Month: April 2006

Those of you who have been around the Internet for a while may have heard of SETI@home. It was a project that analyzed data from space to look for possible communications from extraterrestrial life. It was the ultimate distributed computing project – 5 million volunteers installed SETI software on their computers, which allowed their computers to download and analyze SETI data when idle. It didn’t disturb the volunteers’ work at all, because the SETI program only ran when the computer was not being used, as a screen saver would. Over 2 million years of computing time were eventually donated to the project.

This model is now being expanded to other projects. You can choose to volunteer your unused computing time to research cures for human disease, analyze climate change, participate in chemistry or physics research, or analyze signals from space. Check out their website – it’s a project of the University of California, Berkeley.

Cancelled Flight: 101 Tried and True Pigeon Killin’ Methods

Regular reader Don e-mailed with a question I don’t know the answer to, so I figured I’d pass it on: Is there a Madden Playstation league in Memphis? It’s a league where people play each other over the Internet, and it mimics a real NFL season.

If anyone has info e-mail me at paul@paulryburn.com and I’ll pass it on. Thanks.

This morning Tom DeLay announced that he is resigning his seat in the House of Representatives. As the Democracy for America website pointed out, if he is innocent of all the ethics charges being levied against him, why would he feel the need to resign?

Congratulations to Democracy for America for all the hard work they did over the past year, work which helped lead to the downfall of one of America’s most corrupt Congressmen. Democracy for America is taking contributions today, with each contribution of $50 going to send DeLay a rubber chicken, to commemorate him being a big chicken and running away from the charges.

This week’s Deal of the Week is postponed due to technical difficulties – specifically, the Commercial Appeal boxes in the area (along Union near Front and Main) did not have the Sunday paper yesterday. They still had Saturday’s edition, as a friend of mine found out after dropping two bucks in the machine.

Most of the major advertisers publish their ad circulars online, so it’s possible I may be able to search for a deal later today, without actually having the Sunday paper.

This afternoon I went wine shopping at the Corkscrew. While there I picked up a bottle of Rogue Imperial Pilsner. This is the beer that sells for $30 a bottle at the Flying Saucer.

At the Corkscrew it was $12.99, which means at the Saucer you’re paying $13 for the beer and $17 for having it served to you by a waitress in a miniskirt.

Makes sense to me.

This thing is 8.8% alcohol by volume, which is why it’s being sold in a liquor store. It’s 1 pint 10 ounces, which is enough for several people to share, so I figure I’ll bring it up on the roof one night this week when some of the neighbors are up there, and we can have a tasting.

I also went to the Happy Mexican this afternoon, but the restaurant review will have to wait until later because I’m about to head down to Beale Street.

We’ll start this off with a few pics I snapped last night at Earnestine & Hazel’s. These are menus from March 1983, when South Main was still very much a red light district, and E&H was a restaurant downstairs and a brothel upstairs.

The menu at E&H has since been cut to just one item, the Soul Burger, so don’t expect to go there and order “Pig Tails.”

I had a good time hanging out with fellow blogger Kat and her friend KH at the Trolley Tour last night. Kat wore a tube top as promised. Dammit, I forgot to take a pic! Kat, did KH take any? Don’t forget, two months from today, we’ll kick off Tube Top Month in this blog. Every post will make a reference to tube tops, no matter how irrelevant.

I also had to take steps to avoid The Most Annoying Woman On The Planet last night. I’ve written about her before: This is the woman who brought her damn dog to Cooper-Young Fest, despite numerous “PLEASE, NO PETS” signs and ads. This is the woman who routinely makes plans to meet you at 9:00 and then shows up at 10:50. This is the woman who made a New Year’s resolution not to be more than a half hour late when meeting people. Anyway, I won’t get into all the details of our conversation last night, but I’ll just say that I had to take evasive maneuvers to get away from her. ATTN C. AND I.: I’m really starting to see your point about her “using” me

MyMemphis.tv, the website connected to Wednesday night’s premiere of the My Memphis movie, is now online. It contains interviews with young, hip Memphis professionals about what they like about the city, and should be a tremendous marketing piece for Memphis. Check it out.

The latest news from Romania is that their president is meeting with the leader of China to improve Romanian-Chinese relations. They’re even building a Chinatown near Bucharest. How cool is that? Now, if I go to Romania, not only will I be able to hit on hot Romanian girls, but hot Chinese girls as well.

That reminds me… I was surfing some websites recently, and I came across an ad for a video that teaches American men how to seduce Asian women. Its marketing tagline read,

“Ah, so GI! You like make ficky, ficky with sexy Oriental girl? Well now you can…”

Good god… that’s just completely politically incorrect and totally wrong. It made me laugh really hard though, so I thought I’d include it.

In other news… it appears that Conte’s, the Italian restaurant on Madison just east of Second, is now staying open for dinner until 9:00 every night they are open (Tuesday-Saturday). Good for them! We need to support businesses that see themselves as part of the downtown neighborhood and stay open late so its residents can get a good dinner.

I also have a restaurant review from regular reader and former neighbor Don… he says that he recently ate at Sgt. Jalapeno’s Tortilla Company on Adams (inside the Comfort Inn) and the fajitas are excellent.

All right… it’s a beautiful day and it’s time to go outside. See you tomorrow with “Deal of the Week” and possibly other news.

I wonder if they have next-day air delivery for that tape on seducing Asian women?