Saturday. Cost: $$$. 3945 Chestnut Street, 215-222-1657, distritorestaurant.com
The Wii booths at The Institute are free as long as you’re drinking. Don’t neglect the new Puerto Rican menu (slow-roasted pork shoulder, empanadas, rice and beans). Cost: $$. 549 North 12th Street, 215-765-8515, institutebar.com
Quizzo: Still free. Thursday is the night at Roosevelt’s Pub. Worth keeping in mind: Once you pay $5 to get in here on Fridays from 5 to 7 p.m. and Saturdays from 10 to midnight, well drinks and beers cost a penny. Cost: $. 2222 Walnut Street, 215-569-8879, rooseveltspub.com
Scoop ice cream
Sometimes you gotta have ice cream — or gelato. Splurge with cone medios — you get your choice of up to three different flavors, which might include Thai coconut milk, kiwi and Saigon cinnamon — at Capogiro for $6 apiece. Cost: $$$. Various locations; capogirogelato.com
Or get “gelati” — a combo of frozen custard and water ice — for half that (well, $3.20 with tax) at ubiquitous Rita’s. Don’t you be sneering; they’re cold and good. Cost: $$. Various locations; ritasice.com
And you can always utilize your own freezer to solidify a bunch of Fla Vor Ice freeze pops in tongue-tinge-ing red, yellow, blue and green. Bag a case of 288 for $28.68 at Buythecase.net, and you’re set for the summer. Cost: $.
Get some cul-chah
See a show at the Borgata — Simon Cowell-created operatic sensation Il Divo rocks the Event Center on July 3rd, with Golden Circle tickets $195 each — and stay overnight in a Fiore Suite for around $729, just so the fun won’t end. Cost: $$$. 866-MY-BORGATA, theborgata.com
Prefer to stay in town? Pick a trio of “Enchanted Evenings” classics at the Mann Center — options include the Philly Pops, the Orchestra performing Verdi and Rachmaninoff, and Tchaikovsky with fireworks — for just $60. While you’re there, enjoy a three-course meal beneath the white tent at Stephen Starr’s new Crescendo for $45 each. Cost: $$. 5201 Parkside Avenue, 215-546-7900, manncenter.org
Book it
What could possibly make you more perfect than a summer course at Penn? May we suggest the $3,000 (or thereabouts) “Upstairs, Downstairs: Servants in Literature”? All right — you’re an Ivy Leaguer now! Cost: $$$. Pennsummer.org
Talk about books with the Metro Philadelphia Book Club, which holds several meetings monthly, mostly in BYOBs around town, for a nominal fee (about $2) plus the cost of your meal. July’s read: Unaccustomed Earth, by Jhumpa Lahiri. Cost: $$$. Meetup.com/bookclub-577.
