The Coolest Kids in Town: a blog about Baltimore, DC, and the misadventures of two-city life.

Tell us, dear readers, do you like being happy? Do you like meeting awesome people? Of course you do. Which is why you're gonna love the Happy Hour T&C are co-hosting with the Baltimore Social Media Club this Friday at the Leinenkugel Beer Garden in Power Plant Live. Show up at Leinenkugel's any time between 6 and 9pm on November 18th and check in at the front under BSMC for your wristband. The special for our group will be: - 2 for 1 on Leinenkugel Pints - $3 Rails - $4 Calls - 15% off the Food Menu Not bad, right? And don't forget to head over to the side table near the front for a name tag before your first pint. We can't wait to meet you all!

Apparently blogs are supposed to be updated more than once or twice every few months, so Tex and I are making at least a lip service effort to be more consistent. Only the best for you. Today's theme isn't quite as focused as the last one was, in fact, this one could be better described as 'things I kinda dig.' So, take some time out of your day to get lost in Frank Jacobs's blog Strange Maps . As a primer, start with Jacobs's own map, US States Renamed for Countries with Similar GDPs , then move on a metro map of French wines , a map of the world's countries rearranged by population , and what appears to be a real treasure map . But don't stop there, Jacobs has collected a fascinating, and still growing, tome that's easy to get lost in. If you know me at all then you've almost certainly heard me rage against those scourges of urban life: cyclists ( I don't care if you're saving the planet you still have to follow traffic laws lik...

Hello again, friends. Coda's back to brighten your day(s) by doing what can more-or-less be called a double issue Awesome Blog of the Week! Was that a thrilling lead up or what? Need a minute to catch your breath? No worries, I'll wait. Sadly it's not a true double issue, because one of the sites is so amazing it's already been featured here before , but since they're something of a matched set, and it's not like we've done a proper double issue ABotW before anyway, the TCKiT Council has deemed it acceptable. Oh, you didn't know about the Council? Well you do now. Adjust accordingly. First up is our repeat offender, Fuck Yeah! Ryan Gosling . Still consistently hilarious, enjoy the updates and then enrich your experience by watching not one , but two videos of Ryan Gosling reading some of the memes out loud. And remember: just because he has the good grace to be mortified by the whole thing doesn't mean you can't enjoy it. At the very least, ...

You know, kids, I had thought there were certain things that we could all just leave unsaid. I had believed that Charla would raise you all well enough in my stead (obviously not as well as I would have myself, but some things simply must be sacrificed. Mummy had to work! It was tennis season , after all. And for what we're paying her - nevermind. It's no one's fault. No one's but Charla's. ). I had wrongly dreamed and hoped that our tacit understandings and silent disapproval would be enough to guide you all safely through the horrors of the world outside and into the gentle waters of polite society. I was wrong. As your Classics professor (why are you majoring in Philosophy again, darling? We're not that family,  cookie, we're simply not . I wouldn't let your sister play the oboe and I won't let you major in Philosophy), Dean, and several rather overexpressive advisors have explained to me in excruciating detail, you simply have no idea how to...

Once again, Coda and I have fallen madly in love - and it's serious. This time, we're wild over the up-and-coming line from Anchored Style , a nautical-prep design line out of the Sunshine State. Now, keep in mind, kids, that this is the first time Coda and I are endorsing a non-Baltimorean brand; 'tis a rare honor, indeed, but one that we stand behind. As you may or may not have guessed, C and I spend most of our time drinking very strong liquors on very expensive boats . Further, we share a definite affinity for that most genteel of sartorial pursuits: the post-sail prep style, from which Anchored draws its major inspiration. Peruse the site now; the brand's still evolving, but you can get in on the ground floor with a salt wash hat and then shake your head at all the suckers still fading their Mount Gays on their own. Play some Jimmy Buffett , stick a coozie on your Red Stripe, and luxuriate in the knowledge that although the best boats are someone else...

Having just returned from a pretty fantastic wedding weekend Coda's world view is finally brightening, so I thought I would celebrate by passing along some highly educational hilarity. We'll start with international relations. Because it's important to know your dictators (I mean, can you imagine how awkward it would be trying to strike up a conversation with Muammar Gaddafi about how much better elevators have made city life?), check out Kim Jong-Il Looking at Things . The title pretty much says it all, yet for some reason I still find myself laughing at pictures of him examining vodka and what appear to be lady's shoes . Maybe it's because he really does look like that puppet from Team America. Now, Tex and I love us some reading, which is probably why we spend so much of our time enraptured by Better Book Titles . Better Book Titles renames literary pieces of all different genres to give those who haven't read a specific work a better idea of wh...

