Month: January 2009

Last night I heard from people in the service industry that Cafe 61 is about to close and that Sunday would be its last day.  They said the owner is moving to Las Vegas.  However, I just walked by, and the restaurant isn’t open now.  It’s 5 PM, the beginning of dinner rush, so it’s definitely unusual for the doors to be locked.

Hate to see it go – they had some great food, the Cajun enchiladas and crawfish mac and cheese being my favorites.  Best of luck to the owner with his new plans in Vegas, though.

By the way, I haven’t confirmed this with anyone involved with Cafe 61, so it’s still a rumor… but after seeing the dark restaurant I suspect it’s true.

I’m upgrading the blog to the new version of WordPress this weekend, so if you hit this page it’s possible it may not look right or appear not to exist for a short while.  Don’t worry, it’ll be back up quickly.  I hope.

Yesterday afternoon I went to the Liberty Bowl parade on Beale Street.  That was the most boring parade I have witnessed in my 7 years Downtown.  Bands, bands, bands, more bands, underage beauty queens, still more bands, the AutoZone tractor-trailer, even more bands, and one or two interesting floats.  Ptolemy Kat saw me from the float she was riding on and threw me several strands of beads, but did not respond to my request for her to flash me.

The street was loaded with East Carolina fans.  I didn’t realize what a big school ECU was – I looked it up when I got home, and it has an enrollment of 27,000 students.  ECU fans outnumbered Kentucky fans about 10 to 1 on the street.  My natural tendency was to root for Kentucky because they’re an SEC team and because I like Lexington, but at the parade I decided to switch sides to avoid getting my ass kicked.

Upon a blog reader’s request, I’ve added a shopping site for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish to my College Logo Shopping family of websites.  That makes 14 schools I’ve built sites for, having already done Memphis and the SEC schools.  I’m planning to do the Conference USA schools next, then ACC, but if there are particular schools you’d like me to bump to the top of the priority list, shoot me an e-mail at paul@paulryburn.com.

Restaurant.com has a new promotional coupon code, REWARD, which you can enter at checkout for 50% off through Monday, January 5.

Liberty Bowl is at 4 PM today.  I’m undecided where to go watch it.  About 50/50 between the Saucer and Calhoun’s.  Calhoun’s has cheap PBR and is more likely to have the sound on, but the Saucer has waitresses in miniskirts.  I guess it’ll depend on what the Fire Sale is today.  ‘Til then, I’ll be working on the personal finance software project.  No plans for tonight, but I’m sure I’ll be out somewhere.

A few quick notes about New Year’s Eve:

– We had the back room at the Majestic Grille for dinner, and they once again hit the ball out of the park.  Dinner was superb.  I had the veal, an item from the special New Year’s Eve menu, and it was delicious, as was the lobster biqsue I had as my starter.  Others at the table had the beef short ribs, another special menu item, and complimented them highly.  We projected a slide show of group pictures onto the big screen in the back room as we ate and mingled.  We had reservations for 30 and had more than 30 people who wanted to come… which caused some minor hassles, but we accommodated everyone, and having too many people who want to spend New Year’s Eve with you is a high-class problem to have.

– The Nuh-Uh Girl came over a dozen times to eat off our plates.  I’m not using “dozen” as a figure of speech to mean “a lot”… she literally came over that many times.  “Are you going to eat that bite of veal, Paul?”  “I’m stealing a potato.”  “Frank, I’m taking another bite of your short ribs.”  “If anyone has any leftovers, I’m sitting over there.”

– After that I continued on to my friends’ party at Central Station.  Soon as I got there, I had two reactions:  1) “Plenty of beer and liquor, this is good.”  2) “Some of my friends, the girls in particular, are not going to be happy with the keg situation at all.”  (I won’t go into details here.)  Sure enough, they weren’t, but other people in my group were smart enough to have planned a backup party at Frank’s apartment down the street.  That was a good move and I tip my hat to them for seeing the need to plan an alternative.  We rang in the new year there and I stayed until about 1:15.

– There were cameras, cameras everywhere.  It seemed like every time I turned around, someone was asking me to pose for a pic or take a pic of them with their camera.  I gave up taking pics about 10.  There was no need – the evening was well documented by others.  Right before midnight, the Nuh-Uh Girl did a smart thing when she said, “All right.  We’re going to take ONE picture with ONE camera.  ONE.  I’m not going to take everyone’s camera and re-take the picture.  I’ll take ONE pic and e-mail it to everyone.”  Great idea, because otherwise, we would’ve been posing until 2 AM.

– I went back to the Central Station party and stayed until 3:30 when it started to wind down.  Drank some Boscos beer and a 40 of Miller High Life.  Much thanks to party hosts Patrick, Randy, and Marci for inviting my friends and me.  It was great meeting them and their group of friends in 2008 and I look forward to more good times with them in 2009.

– Speaking of “super”… funny how even when I’m at one party, I’m already looking ahead to the next.  Our group’s Super Bowl party, one of my absolute favorite events of the year, is only one month away.  Can’t wait.

– Also, only five more months until Tube Top Month.

– Plans for today:  The Liberty Bowl parade on Beale at 3.  I’ll probably get down there about 2 and make my usual drink purchase, a large Call-a-Cab from Wet Willie’s.  Guess I’ll have to take my gloves so my hands won’t freeze carrying a frozen daiquiri.