I had a good night last night… won the poker tournament at Calhoun’s. I got lucky at one point – called an all-in from my BBQ teammate Carl and he flipped over pocket aces. He was beating my pair of kings all the way to the river, when a third king showed up. Whew.
Some people should not be allowed out in public. Before the tournament started, this guy who I’ll call Sweaty McDrippy sat down next to me, ordered a premium beer and food, and started up his laptop. He fiddled around with it for a few minutes, then exasperatedly slammed down the lid and told the bartender, “You know what? Cancel the food order. Places shouldn’t lie about having free wireless.” Then he looked at the beer. “I haven’t touched the beer,” he said.
“Well, I poured it,” said the bartender. “You still have to pay for it. You can drink it or not, I don’t care, but you ordered it, I poured it and you’re going to get charged.”
He continued to pitch a hissy fit about Calhoun’s falsely advertising free wireless. I took out my phone, entered the code to access the network, and connected to Calhoun’s network just fine. Another regular at the end of the bar also connected. So it wasn’t a case of the wireless being down – either Sweaty McDrippy entered the code wrong, or was not capable of configuring his computer properly. Yet he still continued to argue. “You can run my card,” he said, having given the bartender his credit card when he opened the tab. “But I’m not going to sign the receipt. And I’m going to call Visa and dispute the charge.” So she ran his card, placed the receipt on the bar, and he stormed out without signing it.
Attn Sweaty McDrippy, on the chance you read my blog: You, sir, acted like a complete and total ass. If you had just asked nicely, “Hey, is something wrong with the wireless? I can’t connect” you would have had several people (employees and regulars) who would have been happy to assist you. And if the wireless truly had been down, you would have stood a much better chance of getting your beer comped if you’d had a better attitude. The bartender you yelled at won Best Bartender in last year’s Flyer poll, so clearly there are quite a few people who think she does a good job. You owe her an apology, and if you dispute the charge I will be happy to make a statement that I witnessed you order the beer, and that the wireless was indeed working.
Calhoun’s is going to be PACKED this weekend. They have the NFL and NCAA premium packages. They put sheets on each of their 10 TVs listing what games will be on that TV, so you have the information you need to pick the seat you want.
Here’s a link to the schedule for the Center for Southern Folklore’s Memphis Music and Heritage Festival. Darn, it looks like the puppet guy isn’t going to be there this year. He was my favorite. Plenty of good stuff going on though. There will be a cooking stage where well-known culinary figures will give demos, and at the end of each demo there will be samples. Free food? Wonder if the Nuh-Uh Girl will show up. Wait, I think she’s in Destin this weekend. John Bragg of Circa and Michael Patrick will have demos at 2:15 and 4:30 Saturday respectively… will have to make a mental note to show up for those.
I have some additional info about the VIP FolkPasses you can purchase for the festival. There will be premium seating and free beer for FolkPass holders, including Dos Equis. They’ll have wine as well, and food sponsors including Chick-Fil-A. There will also be bathrooms exclusively for the use of FolkPass holders.
There will be a River City Brewers Festival next month in support of St. Jude. You’ll be able to sample over 25 different craft beers while listening to live music in Handy Park. There will be two sessions, an afternoon session (12-4) and an evening session (6-10). Now, here’s the thing… it will be Saturday, October 17, the day of Downtown Olympics. That means a lot of Downtowners will be on teams and therefore occupied during the afternoon session and probably too wasted to attend the evening session. Oh man… bad timing. I’m not on a DTO team, so for me it’s an option, more likely in the evening.
I got an e-mail from a group called JP Just Parties (NOTE: You may want to read the rest of this paragraph before visitng this site on a work computer) that is planning an event at Hollywood Disco on Saturday, September 19. I was curious about the unusual cover charges… $20 for couples, $10 for single females, $40 for single males… hmmm… then I checked their website and saw that it was a swingers’ site. OK now the cover charges make sense. Apparently a lot of people are flying in from out of town for this party.
It’s Tom Shelton’s birthday weekend, and he’s decided to celebrate by marking his Pink Pig and Trolley 38103 lines down 20%. Polos, T-shirts, hats, ties. They’re closed Sunday, so make sure to get by there today or tomorrow if you want to pick something up. Shelton Clothiers is on the Main Street Mall at Peabody Place, so you can do some shopping while you attend the Memphis Music & Heritage Festival.
Going to Rocky Horror tonight at the Orpheum… haven’t been to a Rocky Horror event since college. Great way to kick off a 3 day weekend!