Did it rain on your parade?

Yesterday was a fantabulous, superiffic kind of day for me! I started off at Pontotoc Lounge for D-RANKS with B-RAD.  No women came in, asking Brad about me, asking to be introduced to me as has sometimes happened at Brad’s bar in the past, but it was a good day nonetheless. The jazz band was playing and by 1:00 every table in the house and every seat at the bar was full.

They had the NFL games on. I’m not big into watching the NFL so I spent a bunch of time surfing Twitter on my phone. I picked up a couple of things while doing so that I want to pass on to my readers. First of all, if you haven’t been to Sunrise Memphis, the breakfast place out on Jefferson in Victorian Village yet, here’s a reason to go:

Now that’s the way to do it! If you can’t decide what you want on your biscuit, why not get everything?

I also want to share with you an incredibly useful Twitter account I discovered yesterday: Is today Ted Danson’s birthday? 364 days a year (365 on leap years) this account tweets “Today is not Ted Danson’s birthday” and one day a year it tweets “Today is Ted Danson’s birthday.”

About 1:45 I tabbed out at Pontotoc and walked north to Beale Street to watch the Liberty Bowl parade. Since I moved down here in 2002 the King’s Palace Tap Room has been my preferred spot to watch parades. Although I got there an hour early, there was only one seat open, but it was the best seat: the seat right by the front door. I turned the chair around so I could look outside. Some people mistook me for the doorman. Maybe I should’ve charged them a $5 cover.

Of course, you just can’t visit Beale Street without getting a Big Ass Beer:

A group of people who usually watch parades at the Tap Room came up and briefly looked inside, then kept walking. That made me laugh. Good riddance!

I got to talking to two Missouri fans who are staying at an AirBnb in Midtown. The lady is into real estate and she had been scoping out the neighborhoods in Memphis that she thinks are the next big thing. It was a pleasure to talk to them. While I was neutral about the Liberty Bowl, that conversation convinced me to root for Mizzou.

Around the time the parade ended, my neighbor Buddha stopped by briefly and mentioned that he was on his way to see our friend Christina who bartends at Flying Saucer Sunday nights. That sounded like a good plan, so I went up there as well. The Memphis Saucer (unlike many Saucers) doesn’t carry PBR, so I ordered the Fire Sale, the daily beer on tap that they discount to $3.50. Back in the day my friend Mikey (who I saw very briefly yesterday) and I used to gripe about the Saucer putting uninteresting beers on Fire Sale. They have gotten better since making some management changes. Yesterday’s Fire Sale was a Belgian Dubbel! I think it was called Black Amber The Special, but don’t hold me to that – I could barely read the menu after a few sips of that thing, it was so strong!

Christina, who is a big fan of my troll, asked “Where’s Perjorie?” and I got her out and stood her next to my beer.

Whoo! After two of those Dubbels my head was spinning. Christina said “You need to start come seeing me on Sunday nights” and if they continue Fire Sales like this one, she can count on it! I was in bed by 9 PM, thanks to those beers.

Well, that’s it for this post. I have no interest in being out at midnight, but I have a lot of interest in being out at Bardog at 8 AM. It’s 7:52 now, so that gives me 8 minutes to shower and get dressed. Happy New Year everyone and I’ll see you in 2019.

Sunday update: Possible Uber scam Downtown

I got some additional information from one of my readers about the two women who target men in Downtown bars (“let’s go somewhere and have some fun”) in an attempt to take them to another location and rob them. It now appears they may be running fake car service scams down here as well.

Saturday afternoon a reader contacted me on Facebook Messenger and I gave him a more detailed description of the two women. He told me that early this year, he had left Bardog and two women, very closely matching those descriptions, were in a car outside. They told him, “We’re your Uber drivers!” and he got in. When they didn’t drive him in a straight path home, and talked about “stopping to have a good time” on the way, he began to get suspicious. He jumped out at a gas station and ran away.

Beware of any situation where your intuition tells you things are not right. Beware of going to another location with people you just met and barely know.

