Paul Ryburn’s Journal

A few days ago, I was walking to the Saucer, and passed legendary Downtown homeless person Scratchy on the sidewalk.  He had on a T-shirt that said, “the possibilities are endless.”

That’s our Scratchy.  Always an uplifting word for his fellow man.

Or in Scratchy’s case, always an uplifting word for the invisible fellow man who Scratchy talks [...]

I didn’t go out last night. For one thing, it’s just too hot outside to walk around much. For another, my new book on The GIMP, the free open source image editing tool which is on par with Photoshop, arrived yesterday and I made my way through the first three chapters.  The book recommended [...]

If you’re into the blues, check out the Center for Southern Folklore, on the Main Street Mall just south of Gayoso, tonight at 8 PM.  The Daddy Mack Blues Band’s new documentary DVD, by Jim O’Donnell, will be screened at 8 and the band will perform at 9.  $5 cover.  Details below, pasted from an e-mail [...]

Last night was “Christmas in July,” a fundraiser for Make-a-Wish at the Red Rooster, with The Dempseys, The Plaintiffs, and Frankie Hollie and the Noise.  Here are a few pics.

The rooster guarding the front door was in the Christmas spirit.

Christmas decorations, a Christmas tree, and the Dempseys.

There’s a yellow booth giving away free King Cotton hot dogs outside Easy Way at Main and Jefferson [...]

Rolling Stones lead singer Mick Jagger turns 65 tomorrow, and as such, will be eligible to receive 91 pounds (about $180) per week in benefits, according to this article.  That pension should nicely supplement the $558 million his band grossed on their 2005-07 world tour, and should provide him a little extra financial cushion in case his [...]

I’ve been hearing about a new video camera called The Flip which is only about the size of a pack of cigarettes, starts and stops recording with the touch of one button, and which is relatively inexpensive (not much more than a hundred bucks).  They’re becoming the rage to whip out and film at parties and [...]

Fellow Downtown Memphis blogger Sig shot me an e-mail this morning to let me know that there’s something even cooler out there than OpenOffice, which I recommended yesterday.  It’s called PortableApps, and it’s an entire suite of open-source software that you can carry around with you on any storage device – for example, a USB flash [...]

These two St. Jude scientists have been trying to figure out what to do to get on my blog for months:

Finally the one on the left figured it out:  Wear a tube top!  It may not be Tube Top Month anymore, but still, tube tops are a good way to get your pic on [...]

There’s an excellent recap of the CCC’s forum on re-opening Main Street to cars on the Memphis Limelight blog.  You can read [...]