Last night a friend gave me a suggestion that is worth passing on to my readers. Go to the Flying Saucer and order the Royale burger – chopped onions, jalapeno bacon, mustard, spiked ketchup – but in place of the American cheese, get the pepper jack cheese instead. “It’ll change your world,” he told me. I will have to try that soon.
Sounds like James Wiseman lived up to expectations in the Memphis Tigers’ preseason romp over South Carolina State last night, 97-64. Next up for the Tigers: A home game vs. UIC Friday at 6 that will be televised on ESPNU. However, the first real test for the Memphis team will come next Tuesday, when the Tigers travel to Portland to play #15 Oregon in the Phil Knight Invitational, nationally televised on ESPN.
The first College Football Playoff Rankings were released last night, and Memphis came in at #21. The only higher-ranked Group of Five school is Cincinnati at #20. If the Tigers beat their next two opponents and then hand Cincy a loss on the 29th, the Liberty Bowl will host its first-ever AAC championship game on December 7, probably against Cincinnati again.
Clemson, #1 in the AP poll for the first several weeks of the season, dropped all the way to #5 in the initial CFP poll, behind Ohio State, LSU, Alabama, and Penn State. BWAHAHAHAHAHA! Love it!! Imagine the following scenario: The loser of the LSU-Bama game will probably remain in the top four, provided the game isn’t a blowout one way or the other. If Penn State beats Ohio State on the 23rd, the Buckeyes would probably remain in the top four. Clemson could not lose a game all season and still be on the outside looking in. More on Clemson’s situation on ESPN
South Main Sounds at 550 S. Main is back this Friday at 7 with performances from Devan Yanik and Cyrena Wages, both first-timers at Songwriter Night, as well as Christina LaRocca and Gene Micofsky from L.A. on their “Never Going Back” tour.
The Blind Bear will have a Roaring 20s Back Again party on New Year’s Eve to celebrate the ushering in of the 2020s at midnight on January 1. This year there is an option to get in for NO COVER… you just have to know the password, and while I don’t normally share Blind Bear passwords on my blog, this one I will: “The Roaring 20s sent me.” Come celebrate the new Roaring 20s in a speakeasy listening to the sounds of Brimstone Jones. Party favors will be provided, and there will be specials (appetizer, entree, dessert, vegetarian and vegan) in addition to the regular menu. Get your photo taken by Joey Warner. Normally I refer to New Year’s Eve as Amateur Night and stay home, but you know what? I WILL BE AT THE BEAR, to celebrate the year I never thought I’d see, in my favorite home away from home.
The Hard Rock Cafe will open for Thanksgiving and will serve a Thanksgiving Day Plate from 11 AM-11 PM. Turkey breast, home-cooked stuffing, roasted fresh vegetables, sweet potato mash, cranberry sauce, and gravy for $26.95. Finish your meal off with pumpkin pie for $8.95. Can’t make it Thanksgiving Day? The menu will be available all weekend.
While we’re on the subject of Thanksgiving, GREAT NEWS. The City of Memphis Thanksgiving dinner for the homeless and hungry, announced earlier this week to have been canceled, is back on thanks to the generosity of some benefactors.
Loflin Yard will hold a watch party for the LSU-Alabama game this Saturday at 2:30. Considering they’re calling it the LSU Watch Party, they clearly favor one side more than the other. There will be food and drink specials.
There’s progress in the southeast quadrant of Downtown. The Daily Memphian reports that permit applications have been filed for the third and fourth phases of Foote Park at South City. The permits mainly cover the area from Butler east of Fourth to the intersection of Danny Thomas and Mississippi.
Nationally headlining video DJ, DJ RONS, comes to Atomic Rose Bar & Grill Saturday night, November 16. He has been voted Best Club DJ in Nashville 5 years in a row and maintains an extensive travel schedule. He also is a member of the panel that votes weekly on the Billboard National Club Chart.
From NPR: Microsoft Japan experimented with a four-day workweek for a month. This doesn’t mean employees worked longer days the days they were at the office; they simply worked four regular days and got a five-day paycheck. Guess what? Employees were 40% more productive, used 23% less electricity, and printed considerably less. I have long thought the 40-hour work week is a relic of times gone by. Technology ought to give workers more free time, rather than take it away.
Oh, another thing they did: They put meetings on a diet, slashing standard meeting durations from 60 minutes to 30, and enforcing a maximum meeting attendance of 5. Wow, company managers are really starting to wake up and adopt practices that work here in the late 2010s!
There will be a walking tour of November 6th Street, hosted by the DMC, today from 11 AM to noon. The tour is free, about 45 minutes and a half mile, and comfortable shoes are advised. On the tour you’ll get to see two of the hidden secrets of Downtown Memphis: the spot behind my apartment building where the bums take a piss, and the other spot behind my apartment building where the bums take a piss.
The Grizzlies host the Minnesota Timberwolves at FedExForum tonight at 7.
The monthly Peabody Master Tasters Club meets tonight in Chez Philippe 5:30-7:00. The theme this month is Give Thanks for Wine.
Do you have an unlimited data plan with AT&T for your phone? You may get a refund soon. The company has agreed to refund $60 million to customers who had the supposedly-unlimited plan but had their data throttled after exceeding a threshold. If you’re a current customer, the refund will get credited to your account. Former customers will get a check in the mail.
For those who missed the national news yesterday, there was a key development. U.S. ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland changed his testimony yesterday and admitted that there was a quid pro quo between the Trump regime and Ukraine. As one of my favorite Twitter follows, Tea Pain, put it, Sondland realized protecting the president isn’t worth it if it means pissing in a stainless steel toilet for years.
The brings the Democrat-controlled House closer to bringing formal articles of impeachment against Trump. But the Repblican-controlled Senate is the jury in the trial; surely they wouldn’t vote to remove him, would they? Maybe they would. If they remove Trump, they get Mike Pence as president. That offers several advantages:
- Pence isn’t batshit crazy
- Pence doesn’t embarrass the U.S. on the world stage as Trump does on a near-daily basis
- Pence actually embraces the right-wing ideals Republicans hold dear; he doesn’t just pretend to embrace them to fool people into voting for him
- He’d be a lot more likely to hold key battleground states like Ohio, Florida, and Pennsylvania as the incumbent in the 2020 election
I’ll finish the post with a quote I read on Facebook yesterday: Christians warned about the Antichrist for 2000 years. Then he appeared, and they elected him.
Back tomorrow with more news.