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

Cocktails, broken promises, and regret time! Also known colloquially as New Year's . For those who aren't yet aware, Baltimoreans love parties . Balls, galas, concerts , beer gardens , festivals - despite our choleric reputation , we are a people who love merriment in all its curious forms , at all times, and with even the thinnest of excuses . So, naturally, when an actual holiday with actual cause for celebration comes along, we celebrate it the only way we know how: by exploiting a loophole in the law that lets us do what we want . Yes, this curious state of affairs surrounding New Year's Eve in Baltimore comes because our forward-thinking forebears in the great city had their grand-kids' well-being in mind when they decided that bars should not be forced to close at the monastic hour of 2 am on the most celebratory night of the year. Reinterpretation of that law means that bars in Baltimore open at 8 pm on December 31st, and stay open until 2 am on...

For those of you who are like me and just got terribly depressed when they realized that winter won't be ending any time soon I'm here to offer my solidarity and a healthy dose of distraction; neither of which will involve blackberry wine and orange Fanta. First up: TV. I’ll be honest, I couldn’t be happier about the end of the writer’s strike, and while I count down the seconds until the new Office episodes begin I feed my John Krasinski addiction on Sidereel. Sidereel might have its faults (the wait for a show to load can be longer than some of my classes), but I love it for being one of the final holdouts against those bastards at the RIAA – all the shows on Sidereel are both free of commercials and charge. For those of you who’d like to like to turn your attention in a more musical direction start with Deezer. Deezer lets you stream music from their impressive database, and if you become a member (sign up is free) then you can create and save your own playlists to keep c...