Author: paulryburn

Me.

Seth has been bugging me on Twitter to come on board as a judge for Best Memphis Burger Festival for about a month now. “Let me think about it,” I kept telling him. Then yesterday, I went to the Saucer for after-work beers. The manager told me that I had two beers that had already been paid for, and said, “hang on, we have something for you.” He brought me a Best Memphis Burger sign, with a note on the back asking me to please consider being a judge.

I thought about it. Burgers? Beer? I mean really, why would I say no to this? I tweeted Seth this morning agreeing to do it. Not sure I’m the most qualified person in the world to judge burgers – I don’t think there are courses on being a burger judge as there are for BBQ – but, why not. I’ll be at the festival at Minglewood Hall on Sunday, September 30. About 20 teams will compete for the title of Best Memphis Burger. There will be a Kookamonga challenge and other fun stuff as well. Hope to see you there.

They’re moving me to a new workspace this afternoon, so I need to cut this post short, grab a quick bite from Wendy’s, and then get packing. If any news comes in I’ll do an after-work post.

Lots of news came in while I was eating lunch, necessitating a second post for the day.

Coworking has come to Downtown Memphis. Many self-employeds work from home or take their laptops to coffee shops (or the Flying Saucer, as I did when self-employed). However, some people miss an environment where they are working around others who are also working, where they can bounce ideas off one another. To address that need, Urban Workspace is opening at 6 West G.E. Patterson. There will be 24 coworking spaces, and members of the space will also have access to a conference room, a full kitchen, presentation materials, workshops, seminars, monthly cooking classes, and more amenities. More info here. The grand opening for the workspace is tonight at 6 and the public is invited. There will be live music, drinks, and food by Chef Michael Patrick of Rizzo’s Diner. Sorry for telling you about this event just minutes before the start time, but I didn’t hear about it until this afternoon. Free food? Wonder if the Nuh-Uh Girl will show up.

Best Memphis Burger Festival news: Sponsor Kooky Canuck will put the winning burger on their menu for one week, according to a tweet sent out this afternoon by the festival’s account. Um won’t that be a little odd if one of Kooky’s competitors in the restaurant biz wins?

South Main Fashion Night Out happens tomorrow night, Thursday, September 6, at the Rumba Room from 6 to 9 PM. It will showcase the many salons and boutiques that have made South Main their home. The latest fashion, hair, and makeup styles will be on display. Event benefits the Ronald McDonald House and tickets are $15 in advance from the boutiques, or $20 at the door.

Also tomorrow night, Felicia Suzanne’s kicks off its Thursday night Autumn Tasting Series. Each Thursday they’ll have a different three-course dinner on the patio, with optional wine tasting. This week’s tasting will be Claybrook Farms with a Santa Barbara Pinot Noir pairing, and live music by 2 Mule Plow from 7:30 to 9:30.

A recent survey showed that 29 percent of Americans think cloud computing involves an actual cloud (you know, those things in the sky that sometimes rain on us). 51% believed that stormy weather could interfere with cloud computing. Oh my God. The only thing missing from the article is a quote from Sarah Palin.

After I posted about the free burgers and hot dogs on Double J’s upper patio tonight, my buddy Duck Finkley texted me and said “Paul let’s do the j tonight.” Duck, it’s 100 outside. Not really excited about walking almost a mile to Double J in the heat, or waiting on the unreliable southbound trolley for as much as 25 minutes. I doubt I’ll get farther than the Saucer before I’m ready for air conditioning.

(There are probably people in the ‘burbs right now reading this, thinking, “Why doesn’t he just drive his car down to Double J?” They don’t get it.)

So that’s the plan. Saucer at 6, then Blind Bear at 8 for trivia. Back tomorrow with more news, or possibly sooner if I hear anything particularly good.

Downtown Irish pub The Brass Door celebrates its first birthday this weekend, and they have a big weekend planned:

The main event will be an alley party Saturday, with seven bands performing from 3 PM to midnight. I went to their grand opening alley party last year and it was a lot of fun – good food, good music. There will be a costume contest with $100/$75/$50 prizes for the best female and male leprechaun. Suggestion for female contestants: A green tube top would be a great start to your costume.

