Saturday update

From Nextdoor: Everyone be on the lookout for a package thief, especially on Mud Island. He stole packages off porches on the Island last Friday, August 7, and was seen again yesterday around Isle Creek Drive. Description:

  • 2018 Chevrolet Malibu, black in color
  • African-American male, 40s, medium build
  • Known to dump empty boxes near the back entrance to the island

There’s a reward for up to $1000 for information leading to the arrest of this individual.

City Tasting Boxes are the latest brainchild of Cristina McCarter who does (or did, before COVID-19) City Tasting Tours. If you want to send someone a taste of Memphis, she can help.

WMC Action News 5 reports that Malco theaters will begin reopening this month. Friday, August 28 is the target date for South Main’s Malco Powerhouse. Tickets and times will be available on the 26th.

This Daily Memphian article sheds some light on the COVID-19 “tripwires” recently adopted by the Health Department. The main point of the article was that schools could stay open until COVID-19 testing hits a 25% positivity rate, much higher than in other cities. However, the article goes on to say that schools could be shut down and a return to Safer at Home put in place if there’s 25% positivity OR more than 750 new cases on average per day OR if a week-over-week 40% increase in number of new cases is seen.

If the “bad” tripwire triggers are ORs, does that mean the “good” ones are too? Specifically I’m wondering, can limited service restaurants reopen if we get to 180 cases or fewer per day OR a positivity rate of 10% or lower, as opposed to AND? Because we’re getting close on the number of cases. The Shelby County COVID-19 data dashboard (parts of which don’t work half the time, it seems) had us at 221 new cases/day last night.

I know people in the media read this blog. If any of you want to call into Tuesday’s COVID-19 task force press conference and ask the question about OR vs. AND as relates to the bullet points in the trip wires, you will be my favorite person ever and I’ll buy you a beverage once the limited service restaurant wire gets tripped.

Grizzlies vs. Portland Trail Blazers, 1:30 PM, ABC. Am I a horrible person for hoping Damian Lillard comes down with a 48-hour case of food poisoning?

Useful article from Gizmodo: Browser extensions that will show you who is tracking you as you surf the web. Several extensions are listed, but Privacy Badger from the Electronic Frontier Foundation seems to be the gold standard.

From the police scanner at 9:53 last night: Disturbance at Jefferson Ave. and North B.B. King Blvd., about 8 subjects on Bird scooters riding into oncoming traffic on one-way B.B. King. For some reason traffic laws don’t apply whatsoever the moment you set foot on a Bird, or so riders believe. The scooters are shut down 10 PM-5 AM in the Downtown area, but it sounds like that 10 PM start time may need to be backed up to 9.

Interesting: What really happens to whiskey when it is aged in wine casks and rum barrels? This’ll give you something to talk to the bartender at Belle Tavern about, you know, in October 2022 when the Health Department finally allows you to sit at the bar again.

Clarification on what I posted yesterday: The NCAA has canceled fall sports championships, but in football, the NCAA only crowns the FCS champion. They do not crown the FBS champion, the champion among all the teams that are eligible to play in bowl games. So there is some hope of an FBS champion this year, although I don’t see how this happens when 40% of the five most powerful FBS conferences have already said they won’t have a season. Thanks to regular reader Dennis for texting me and clarifying.

Late-night special at Local! (But late-night’s not what it used to be):

The newest Pabst product: PBR Ginger Whiskey Mule cans

Memphis 901 FC has a road match this evening at 6 at the Charlotte Independence. You can watch on CW30 locally.

The candlelight vigil in observance of the 43rd anniversary of Elvis’ death will be livestreamed from Graceland tonight starting at 8:40.

Yesterday I did something I’ve been meaning to do for a long time. If you’ve hit the root page of my domain – not www.paulryburn.com/blog which you’re on now, but www.paulryburn.com – anytime in the past 6 or so years, you’ve seen a generic “If you’re looking for my blog, here’s a link” message. I finally redesigned the root page to make it look like the owner of this domain actually knows how to design a website, using the Bootstrap 4 responsive framework and a cool photo I snapped on my rooftop about 25 minutes after sunset one day last month. Check it out. It was at most a 20-minute design job. Really, it took me as long to remember my FTP password so I could upload the new page as it took me to build it.

In other website news: I’m strongly considering a second blog. I spent a considerable amount of time during the late March-early May “house arrest” period studying, contemplating, and writing reactions to some spiritual material (note that “spiritual” is not the same thing as “religious”) and I’ve been doing the same since the bars closed in early July. It has kept me sane in the lack of social outlets, and I feel like I have evolved quite a bit. I feel like I’m nearing the point of sharing some of what has been on my mind with whoever chooses to read it.

If this second blog becomes a reality, I don’t see myself using a blogging engine like WordPress, but rather free-form HTML, CSS, and Javascript. I feel like my web design skills are evolving along with inner understandings, and I want to see where that leads. Let’s just say that 2020 is shaping up to be a massively creative and expansive period for me. If and when the new blog becomes a reality, I will link to it from here.

Unless something really good comes up, my plan is to stay home this afternoon and watch the Grizzlies. Back tomorrow with more news.