On to the news… Downtown Yoga has made a generous offer to those affected by the federal government shutdown. Until the shutdown ends, the yoga studio will be offering free classes for government employees. Check out their schedule here.

YOGA!

The Green Beetle is hiring a line cook.

This happened right down the street from me and I didn’t even know it: Huey’s Downtown opened its doors to the homeless on Christmas and fed them. That is awesome. Since I no longer have family, when it gets closer to Christmas 2019, I think I may go in and inquire whether they need volunteers.

Random thing I learned yesterday: There’s a website where you can upload photos of your dog and get the dog’s image on custom-printed socks.

Local wrestler/radio personality Dustin Starr will host a pre-party prior to WWE Monday Night Raw on Monday, January 14.

As a bonus, it will be Dustin’s wife Maria’s birthday. Come get Kooky before you walk over to FedExForum that night!

That’ll do it for now. I plan on getting out very early in the day both Monday and Tuesday, so I’m not sure if there will be posts those days. If I get any big news I will post from my phone.

Saturday update

Penny Hardaway’s Memphis Tigers are back at FedExForum today, hosting Florida A&M at noon. It’s another doubleheader day at the arena, with the Grizzlies taking on the Boston Celtics at 7.

Ghost River is giving you a reason to delay your New Year’s resolutions for a day on January 1. They will open at noon that day and will be serving their craft beer. If you want to bring wine or champagne, they will open it for a small corkage fee. They will have the college football bowl games on, and Yippie Trippie and the Porkstars will be parked outside with a special New Year’s Day menu.

Your Inner Yogi, the yoga studio at 10 N. Second, will be starting a book club in the new year. They’re asking yogis to drop them a line and let them know what kinds of books they’d be interested in reading and discussing. BOOKS!

Baby formula Pedialyte has long been used by adults as a hangover cure. Pedialyte is finally giving into this trend and is releasing a product targeted as adults who drink. It will be called Pedialyte Sparkling Rush and will be a packet of powders that you pour into water, like Emergen-C or Alka-Seltzer.

People are getting all worked up because it’s believed that blue Muppet Grover, who we all watched when we were little, might have dropped the f-bomb on TV. Seriously, with all the problems we face as a society right now, we’re concerned with whether a Muppet said a variant of the word “fuck”? No wonder this country is such a mess.

I went to Max’s Sports Bar last night to watch the Camping World Bowl. While there, Perjorie T. Roll got to enjoy a Dreamsicle slushie, and also got to meet Christina, Max’s employee who created the slushie recipe.

My enjoyment of the game was somewhat dampened by two boorish, drunk old men at the corner table who kept yelling out “WE’RE GOING TO THE CHILI’S IN SOUTHAVEN TO WATCH THE TIGERS GAME TOMORROW. HUH HUH HUH HUH” as though they thought they were funny. Well at least I now know what Beavis and and Butt-head will sound like in 50 years. I hope they remember to ask for their senior discount on their buckets of Miller Lite at Chili’s.

Three of the Big Six bowl games are today. We start off with the Peach Bowl at 11 on ESPN, Florida vs. Michigan. Apologies to my friend Jason but I will be rooting for Florida in this one. My general philosophy is to root for SEC teams not named Tennessee or Ole Miss as long as they are not playing Memphis or an undefeated team from Memphis’ conference.

Next up will be the Cotton Bowl at 3 on ESPN, featuring playoff semifinalists #2 Clemson vs. #3 Notre Dame. I will be rooting for the Irish here. I admire the way Notre Dame has maintained its conference independence in football without giving up any of its status as a national power in the sport.

After that we have the other playoff semi, the Orange Bowl on ESPN at 7 PM. #1 Alabama vs. #4 Oklahoma. Although I like Oklahoma a lot and had it as a backup option for my own college attendance, I have to root for Alabama here. Not only does the SEC rule mentioned above apply, but my friend Bama Lawdog would kill me if I didn’t roll with the Tide.