Friday they kick things off with traditional Irish music in the bar, as well as 2 for 1 fish and chips and $1 Guinness (first 100 pints). Fun weekend ahead at the Brass Door. Of course, tonight is Brass Door Bingo with Diamond Dave at 7:30.

Tonight is the first regular-season NFL game, as the Dallas Cowboys play the New York Giants at 7:30. Double J Smokehouse and Saloon will have a pre-game “tailgate party” on their upstairs deck with free burgers and hot dogs until they run out, starting at 5 PM. Free food? Wonder if the Nuh-Uh Girl will show up.

In other NFL/Downtown bar news, the Silly Goose is putting in a giant projection TV to show the games. I know they were installing it last night; it should be ready today, but if not, it will be ready by Sunday. A couple of corrections to what I posted about their NFL Sunday events earlier: There is NO UPPER LIMIT to the number of entries your fantasy football team can get per week in the drawing. If 35 people from your league show up at the Goose (can a league even have that many? not sure) you get 35 entries. The drawing will be for a $300 Super Bowl party. Happy hour domestic prices and $4 Fireball during the Sunday games.

Forbes has a good article about WordPress and its founder Matt Mullenweg in its latest issue. Although WordPress currently runs on one-sixth of the world’s websites (including this one), Matt has not become a billionaire like his counterparts at Facebook and Google, because he has been determined to stay true to the open-source model. WordPress was our BBQ team’s main sponsor, and we had the pleasure of having Matt and a few of his team in the booth for BBQ Fest.

Bleu will have a special 3-course prix fixe “out of the bleu” menu September 10-15. View the menu here.

That’ll do it for now. Undecided at this point whether I’ll hit the Double J for their tailgate party after work, or do the Saucer as usual. Most likely will be at the Blind Bear for trivia at 8.

Not much in the way of posts for a few days. The only excuse that I can offer was that I was out enjoying Labor Day weekend in Downtown Memphis! These were a few of the highlights:

– Walking around the Memphis Farmers Market. I don’t go to the Farmers Market a lot because I don’t cook and I’m not a morning person. However, every time I do go I’m just blown away by how fantastic it is. Veggies, flowers, jellies, coffee, locally grown meat, cooking demos, live music, food trucks. I saw several restaurant owners there getting locally produced food.

– Saturday at Max’s Sports Bar. I meant to just stop by for one or two quick beers, then hit the Memphis Music & Heritage Festival… but friends showed up and I ended up staying until 4.

– Listening to my neighbor’s band the Swamp Katz Sunday at Memphis Music & Heritage Festival. As I took in the music and drank a Bloody Mary, I thought about one of my Foursquare friends who checks in at “Da Front Porch Sippin” when she visits Hernando, Mississippi. Since I live on Main Street, I figured, the Main Street Mall is sort of my front porch, and therefore I was doing my own version of “front porch sippin.”

– Hanging out with the crew from the Majestic Grille (and Kyla from Aldo’s Pizza Pies) at the Blind Bear Sunday evening. It was the start of a long weekend for them – the Majestic closed for Labor Day and will be closed today and tomorrow to spruce the place up. Everyone was in a great mood and I had a blast.

– Monday turned into another of those “meant to just stay for a drink or two, ended up staying hours and hours” kind of days. This time the Silly Goose was the spot. I went there at 4 for a drink or two with a friend visiting from out of town. While there, I learned that the Goose had changed their Monday poker night: Only one game now, beginning at 9 PM, with regular player Muruako being promoted to host. I stuck around for the game and ended up coming in third. Congrats to first-time player Marty on his win. It’s a new 16-week poker league, with 5 points for first place, 4 for second, and so on.