Well kids, Coda's had a crap couple of weeks but that doesn't mean I have to (continue to) be derelict in my duties to all of you. With that in mind I'd like to present you with a post that's three parts hilarity, one part rage and disappointment (much like life). First up is Hipster Hitler . Assuming you have a somewhat irreverent sense of humor, and if you enjoy this blog that's a pretty good assumption, you'll be able to appreciate Hipster Hitler for what it is: a stroke of brilliance. Like The Producers for the webcomic-reading, hipster-hating set. From the punny tshirts and recasting of Stalin as a frat boy and Mussolini as a guido , to Hitler  as the mightiest hipster of all time , it's a can't miss. Next we'll delve into the philosophical with the brilliant existential experiment Garfield Minus Garfield . Turns out if you take Garfield out of his own comics all you have left is Jon. A bleakly hilarious Jon. Continuing on ou...

After following the O's to DC on Sunday to watch them beat the Natnals I only had one real regret: my Protect this Yard shirt hadn't come yet. Think of Protect this Yard as a Wild Bill Hagy for the 21st century: a superfan both in life and on twitter (with a gift shop to boot). PTY's online store is stocked with clever shirts that feature both current Baltimore athletes and past legends. They've also got some pretty fantastic customer service, so if you see a shirt you love that's not available in women's sizes yet, tweet them or send them an email to see if they have any plans to change that. Even the players seem to love them, which means next time you run into Jake Arrieta you'll be able to use your GI Jones shirt as an ice breaker. Actually, you might have to come up with something else, cause I'm calling dibs on that one right now.

Kids, Tex and I have been doing you a great disservice all these years (actually I'm gonna go ahead and call it an irresponsibility, because I'd like to think that the service we provide is outstanding, if a little erratic) we've been writing a blog about fantastic websites for over four years and have never once included any run by our friends. Well that changes now, as we introduce you to some of our favorite blogs run by some of our favorite people. You may recognize Two Dilettantes from their link in our sidebar, but if you've never given them a look before today you should. Two Dilettantes is really almost a digital lookbook for our two painfully stylish friends, Ashley and Patrice; it catalogs trends, offers runway rundowns, and includes a healthy dose of two very real girls wearing very cool clothes. Don't just take our word for it though, check out their interview with The Baltimore Sun which (correctly) refers to them as 'a collective [fashion]...

One of the brilliant things about having a brother in computer science is knowing someone who can hook you up with little known sites and services, as well as a Google Voice number, before they come out of beta. (Another nice thing is 24/7 tech support - love you!) And now, dear friends, I'm passing some of my favorites on to you. First up is Amazon's Mechanical Turk (delightfully subtitled 'Artificial Artificial Intelligence'). We all know that we can find just about anything on the internets, and we know that you can buy just about anything on Amazon , but sometimes the best results come from a little human intervention. Mechanical Turk is that human intervention. It was created to do what major corporations can't, by acting as a marketplace where people can either offer their skills or hire people to do the kind of personalized work that computers just aren't very good at doing. For example, you could hire someone to make a list of the top 20 European...

Oh, my darlings! How I've missed you. (Dickie, get my coat.) I can't believe it's been 4 months already (Dickie, I said the coat.) - look how you've grown! Why, I barely recognize you all! Come, step into the sunlight so Texas can get a good look at you. What has Cordelia been feeding you? You're all skin and bones. (Dickie, are you just going to stand there, or are you going to bring the dogs in?) No, I'm not saying you look horrible, darling - you look lovely as always. I'm just saying that maybe it wouldn't kill you to have the breadsticks once in a while. No, I'm not trying to - oh, honestly, now you're just being dramatic. Oh, I'm the dramatic one? Well, I like that! If you didn't have your father's - no, I will bring him into this, because it's a matter of principle, sweetheart, and - oh, fuck it - run along and read some of these awesome lifestyle blogs and leave me with my Pimm's. 1. Life + Times (Sean Carter) Yes,...

For my very second Awesome Blog of the Week (which I'm sure everyone's noticed isn't even a little bit weekly) I'd like to present Dear Blank Please Blank . Since the featured format is one of my very favorite forms of communication (as the Pittsburgh Steelers could undoubtedly tell you) the site would probably be pretty near and dear to my heart even if it weren't so funny . But it is. Filled entirely by reader submissions the notes range from sad to sweet , random to funny , totally on point to a little abstruse ; of course there's also the requisite sprinkling of anti-Americanism, but nothing's perfect, I suppose... Which one's my favorite? Glad you asked: Dear Edward Cullen, Avada Kedavra! Sincerely, Tom Riddle