Time to get out and watch some sports. Maybe I’ll get the corner table by the door at Max’s, so those old coots will have to find a different spot if they deviate from their supposed plan to watch the game at Southaven Chili’s.

The news cycle tends to be really slow around New Year’s, so it’s possible I will take a day or two off here and there. Don’t worry if I do, I’m not sick or anything, just out enjoying the Downtown life. Back with more news when I have it.

Friday update – “let’s go somewhere and have some fun” scam is back

Almost exactly a year ago today, one of my good friends got robbed outside his apartment at Main and Gayoso. He’d been at a bar nearby, where two women struck up conversation with him. One was fairly tall, straight hair, very well dressed like she was out for a night on the town. The other was shorter, dark hair, darker skinned, more heavyset. They came in, took the seats next to my friend and chatted him up, suggesting that the three of them go somewhere and have some fun. Sensing that something was not right, my friend got out of there. However, the women had enough time to text their male accomplice outside that he was coming out  a side door, and the accomplice put a gun to my friend’s head and demanded his wallet.The next day the more heavyset of the two women attempted to cash a blank check that had been in the wallet for a very large amount, so large that the bank suspected something was wrong and contacted my friend.

I am about 95% sure these same two women were at the same bar I was last night, and in fact sat next to me. They didn’t speak to me other than to ask if I had a lighter, but they chatted up another regular at this bar on the other side of them. The more well-dressed woman got to talking and laughing with him and I believe he bought them a round of drinks. At one point a man came in the bar. He had a shirt on that was untucked and a size or two too large – perfect for concealing a gun. He never interacted with the two women at the bar, but stood in their general vicinity as though he could have come inside to get a good look at who they were talking to. He got asked to leave by staff, not sure why. I’m not positive but I believe he could have been the accomplice.

I just wanted to pass this story on for the benefit of my male readers. I believe, based on the time of year they’re getting out, the women and their accomplice may be trying to take advantage of people in town for the weekend for the Liberty Bowl.

Also, if you get victimized by these people, please file a police report. Police need to build up a record of what they look like, what kinds of places they go and when, who they tend to target. If the officer on duty tells you filing a police report won’t help you get your belongings back, fill one out anyway and ask to speak to a supervisor if you have to. You may not get your stuff back but you might prevent others from getting robbed.

The Washington post has a fantastic article on Grizzlies rookie Jaren Jackson Jr. He showed signs of being a prodigy from an early age, and now he has some outstanding mentors in his parents, Coach Bickerstaff, and Marc Gasol.

There’s going to be a Rock-n-Romp at Memphis Made Brewing Co. tomorrow afternoon, Saturday, December 29 starting at 2 PM. These romps expose kids to live music at an early age. Performing will be Summer Avenue, James from James and the Ultrasounds, and The Wealthy West. They’re looking for volunteers to work the door, with $5 cover and kid requirement waived for volunteers.

Random thing I learned yesterday: Green sriracha sauce exists. It was  part of a sriracha box a friend of mine received as a gift.

Bartenders, servers, hosts, hostesses, cooks: There will be a job fair on January 14 to hire for Downtown restaurants Sunrise Memphis, 117 Prime, and a new restaurant to open soon, as well as for Midtown restaurants Sweet Grass/Next Door.

It continues to be a slow news week so that’s all I’ve got. Back tomorrow with more news.

 

Lunch special at Blind Bear Friday the 28th

I just learned that the Blind Bear is doing a $10 blue plate special tomorrow, Friday, December 28, and since it’s time-sensitive I wanted to go ahead and get it posted

The special will be chicken fried chicken, mashed potatoes and country gravy, and fried okra. The Bear is at 119 S. Main and serves lunch 11 AM to 3 PM on weekdays, with happy hour 3 to 7 PM and drinks served all the way to 3 AM.

Thursday update

Yesterday I again decided to make it an early day at Bardog, catching up with day bartender Bloom and hearing what her kids got for Christmas. While sitting at the bar my phone rang once again.