All right, let’s get to the news. Tickets for Memphis’ best beer festival, the Cooper-Young Beer Festival, will go on sale Friday, September 7. They can be purchased on the festival website or at the Rock 4 Love festival in Midtown this weekend. The beer fest is Saturday, October 13. This ain’t no damn socialite party like a couple of beer fests that happen in late August/early September. Rather, it’s all about the beer – trying beers not usually seen in the area, learning about different styles of craft beer, getting to talk to the brewers in their booths. Tickets are $35 in advance, $40 the day of if there are any left. They cap attendance to keep the lines short.

If you take I-40 to and from Arkansas, there are going to be lane closings on the bridge this week. Crews will be conducting an inspection of the bridge.

Bruce V from the Memphis Flyer has a good blog post about the 17 Commercial Appeal jobs that are being outsourced to India.

My Hogs moved up to 8 in this week’s AP poll. Glad to see us above South Carolina this week.

That’ll do it for now. Hopefully it won’t be 3 days between posts for a while.

I forced myself to go home at 11 last night, because there’s a lot of good stuff happening today, and a lot of it is in the morning. I didn’t want to miss any of it.

My first stop today will be the Memphis Farmers Market at S. Front and G.E. Patterson. Hopefully I’ll get there by 10:15, in time to catch a little of Felicia Willett’s cooking demo at 10:15. Grabbing breakfast from one of the food trucks at the market sounds like a good plan.

At 11 I’ll wander over to Max’s Sports Bar. Max’s is only a block away from the farmers market, in the Arcade Building next to the cheesecake shop, so it will be a quick walk. It’s the first Saturday of the college football season, and Max will have the games on all 10 of his TVs. The good thing about college football at Max’s is that he’ll print out schedules of what game will be on what TV, and tape them next to each TV. That helps you figure out which is the right seat for you. He also has a big deck out back, which will be really nice for the fall weather. Also, today is Ciara’s first day (pictured in center of photo, in white tube top) as day bartender. $2.50 PBR on draft plus a full selection of liquor.

What teams will I be rooting for as I watch college football this season? Five of them. Arkansas, Memphis, and whoever is playing Tennessee, Ole Miss, and Texas. As much as I enjoyed having Lauren behind the bar during previous football seasons on Saturdays, I must admit it will be nice this year to have a bartender who doesn’t wear that godawful UT orange.

The UT orange thing is also the reason I get along with Sutch at the Brass Door much better when it’s not September-December. (I’d say September-January, but let’s face it, there’s not a chance in hell UT will be good enough to secure a January bowl game) Thankfully, the Saucer does not allow Christina to wear her UT orange at work.

Anyway, back to today’s plans. About 1 I will walk or trolley north to the Memphis Music & Heritage Festival. There I will do what I do best: Wander around and talk to people. And drink PBR. Usually I have a no-side-trips rule at festivals, but with my two Foursquare bar mayorships (Blind Bear and Flying Saucer) so close by, I’m sure there will be side trips. I’m not the mayor of the Majestic Grille (John D, who has a breakfast named after him at the restaurant, has claimed that crown) but it’s usually a good side trip spot at MM&HF too. A strawberry basil martini on the patio might happen at some point this weekend. I’m thinking Miss Ella’s greens and hot water cornbread and then a Pronto Pup for dinner.

The Cochon 555 heritage pork BBQ festival is happening this weekend too. The Eat Local Memphis blog is doing a great job covering that festival, so keep your eye on it throughout the weekend.

Eat Local Memphis has another “Meet the Chef” interview posted for this weekend’s heritage pork BBQ fest. Michigan’s Steven Grostick is interviewed. There’s a photo of him holding a very happy pig. The pig clearly has no idea that he’ll be coming to a dinner plate near you very soon.

Casablanca starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman plays at The Orpheum tonight at 7:15. The 1942 romance is one of the last films in the theater’s Summer Movie Series. $7 adults, $5 12 and under. First 100 people receive a complimentary movie poster.

Is Hollywood Disco open again? I see in the weekly DowntownMemphis.com newsletter that it’s College Night there.

Also in the newsletter, I see that there will be an attempt on Beale Street tonight to set the world record for most pints of Blue Moon sold in a four-hour period. Why today? Because it’s a blue moon, the second full moon of the month. Since it takes the moon 29.5 days to orbit the Earth, this rarely happens, and it’s impossible to have a blue moon in February.

