First day of vacation. I stayed out until 1:30 last night, and from what I could tell I’m not missing much by not staying out that late most Wednesdays. Downtown has been swarmed this week, not only with Elvis fans but with students returning to college. They made it hard to get a beer at times, but at least there were some nice tube top dresses.
The St. Louis Cardinals mascot Fredbird will make two appearances at Redbirds home games this weekend. He will be at AutoZone Park for the Friday game (7:05 first pitch) and Saturday (6:05). On Friday the first 3000 fans through the gate will get a special BBQ bobblehead, and there will be fireworks on Saturday.
Fredbird will also be on the patio of Aldo’s Pizza Pies between 4 and 5 PM Friday. He’ll pose for photos with kids, and there will be a swag and ticket giveaway.
The Corked Carrot has its new menu up. View it here.
The Downtown Memphis Commission’s CCDC is considering a plan to renovate the Court Square gazebo.
Tonight is the season finale of the Peabody’s summer rooftop party series. Super T – the Tyrone Smith Revue will be the headline act. Cover is $15 and includes your first drink, along with a buffet of grilled cheese sandwiches, soft pretzels, and popcorn. Those in VIP will have a second buffet of beer brats, German-style potato salad, and cheese and crackers.
Time to highlight another Memphis startup I learned about Thursday night. You’ve seen me post about Foursquare, an app that lets me “check in” at venues and post photos of them. Well, a new business called Kids 360 is taking that check-in approach to help parents stay in better touch with their kids’ caregivers and know where their kids are at all times. Babysitters, grandparents, etc. will be able to check kids in with this app and post photos for the parents to see. In the future, the app may be able to predict where a child ought to be based on past checkins. Their website will be launching soon – as I explained in an earlier post, these businesses are midway through a 90-day startup boot camp right now – but in the meantime, you can sign up to be notified of updates. This Daily News article has more info on Kids 360 and some of the other startups.
I’lll wrap up this post with a pizza pic:
This is a Meatza from the Silly Goose. I had it last night because half of the $10 price goes to the Muscular Dystrophy Association if you get it or any other pizza at the Goose between now and August 21. If you’re not a meat-eater, try the white pizza. I’ve taken it home a couple of times after Monday night poker and it’s very good.
The candlelight vigil happens at Graceland tonight. Every Memphian should see this once, whether you’re a fan of Elvis or not. It will give you a new appreciation how revered he is around the world. If I had to list my top 5 favorite singers/bands, Elvis wouldn’t be among them, but all of the five I would name have said that Elvis was a major influence. Gotta respect that.
I have a lot of chores I want to get done during my time off, but my first order of business on vacation is going to be to put them off for a day. I’ll start off at the Flying Saucer when it opens at 11, then read all the restaurants’ lunch specials on Facebook and figure out where to eat.