It was my friend Rahul. “Paul, I demand a retraction and an apology,” he said. “You put on your blog that me and Tony are going to the Drag & Dinner show at Rizzo’s at 8 PM Sunday. That’s not true. I demand a retraction.”

Rahul continued, “Me and Tony aren’t going, but our lady friends Hula Girl and Marie Antoinette are. Marie Antoinette is going to bring a paper fan to cool herself off. Hula Girl is going to wear a grass skirt and has hair extensions she bought out of the vending machine at Wolfchase Galleria.” My. They sound lovely.

While I was at Bardog, I confirmed that they will open at their normal time of 8 AM on New Year’s Day. Most bars generally open at their normal time that day, but a few that blow it out big with a party on New Year’s Eve will wait until the evening to open on the 1st. I consider New Year’s Eve to be Amateur Night and will not be out. I’ll get to bed early and get a good night’s sleep so I can be at Bardog at 8 when the professionals celebrate the New Year.

Comedy is coming to the Crosstown Brewery taproom this Friday at 7:30. The Comma Comedians will perform, featuring a variety of local and out of town acts, in a free show. As an added bonus, my friends from the New Wing Order food truck will be selling their delicious wings, tacos, fries, and other goodies on site.

Ghost River wraps up its holiday movie night series tonight at the taproom with It’s a Wonderful Life tonight at 7. Two Girls and a Whip will be there with assorted cupcakes to sweeten your movie watching experience. If you want to grab dinner before you have dessert, the Asian Cajun food truck will be on site.

This is awesome: You can help Lyft provide ride credit for St. Jude families. Raising your ride cost to the next nearest dollar will provide funds to transport patient families for free. I will gladly do that next time I take a Lyft.

Well, that’s all the news I can find. It’s a slow time of the year. Welcome to all the Missouri and Oklahoma State fans coming into town for Monday’s game. Back tomorrow with more news.

 

Christmas update: Texas de Brazil pics, Drag & Dinner, Christmas bar hours and more

I spent a fun Christmas Eve with wonderful friends yesterday. A little before 6 my friends Jessica, Josh, Jennifer, Katie Mac and I made the trek over to Texas de Brazil for Christmas Eve dinner.

TdB is not only known for its meats, but is also known for having the best salad bar in town. Here’s a look at my plate:

Okay… I’m going to stop right here for a minute. I feel that it is important to give one’s self a performance evaluation from time to time, to assess strengths and weaknesses. That is the path to continued improvement. Let’s have a look at the strengths and weaknesses from my trip to the salad bar.

STRENGTH: You’ll notice that I didn’t bring any actual salad back from my trip to the salad bar. Salad takes up valuable space on a plate that could be reserved for other items. I was a good steward of my plate’s real estate by passing the salad.

STRENGTH: Although I didn’t get salad, I did load up on one of the items that was supposed to be a topping for the salad: bacon. Look at all that delicious bacon on my plate. Well done, me.

STRENGTH: I got a cup of lobster bisque. My rule is “dip everything in lobster bisque.” Bacon, steak, cheese, you name it.

STRENGTH: Cheese. Those two mozzarella balls and that slice of provolone were welcome additions to my plate.

WEAKNESS: I wasted space on my plate on items that could have made room for more bacon. If I wanted a California roll I should have gone to South Main Sushi. And those haricots verts (green beans), while tasty indeed, are not as tasty as bacon. I’ll give the pepperoncini pepper a pass because I like spicy food and my troll likes foods that are the same color as her hair. But really, this plate should have been about 50% covered in bacon.

WEAKNESS: I only got one bowl of lobster bisque. I should have got two and maybe even three. I’ll say it once again – when you’re in an all-you-can-eat dining setting you can’t be concerned with what other people think of you. We had a table for 8 but a couple of people weren’t feeling well so we only had 5. I would have had plenty of room to spread out.