This week I posted on Facebook and Twitter asking if any bars would be showing the SEC games that are on pay-per-view this weekend. Unfortunately I got no response. I was told Double J will be showing the Alabama-Michigan game, but that’s on ABC so pretty much every bar will have it on.

Take a load off is the theme at the Memphis Farmers Market tomorrow. At 10:15 Chef Felicia Willett from Felicia Suzanne’s will demonstrate how to make cornmeal tarts with cornmeal from Delta Grind. Also, her locally made Flo’s products will be on sale at the market. Music will be Vic Reid 8-10 and Kenny Hays 11-1. There will be a bike ride leaving the market at 9, and there will be pet adoptions by the Tunica Humane Society 7-1.

Last night I went to the Flying Saucer after work, and two guys from San Francisco’s Anchor Brewing were there. Someone told them I’d written about their visit in my blog, and they came down and chatted and asked if they could buy me a beer. Instead of one of the Saucer’s usual offerings, I selected a bottle of Brekle’s Brown that they brought with them. Anchor keeps its beer lineup pretty stable, but they let their first brewmaster make his own creation, an all-malt, single-hop brown ale with a hint of citrus on the nose. Very tasty.

If you had plans for the Lynyrd Skynyrd show tonight at Live at the Garden, it’s been rescheduled to September 12 due to weather concerns. If that leaves you without plans, why not come down to South Main for Trolley Tour instead?

I may be at Trolley Tour myself, after a little pre-gaming at the Saucer starting at 4.

The Memphis Music & Heritage Festival, presented every year by the Center for Southern Folklore, happens Saturday and Sunday. It’s Downtown on the Main Street Mall between Union and Peabody Place. This is one of your best chances of the year to experience regional music, art, and cooking. You can view the music and performance schedule and also the cooking demo schedule on the festival’s website.

For those of you who have never been, here’s a starter list of “Paul’s Picks” to get you going:

Saturday, September 1

2:00 PM: Smoochy Smith, ArtsMemphis stage

3:30 PM: Los Cantadores, Comcast stage

7:15 PM: Star & Micey, Aldo’s Pizza Pies/TN Arts stage

7:45 PM: Bluff City Backsliders, Folklore stage

8:30 PM: FreeWorld featuring Herman Green and Nokie Taylor, Comcast stage

9:15 PM: Hope Clayburn, Aldo’s Pizza Pies/TN Arts stage

10:00 PM: Steve Anne DJ, SunTrust stage

10:15 PM: Exodus, Aldo’s Pizza Pies/TN Arts stage

10:15 PM: Al Kapone, ArtsMemphis stage

Sunday, September 2

1:30 PM: Barbara Blue, Comcast stage

2:00 PM: Yao Tan from Yao’s China Bistro, cooking Yao’s signature dish, cooking stage

5:00 PM: Craig Dorff from Bluefin, sushi rolls, cooking stage

6:00 PM: Michael Patrick from Rizzo’s Diner, skirt steak using Neola Farms corn-fed beef, cooking stage

7:00 PM: Sonny Burgess and the Legendary Pacers, ArtsMemphis stage

8:00 PM: Susan Marshall, Comcast stage

9:45 PM: Brad Webb and Earl the Pearl, Folklore stage

10:15 PM: Joyce Cobb, Aldo’s Pizza Pies/TN Arts stage

Afterward: Walk down to Blues City Cafe’s Band Box (Second and Beale) for FreeWorld’s Sunday night performance

Note: This is just a starter list for people who have never been to the festival before. I am by no means a music critic; I’m just listing what I’ve liked at past Music & Heritage Festivals. By all means, walk around and take it all in, and decide for yourself what you like.

As for the food vendors: If you haven’t had Ella’s greens and hot water cornbread, they’re a must-try. Lemon chicken is good too if you’re in the mood for meat. You can get her food in the Folklore Hall. Look to the left of the stage and you’ll see a cash register.

