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.

I stopped by on my walk home just to see if the rumors were true. As far as I can tell, they are. The lights are out, the stools neatly stacked, and there’s no sign of life other than the familiar green sign out front. I thought the small candlelight vigil out front was a nice touch. I chatted with a few other sad Croc fans who happened to walk by, and everybody seems pretty pissed.

A friend of mine who works in the real estate industry says that the money for new condo developments is pretty much dried up because of the mortgage crisis, and that there’s nothing on record about any development going in on that block, so maybe we’re lucky and they really did just run out of money. Maybe we can cook up some sort of “Save the Croc” fund or another local venue owner will step up and take over the reigns.

The block between the Croc and Mama’s Mexican Cafe is the last holdout of the “Old Belltown”, before it became all $700,000 condos and trendy sushi bars. I’ve always imagined that when they came for the Croc that the hipsters would all ride their track bikes down to 2nd & Blanchard and lie down in front of the bulldozers. Hopefully it won’t come to that, but it would be quite the sight.

Well, here’s to progress! Sushi bars and f*cking condos!

Update: Well, its real. Here’s an article in the P-I detailing the chain of events that foretold its eventual downfall…

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.

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!

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.