I decided to change things up and lead off at Bardog yesterday, upon receiving insider information that the place would turn into a shitshow in its first hour of operation. Normally I have to stay up until midnight or 1 AM to see a good shitshow, so I was excited to get to see the Early Bird Special. I left the apartment at 10:50, expecting there to be a crowd of people waiting outside Bardog to get in when it opened at 11. But no, there was no one outside, and I decided to walk around the block to kill a little time. I found this on Front Street:
Looks like Santa hit the eggnog a little too hard at the Christmas party Saturday night and mistook this for a chimney. Oh well, at least Downtown’s rat population got some good presents.
I made it to Bardog right at 11, and got a seat at the bar with the other regulars, just minutes before a 30-person Christmas pub crawl came in. This leads me to make a request for one of my regular readers. Mama Aldo: Please tell your son that Bloom did an A-plus-plus-plus job behind the bar yesterday. There were way more people than usual at the bar, all ordering drinks individually and paying separately; yet Bloom made sure that her regulars never had an empty glass the entire hour the pub crawl was there. Well done, and much appreciated.
The pub crawl cleared out at noon, and one of the other regulars asked, “Were those party pedal bike riders?” and I said no (although her assumption was easily justifiable) and explained who they were. Then she suggested we get a group picture with Perjorie T. Roll.
Well, okay, Perjorie made the pic, but I didn’t! So we tried again:
There, that’s better. They wanted a solo pic of the troll as well.
I’ve been keeping Perjorie in my pocket most of the time lately. I had forgotten how popular she is at Bardog. I need to get her out more.
Long day at Bardog. I stayed there until 7:30 PM, and there were a number of shots there toward the end. I ordered a deluxe grilled cheese (which comes with ham, bacon, and tomato) to go, and asked for my tab. Having been there for 8 and a half hours, I shuddered at the thought of what the total would be…
… But apparently I have a secret Santa, because only the sandwich and one beer appeared on the tab. Some generous soul paid for all the rest of my beers and shots. Whoever it was, thank you!
All right, let’s see if I can scrounge up some news, so those of you sitting at work not doing anything and wondering “Why in the world do I have to be here today?” have something to pass the time.
From Wide Open Eats: Fireball and pineapple are a match made in whiskey heaven on the grill. I think I’ll speak to my neighbor who is a member of the BBQ cook team and see if we can try this out come May. Then again, maybe I won’t; we’ve learned from other teams what can happen when you take your focus too far off the competition meat.
Looking for a place to watch the upcoming Conor McGregor fight? Loflin Yard will show UFC 46 on Saturday, January 18 from 9 to midnight. Two huge screens and specials on Jameson and Tito’s. They call themselves “your Downtown home for everything UFC,” so it sounds like they get all the pay-per-views.
The Daily Memphian has a list of restaurants open on Christmas Day.
If you’re going to the Grizzlies game tonight (vs. San Antonio Spurs, FedExForum 7:00) and you haven’t wrapped your Christmas presents yet, you’ll want to get there early. It’s the Holiday Game and the first 5000 fans in the door get free Grizzlies wrapping paper courtesy of Mercury Printing.
Hmmm this MacBook that I’m using just made a noise I had never heard before. I closed everything down and rebooted in case that’s a “remote connection initiated” noise and I have a hacker.
From USA Today: What is Hanukkah, and when is it? (And no, it’s not the Jewish Christmas)
That’s all the news I can round up today. Not sure what my posting schedule will be this week. If there’s no incoming news, and there’s often not this time of year, then I won’t post. Then again, I have 4 extra hours each day this week, and I gotta fill the time with something (I may do an early morning Bardog day either Thursday or Friday, but I don’t want it to be an every day thing). Back sometime this week with more news and Merry Christmas in case this is my last post until after the 25th.