Las Delicias will have a booth at the festival, and their guacamole is a must-try as well if you’ve never had it.

As for the restaurants in the area, my #1 food recommendation is the pepper jack mac & cheese at the Blind Bear. You can get it as a side with an entree, and no entree is more than $8. They open for at 3 both days. Not sure if they’ll open earlier for the festival. My #1 drink recommendation is the strawberry basil martini at the Majestic Grille. My #1 beer recommendation is PBR, which will be sold at outdoor stands.

What to wear: Labor Day weekend is considered the last weekend of summer, so tube tops are still very much in style.

All right, hope that gets you started. Off to work. The office closes at 3 today, so I’ll be at the Saucer around 4.

Flying Saucer news: The people from Anchor Brewery are at the bar today. There’s a one-day-only Anchor flight of 5 beer tasters, and they also have fish & chips on the menu.

The past two years I have been to this awesome party called Feed the Soul. It happens each year on a Thursday in October at The Warehouse at Front and G.E. Patterson. Bands and entertainment both indoors and outside on the patio, delicious food, silent auction, cigars, bourbon tastings, and a lot more. It’s a fundraiser for MIFA. This year’s party has been announced for Thursday, October 4, with entertainment including The Living Daylights Band and “The Bellringer” Stan Bell from V101. Tickets are $40 and you can get them here. I’ll post more details as the date gets closer, but it would be a good idea to go ahead and buy tickets now, because they will sell out at a capacity of 1000.

Performers at South Main Trolley Tour tomorrow night will include Red Planet, Fire Tribe, Danza Xochitquetzal, Michele Bush, Salsa Memphis, Sibela Band, and Jakeline Belly Dance. Shops of South Main open 6-9, free trolley rides from Linden to the south end.

Driving drunk is never a good idea, but especially not this weekend. The police have an additional weapon in the fight against drunk driving thanks to the state legislature. If you get pulled over and refuse to take a Breathalyzer test (which lawyers have said for years is the move that’s in your best interest), police can now obtain a search warrant and have blood drawn. If you go out this weekend, take a cab or designate a sober driver. Better yet, move Downtown and never have to worry about driving home drunk again!

If you win the Conference USA tournament, you get an automatic bid to the Big Dance, the NCAA Tournament. However, if you win the Best Memphis Burger Festival competition September 30 at Minglewood Hall, you get an automatic bid to the Big Dance of food. Winner will have a chance to compete at the World Food Championships featuring Adam Richman in Las Vegas, with $25,000 up for grabs.

Attn high school juniors and seniors, and their parents: Memphis in May is accepting applications for its student exchange program for 2013. Selected students get to visit the honored country, this year Sweden. Students get to stay 10-12 days, enough time to really experience the country, but not long enough to interfere with schoolwork. Students are selected on communication skills, grades, and community service.

The MemphisWeather.Net blog has speculations on what newly-downgraded Tropical Depression Isaac will mean for Memphis weather this weekend. Read the post here.

Time for beer. “Paul’s Picks” post for Memphis Music & Heritage Fest is still in the works.

The Center for Southern Folklore has posted the schedule for the Memphis Music & Heritage Festival this Saturday and Sunday. View it here. This is a 2-day music fest on the Main Street Mall. If you haven’t made plans for the weekend, I highly recommend you check it out. In the next day or two, I’ll try to look at the schedule more closely and post some “Paul’s Picks.” Nice to see Aldo’s Pizza Pies co-sponsoring a music/arts stage. Also, here’s the schedule for the cooking demos that will happen at the festival. The demos usually end with audience sampling. Free food? Wonder if the Nuh-Uh Girl will show up.

South Main clothing boutique Shop Girl New York is moving to the core next month. The new location will be at 119 S. Main, in the former Christine by Shelton Clothiers space. In preparation for the move, they need to sell all of their current inventory. Therefore, they have discounted everything in their current South Main location 20-70% off. Friday only (the day of South Main Trolley Tour) everything in the store will be 50% off. If you’ve had your eye on something but have held off on buying it, now is the time. Their current location is at 515 S. Main between Butler and G.E. Patterson.