I was going to give myself a B- for my salad bar effort, but what the heck, it is Christmas, I’ll curve it up to a B. This was not a bad plate at all. However, if I am to one day become the LeBron James of the Texas de Brazil salad bar, I have got to work relentlessly on correcting those weaknesses.

Before we move on, while we’re on the subject of performance evaluations, here’s a guide on how to give your cats their annual performance review.

Once you’re done with your salad bar plate, you get a fresh plate for meat, and a button, green on one side, red on the other.

Gauchos (servers) come around and offer you cuts of various meats. A green button tells them, “Yes, I want meat.” A red button tells them, “No thanks, I’m good for now.”

I didn’t get photos of all of my meats – a plate full of medium-rare cuts can be kind of gross to look at – but here’s one I took.

Pictured here are a sausage, a filet, and a bacon-wrapped jalapeno pepper. Jessica told us the jalapenos are the must-get item carried around by the gauchos, and I can’t disagree. I also had a bacon-wrapped filet, garlic sirloin, the house cut Picanha, and a lamb chop. I got full before the flank steak came around, but I’ll share a tip a friend gave me yesterday: Ask for a side of goat cheese from the kitchen to eat with your flank steak. The two flavors are said to be amazing together.

Garlic mashed potatoes are served to every table as a side. There are sides of fried bananas too.

Christmas Eve dinner at Texas de Brazil comes with complimentary dessert, and after we finished our meat our server brought the tray around. My troll and I decided we wanted the Bananas Foster cake.

A good dinner and good friends is a Christmas Eve well spent. I enjoyed the company.

On to the news…

Yesterday during the day, I decided to observe Christmas Eve as Jesus would if he were still on Earth today. In other words, I went to a bar for some day drinking.

So about 10:45 I was sitting at Bardog, a PBR parked in front of me, when my phone rang. “Who calls anyone any more?” I thought. We live in the age of text messages, Facebook Messenger, and Snapchat. Nevertheless, I answered.

“Paul Paul Paul Paul Paul Paul Paul Paul Paul Paul Paul Paul!” said two very excited male voices talking over each other. After a couple of seconds I recognized the voices as my friends Rahul and Tony.

“Slow down, guys, I can’t hear what you’re saying when both of you talk at once. One of you talk. What’s going on?” I replied.

“We need your help! Christmas comes on the 30th this year,” said one of them.

“What are you talking about?” I asked. “Christmas always falls on the 25th of December.”

“For us, Christmas comes on the 30th,” said Rahul and Tony. “Go look on Facebook.”

I pulled up my Facebook app and found that Rizzo’s had just added a new event on Sunday, December 30 at 8 PM: Drag & Dinner. Goldie D and Friends will put on a show while you enjoy a plate of deliciousness from Chef Michael Patrick. Goldie & friends performed last December at Rizzo’s and it was said to be quite the show. Cost is $30 and you must call 901-304-6985.

“Paul, you’re friends with the chef there, right?” said Rahul and Tony anxiously. “Do you think you can get us front row seats?”

“Yeah I’ll get right on that,” I told them, and hung up.

Here are Downtown bar opening times today that I’m aware of.

  • Max’s Sports Bar: “normal hours” which would be 4 PM but I hear they might open a bit earlier than that
  • Bardog Tavern: 5 PM
  • Local: 5 PM
  • Flying Saucer: 5 PM
  • Blind Bear: 6 PM
  • Dirty Crow Inn: 6 PM
  • Silly Goose: 7 PM
  • Closed today: Brass Door, The Vault, Green Beetle, Huey’s

Glad to hear that arrests have been made following multiple thefts in Harbor Town.

Things you can’t unsee:

Surfing Twitter last night, I saw a post about doggos. Finally it all made sense to me: Puppies grow up to be dogs. Puppers grow up to be doggos.

Merry Christmas to all my readers. Back tomorrow with more news.

Sunday update

Choose901 had an excellent post that is worth bookmarking. It’s a list of restaurants of every ethnicity in the Memphis area.

