Yeah, I know a lot of people call today Star Wars Day, but I dare to be different.
Last night I played trivia at the Blind Bear with my friend Stacey, and she had the coolest thing: a Fidget Cube. This is a six-sided hand-held stress reliever with a different activity on each side. You can spin a dial, run your fingers over rollers, rub a surface that resembles a worry stone, flip a switch, glide a joystick-like device, or click buttons. It is one of the highest funded Kickstarter projects. I want one for my desk at work!
There will be an opening party for Open on Main at 7 and 9 N. Main tonight from 5-7 PM. These storefronts will house a different business each month through November. Tonight there will be live music from The Pocket, a live painting demonstration by Adam Exelbierd, wine and hors d’oeuvres, and a raffle with proceeds benefiting St. Jude.
Change is coming to Peabody Place – the street, not the former mall that is now the ServiceMaster headquarters. Starting June 26, the city will embark on a demonstration project that will add bike lanes to what the CA calls “a stretch of Peabody Place from Front to Fourth” (although that is the entirety of Peabody Place, not just a stretch). There will be protected bike lanes along with murals and portable kiosks where artists can show their work, in a partnership between the city and the UrbanArt commission. A few parallel parking spaces will be lost on the street. This is part of a plan to complete a cycling route between Downtown and Midtown, meeting up with cycling lanes being put on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Avenue.
Frankie Hollie & The Noise headlines tonight’s Peabody rooftop party. Your $10 cover (or entry with $150 season VIP pass, which can be purchased at the door) gets you live entertainment plus a buffet of chicken taquitos, tortilla chips and dip. If you’re a VIP there’s also a taco bar, refried beans, chicken enchilada dip, and cinnamon churros. The drink specials are traditional margaritas, cinnamon apple margaritas, and Firefly blackberry lemonade moonshine. Doors open at 6, ladies and hotel guests free before 7.
Celtic Woman: Voices of Angels comes to the Orpheum tonight. Showtime is 7 PM and tickets are $42-102.
Random thing I discovered yesterday: I was looking at Google Maps yesterday, trying to discover alternate routes out of Downtown while Riverside is closed. Any place on the map that is known to Google is reviewable, including the Probation & Parole Office at Crump and Kentucky. Four people have submitted reviews. One user gave the office a 3-star (out of 5) review on Google, while three users gave the office a 1-star rating. That averages out to a pitiful 1.5 stars out of 5. Sounds like the probation and parole officers could stand to read a few customer service books! Those of you who visit the office, don’t forget that you can walk across Crump after you’re done and get drunk at The Dirty Crow Inn!
Scam alert: If you get an email notification that someone shared a Google Docs file with you, contact that person and asked if they really shared the file. I am hearing that there is a very sophisticated phishing scam happening on that platform right now.
Holly has a look at the new Front Street Deli. Very cool: They’re going to have delivery, including beer. Very, very cool: They’re apparently going to have a kiosk at Paula & Raiford’s for late night delivery.
I didn’t discover it until recently, but local BBQ team Porkosaurus has a really good Twitter account showing off what you can create with their locally-sold sauce and rub. Follow them at @porkosaurus.
901 Wings at 97 N. Main is now open.
Moody Ques BBQ team menu news: We’re going to have bacon wrapped jalapeno poppers and a roasted vegetable orzo pasta salad in addition to the entrees and sides I named in yesterday’s post. Who sez we got nothin’ to eat? We’re gonna have so much to eat in our booth that our members are going to have to do a 3-day juice cleanse post-BBQ Fest to atone for their sins! (Hopefully our team attorney will have less of a problem with this statement than “We’ll get you so drunk in our booth that you’ll have a seizure and die”)
Inspirational quote of the day:
To stop hiding out from each other, of course, we must stop hiding from ourselves.
— Neale Donald Walsch (@realNDWalsch) May 4, 2017
Wanna gamble? Frontier has announced a nonstop flight from Memphis to Vegas. Or, “LAS Vegas” as my friend Bicycle Bobby calls the city.
That’s it for now. Time to grind out the afternoon at work then Silly Goose happy hour. Back tomorrow with more news.