Paul Ryburn’s Journal

Found this in a weekly list-of-links I subscribe to called the Scout Report:

MiniLyrics is a plug-in that works with RealOne, Windows Media Player, WinAmp, Music Match Jukebox, and most other well-known music players. When you play a song, MiniLyrics comes up and displays the lyrics, following the song line by line. Just downloaded it [...]

(I really do have several serious journal entries in the works, saved as drafts right now. But the spam coming in is just too funny to resist comment, so you get this instead. All of these are real e-mails I have received in the past week.

Subj: Add up to 4 inches

Last time I opened [...]

I recently read the story behind the name of Cracker Jack candy. 100 years ago, when it was invented, “cracker jack” was a slang term. If something was really good, people would say, “That’s cracker jack.”

Fast forward to the year 2105. A grandfather takes his grandson to the corner store and buys him [...]

Modern computers are based on the binary (base-2) system. Meaning, everything to a computer is a combination of 0’s and 1’s.

I predict that computers of the future will be radically different – they will be based on a ternary (base-3) system. However, this system will not consist of 0, 1, and 2 as you [...]

I subscribe to Memphis Magazine, and recently they inserted a small booklet, the 2005 Social Calendar, in with the latest issue. It lists charity events, street festivals, and athletic events for the first half of the year. I decided to create a similar social calendar, but with a more targeted audience: the bums who [...]

A week ago Friday, January 28 was Mpact’s annual fund-raiser, Impacto, at the venue formerly known as the Plaza Club. It was just excellent this year. The event was headlined by a Grammy-winning pop band from Venezuela who definitely lived up to the buzz, and Los Cantadores opened. Several restaurants around town catered [...]

“Somewhere in Texas,
A village is missing its idiot.”

Which reminds me…if you live in Memphis, check out Air America Talk Radio on AM 680. A much-needed progressive viewpoint to balance out Rush Limbaugh and other talk-show hosts of his ilk who seem to dominate the other talk stations in town.

If you don’t live in Memphis, you [...]