I have to give a tip of my hat to the fans of Iowa State University. In all my years Downtown I have never seen fans of a team turn out to support them for the Liberty Bowl the way the Cyclones fans have this year – not even my Arkansas Razorbacks, who have a reputation for traveling well, and not even Ole Miss, only an hour away. When I got out yesterday at 11 there was a sea of red and yellow on the Main Street Mall. I did my usual Sunday routine of brunch at the Majestic, then over to the Blind Bear. About 1:30 PM I was getting ready to tab out at the Bear and walk over to the Flying Saucer. Then I started to notice that some of the usual Saucer Sunday afternoon regulars were showing up at the Bear. They advised me not to go over until the Liberty Bowl parade started at 3. Apparently the Saucer was busier at 1:30 on Sunday afternoon than on a typical Saturday night, full of Iowa State fans. Welcome to Memphis, ISU fans, and good luck in your game against Tulsa this afternoon.
The Commercial Appeal has published a set of interactive maps that show votes for Obama and Romney in the 2012 presidential election, broken down by precinct for Shelby County. The maps are quite fascinating. My precinct, consisting of the Downtown core south of Poplar and most of South Main, voted for Obama over Romney 65% to 33%. The precinct consisting of Uptown and Mud Island preferred Obama 62% to 37%. As you look east and get farther and farther toward suburbia, the map gets more red, with some Germantown precincts only showing Obama in the teens for percent of vote.
One of the blogs I’ve started reading, which I found through a Facebook link, is called If You Can’t Afford to Tip, You Can’t Afford to Go Out and Eat. It’s basically the lives of servers and what they go through working at bars and restaurants. This morning they posted a hilarious animated image: When the “creepy” customer finds you on Facebook. LOL! I can remember several times where servers have shown me friend requests on their phone, and said, “What do I do, Paul? He comes in here four or five times a week so I can’t be rude to him. But the thought of him seeing where I check in, seeing who my friends are, looking at my photos… ewwwww!” I guess this is a case where Google+ is better than Facebook. You can put those people in a circle where you don’t share anything but the most basic, mundane stuff.
If you’re looking for stuff to do tonight, here are links to Kerry’s blog post and the Memphis Flyer list of events for New Year’s Eve. Oh and there’s also the Downtown Memphis Events page. As for me, I’m a lot more interested in being out at the bars on 5 PM on New Year’s than I am at 12 AM.
I’m off today, so I’m going to head to the Saucer about 2 to watch the Grizzlies. They have an away game at the Pacers. If I don’t post again before midnight, happy new year everyone.