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Told You So!

December 16, 2007 by Chris Metcalf | No comments

For months, whenever I’ve gone to see a show at Belltown’s venerable music venue The Crocodile Cafe, I’ve looked around longingly and said “You know, in 5 years this will be a sushi bar or some yuppie’s f*cking condo.” Little did I know that it would all too soon turn out to be true.

The Crocodile
The Crocodile

Yesterday the buzz started hitting the Seattle blogs about the possibility that the Croc was shutting down shop for good. It seems that completely out of nowhere, in the midst of a rush to book their spring lineup, the owners simply decided to call it quits. Even the employees were shocked, finding out just over a week before Christmas that they were out of a job.

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lala – Whoa… this is cool

July 12, 2006 by chris | 2 comments

lala
lala

So a week or so ago I discovered lala. It may just be the simplest and best dotcom idea I’ve seen in a long time.

I have CDs. You have CDs. In all honesty, I’m sick of most of my CDs. And you probably are too. I might not have listened to my Nirvana “In Utero” CD in 8 years, but maybe you’ve recently suffered a bit of nostalgia and you want to listen to them again. So why don’t we trade?

Within a half hour or so of me having my beta account I loaded a bunch of the CD’s that I knew I had into my “I Have” section and I’d added a bunch of CD’s I wanted to my “I Want” section. About an hour or two later I discovered that I’d had my first match and that somebody wanted my copy of The Clash’s “London Calling” (an excellent CD by the way). And simultaneously somebody was shipping me Jurassic 5’s “Quality Control”. And I was only out $1.

Too cool.

Update: If anybody wants lala invites, add a comment below and leave the email address you want it sent to. I have a bunch.

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Done!

August 9, 2005 by chris | No comments

Yes. That there about sums it up. I’m done. Done with my Masters degree. Probably done with my college career for awhile.

Its a weird feeling. I celebrated it by coming back to my apartment and packing for about six hours. And now I’m celebrating with a nice rum and tonic. Still strange though. I had to run some errands around Oakland and I was assaulted by visions of “college life”. Students sitting on porches with acoustic guitars and beers on a Monday night. I’ll miss college.

Well, here’s to what’s next!

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Fundable.org

May 1, 2005 by chris | 2 comments

fundable

I thought I’d take a minute to plug my friend’s new startup, a project that I think has a lot of potential and that could be very cool if it takes off.

Fundable.org. Its a very neat idea. Say, for instance, that you’ve got a project you’d like to undertake which requires buy-in from a large number of individuals. Something like having a web designer create a good looking webpage for an open-source project or bringing a decent band to a musical vacuum like Pittsburgh.

Fundable allows you to create a “group action” that people can contribute money towards. Say it’ll take $1000 to get The Long Winters to make a stop in Pittsburgh during their next tour:

  1. Create a group action with a goal of getting them to play here in Pittsburgh.
  2. Allow the advance purchase of 100 tickets to the show for $10 apiece.
  3. If the group action gets 100 people to contribute, the $1000 is “turned on” and the group leader can then withdraw the money and set up the show.
  4. If the action doesn’t get enough contributors, everybody’s money gets refunded.

Its a neat concept and I think it could be great for setting up “bounties” for open-source projects or for starting advertising campaigns for non-profit groups.

So go check them out and let me know what you think.

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