What was Coach Norvell thinking, going for a two-point conversion when the Tigers were up 34-30 with about a minute and a half to go? What good was 36 going to do for Memphis as opposed to 35? There were a lot of people asking what was going on with the two-point conversion, when Wake ran the ball back to midfield and then Memphis kicked it off rather than Wake taking possession when they had it. This Wikipedia page clarifies it.

Last night I was discussing my recent Court Square food truck rodeo adventures on Thursdays with a friend. I told him, “I’ve tried just about every type of food at the food truck rodeo at this point… except BBQ. I can’t see getting BBQ from a truck when there are so many good restaurants close by, and besides I’m on a team.”

“There’s one you should try, though,” my friend said. “Smurfey’s is really good. Get their BBQ nachos. I’ve heard their potato is really good too, topped with pork shoulder with that good bark on it.” I should mention this friend knows a thing or two about BBQ, being one of the cooks on my team, so I will take his recommendation seriously and thought I would pass it on to my readers. I will walk up there and give Smurfey’s a look on Thursday.

THIS NEEDS TO HAPPEN:

Short post today but around Christmas there’s not much news. Back tomorrow (or the next time I have something to report) with more.

Saturday update

The Memphis Tigers are on national TV this morning, playing the Wake Forest Demon Deacons in the Birmingham Bowl. The game will be on ESPN and kickoff is shortly after 11 AM.

There’s a special Timeout for Fitness ticket for the January 4 Grizzlies game. It includes not only a ticket to the 7 PM game that night vs. the Brooklyn Nets, but a Pilates mat class on the main court the morning of Saturday, January 5. Grizzlies marketing department: That “7:00:00 PM CST ( Meet at 08:40 AM at the FedExForum Grand Lobby )” copy is confusing and needs to be fixed. Also, the “how can we make your ticket purchasing experience better?” pop-up when I stay on the page too long without purchasing tickets is annoying.

Whether you purchase the Pilates ticket or not, if you’re one of the first 5000 fans in the arena that night, you get a free Grizzlies fanny pack. They should have done that promotion before Christmas; it would have made a perfect Dirty Santa gift.

Tim Van Horn wins the “You Are So Memphis” tweet of the week.

I’m looking forward to dinner with wonderful friends at Texas de Brazil on Christmas Eve! If you go there on the 24th you get free dessert. Select nonalcoholic beverages are also fee that day. That’ll lower the tab from stratospheric to merely astronomical, but it is so worth it. MEAT!

Wednesday night’s food drive/showing of Elf at the Orpheum produced 4625 pounds of food. That’s enough to provide 3800 meals to families during the holidays.

The American Athletic Conference men’s basketball tournament returns to FedExForum March 14-17 and tickets are now on sale.

All right. I’ll save the rest of the news for tomorrow because I need to get to the bar and get a good seat for the Birmingham Bowl. Go Tigers!

Friday update: More big news for The Edge

As your #1 source of news and information about The Edge District, I can see I am going to have my work cut out for me in the coming year as that neighborhood really takes off. Yesterday the Memphis Business Journal had an exclusive that Memphis Made Brewing Co. is looking at opening a second location, and it will be in The Edge, in a building at 435 Madison. They haven’t signed a lease yet but have signed a letter of intent. The new brewery would be the northern anchor for The Ravine, the urban park that will run through The Edge from Union to Madison.

Yesterday I had a discussion with a friend on Facebook on whether another brewery is needed in The Edge. I believe it absolutely is. The addition of a brewery, as well as the new cidery going in two blocks away on Union, will make The Edge a destination neighborhood – with Sun Studio, it always has been for tourists, but now it will be for locals as well. The new brewery and cidery will also make The Edge more walkable. Assuming the new Memphis Made location will have a taproom, it will be the only brewery in The Edge to bring in food trucks. It will be the closest brewery to my home and I look forward to walking down Madison for a pint of Fireside or Junt.

