Thursday, October 13, 2005

Damnation on All Fronts So, it is true. Last night, I joined some friends for trivia at Sean Bolan's. The front window had the "Transfer of Ownership" sign, and at some point later this month it will become a place called Clayton's Tavern. To further confirm this, the following email was waiting for me in my old UMD account: From: "Sean Bolans Irish Pub" To: "Sean Bolans" Subject: SEAN BOLANS OF FEDERAL HILL BIDS YOU A FOND FAREWELL! Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2005 21:47:28 -0400 SEAN BOLANS OF FEDERAL HILL BIDS A FOND FAREWELL. After five and a half years of good beer, good food and good friends, we have decided to pursue other ventures and spend more time with our families. The pub will remain open two to three more weeks. During this time stop by for a pint and a bite to eat. Our exact closing dateis unknown but we promise to communicate this to you when the date is confirmed. So get ready for a big farewell party! Details to follow. Our Bel Air location will remain open so you can still get your Sean Bolans Irish Pub fix! Thanks for all your support and friendship during the past several years. I am saddened by this passing, as I have had lots of good times at Bolan's. I will not cry too much, but I will miss the one place in Federal Hill that knows how to pour a pint of Guinness and has a pretty decent beer selection. I can certainly understand the owners wanting to spend more time with their families--the owners were great guys. I will be starting up saveseanbolans.com for anyone who wants to vent about the passing of a pretty decent pub. By some small hope, maybe I can maintain the name of Sean Bolan's for the city, and resurrect it somehow. Anyone who likes that bar and is web-saavy care to contribute some artistic content? Looks like my 1st generation Dell DJ is about to bite the farm, which is going to make going to the gym more of a chore than it needs to be. So, the question is whether I give into the MP3/audio player that has 75% of the market: the iPod. My problem with the iPod is its onerous digital-rights management "feature" and the quasi-requirement that I use iTunes to manage what's on it. Am I the only one who finds iTunes to be an unnecessary piece of bloatware? I just want to be able to put my music on the device. Since I am already somewhat anal-retentive when it comes to my music collection, everything is pretty organized. The beauty of the Dell DJ is that I found this piece of software--Deubox Explorer from Red Chair Software--that is just great for managing my music and better than the MusicMatch POS they bundled with it. It was good at putting my music on there, and even better at allowing me to sync my podcasts onto it. Busy day today before I head out to New York tomorrow. I have some things to do this evening, and I have lots of work stuff to get done as well. I even skipped the gym to get in early today, but I hope to get a quick workout this evening before dodgeball. 11:20:59 AM    comment []  trackback []