Continuing my conversation with my Facebook friend, I told him that I see The Edge at a tipping point as the next up-and-coming neighborhood. I see it being in its development approximately where Cooper-Young was in 1992; where South Main was in 2000; where the Broad Avenue Arts District was in 2010. I expect to spend significant time writing about The Edge in this blog in 2019.

Hey, I wonder if Bijou and Biscuit got adopted?

The Daily Memphian covers what is being done to ensure that The Ravine will live up to expectations.Funding is in place for phase 1 of the project, but what if there is a downturn in the economy similar to the Great Recession of 2008 and the philanthropy is not there to fund Phase 2? Brett Roler of the DMC stresses that by the end of Phase I, expected to be complete by May 2019, The Ravine will be a fully functional urban park.

If any breweries in The Edge have outdoor festivals in 2019, they shouldn’t plan on booking the band Zigadoo Moneyclips. The lead singer is going to federal prison for 2 years and 9 months on fraud charges.

If you’re tired of food that goes moo, or oink, or cluck, check out this Catherine & Mary’s entree. If it looks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck, it’s a duck.

The Hospitality Hub sent out some statistics about the people they served in 2018.

  • 1591 newly homeless individuals walked through the door. 63% were men and 37% were women.
  • Of the women, 23% were with children or were pregnant.
  • They helped 546 people track down their birth certificates.
  • They helped 417 people get a state ID.
  • 1034 housing vouchers were issued, giving the people a safe place to stay the night.
  • 1120 bus passes were given out.
  • Their Growing Work Local program, giving the homeless a chance yo put in a day’s work for a fair wage with a lunch included, filled 2180 shifts and paid out $109,000 in wages. 87 tons of trash on 1280 miles of Memphis roads were cleaned up by individuals working as part of this program.

This is a wonderful organization that offers a hand up in life. You will be doing a lot more to help the homeless by volunteering at the Hub or donating to them that you will be if you give money to a person on the street.

Drew and Ellie Holcomb’s Neighborly Christmas comes to the Orpheum tonight.

This is very cool: Among the many things to which your Memphis library card entitles you is a digital subscription to the New York Times.

Christmas opening news: PBjaRni, a bartender at Max’s Sports Bar, posted that the bar will open on 3 Christmas Day.

Statistics site FiveThirtyEight has ranked the most absurd college football bowls. Absurdity criteria included length of name, bad teams, high scoring, frequent sponsorship changes, and sponsor industry. There were also opportunities to earn bonus points. Least absurd for 2018 were the Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic, the Capital One Orange Bowl, the Allstate Sugar Bowl, and the Hyundai Sun Bowl. Most absurd: The Makers Wanted Bahamas Bowl.

The Peanut Shoppe on Main has announced they will be open today, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday for your holiday shopping needs. It is unusual for them to open on Sunday. Best place in Memphis to buy nuts, chocolates, candy and popcorn for your loved ones!

The Memphis Animal Shelter is looking to hire a support services specialist.

The folks at the Orpheum have realized their movie series is too popular to restrict it just to the summer. From now on there will be movies on the big screen all year. Movies including SIngin’ in the Rain and Space Jam will be coming in 2019.

Happy New Year, YOGA! Your Inner Yogi at 10 N. Second is hosting a Yoga and Visualization class on Sunday, December 30 to help you set your intentions for the new year. This class will not be about making New Year’s resolutions, which rarely stick. You will create a story board using photos keywords, and quotes to help you set out what you want your 2019 to look like. The class is 4-6 PM and the cost is $25.

Looking to volunteer over the holidays? Volunteer Odyssey has an opportunity with Room in the Inn – Memphis. This organization, which started in Nashville, helps direct the homeless to church congregations that can provide warm places to sleep during the cold winter months. They need volunteers from 4:15 to 6:00 PM to greet the homeless guests, provide coffee and conversation, and keep them company while Room in the Inn lines up a place for them to stay for the night. After the guests depart volunteers clean and prepare the space for the next day. This is a family-friendly volunteer opportunity.

All right, that’ll do it for now. Back tomorrow with more news.