Representative/Vice-Presidential nominee Paul Ryan gave his speech last night at the Republican National Convention. FactCheck.org has an analysis of his speech.

Meanwhile, President Obama engaged in a half-hour “Ask Me Anything” session on Reddit yesterday. Here’s the transcript.

The city is close to installing more than 1200 new parking meters Downtown. The new meters will accept credit cards, so no more fumbling through your pocket for change or running to get change at a nearby business. You may pay more for parking soon. Consultants found that Memphis’ rate of $1/hour is among the cheapest in the country, and recommended the city raise rates.

A new 7-week league begins tonight at sports trivia with Kevin Cerrito at the Green Beetle. This time the 7-week grand prize will be Grizzlies tickets. There will be $10 buckets of Miller Lite punch top cans, and football will be on all the TVs with sound on between rounds.

In other sports news, if you’re part of a fantasy football league, the Silly Goose might be a good place to watch Sunday NFL games. They’re running a promotion where, for every member of your league who shows up, you get that many entries in a drawing, up to 10. Drawing will happen at the end of the season, and the winner will get a $300 gift certificate for the Goose. Also on Sundays there will be happy hour prices on domestic beers, and $4 Fireball shots (these are for everyone, not just people in fantasy leagues).

(Disclaimer: I think I’ve got the details about the Goose right, but due to Fireball consumption last night I’m not 100% sure. If I got anything wrong email me or text me and I’ll post a correction)

Mediaverse reports that more layoffs are coming to the Commercial Appeal. They plan to lay off 17 positions, 15 in customer service and 2 in advertising. The work formerly handled by these positions will be outsourced. Sinking ship, I tell ya. Sinking ship.

Tonight is the final night for Sunset atop the Madison, the Madison Hotel’s Thursday night rooftop party series. Elmo and the Shades will bring rhythm and blues to the roof. $7 cover, doors open at 7 PM, cash bar and small plates available.

Following up yesterday’s post about double authentication, today Lifehacker posted How Secure Are You: The Online Checklist. Worth a read. As I said yesterday, a lot of really smart people are getting hacked because their security standards are so 2011.

Still more news, so I’ll probably do a second post tonight after work. Going to take a week off from poker at Max’s Sports Bar due to the weather. I’ll hang out closer to home.

I know several people who have been hacked lately. It’s not specific to one platform: They’ve been hacked on Facebook, WordPress, Gmail, Twitter, etc. Furthermore, these people are not dummies who use a 4-letter password or something guessable like their girlfriend’s name. The fact is, password guessing algorithms have gotten sophisticated enough to get you, even if you use strong passwords (usually defined as 12 letters or longer with at least one upper and lower case letter and digit). It’s getting scary out there.

For that reason, it’s important that you read this LifeHacker article on double authentication. Double authentication relies not only on something you know (a password) but also on something you have (in most cases your phone). Once set up, if you try to log in from a device that hasn’t previously been used to log into that account since setting up double-auth, a code will be sent to your phone. You have to enter that code before you can complete the login. It’s an extra step, but you only have to do it once per device, and it makes your identity much more secure. Double-auth hasn’t been implemented on every social network/cloud based platform, but it’s available on some of the big ones including Gmail, Dropbox, WordPress, and Facebook.

You may see a trolley Downtown wrapped as a dragon. It’s promoting the Duncan-Williams dragon boat races that will happen next month.

PARK(ing) Day is coming back Friday, September 21. You can submit proposals to the Downtown Memphis Commission to turn a metered parking space into a miniature park from 11 AM to 6 PM that day. Last year’s parks included a roller derby rink and an outdoor library.

Thomas from the Eat Local Memphis blog is back with two more posts about the Cochon 555 Heritage BBQ Fest happening Downtown this weekend. First of all, he has a “Meet the Chef” interview with Ryan Trimm of Sweet Grass, one of the competitors at the festival. Secondly, he has a post with general and ticket info about the festival. I’m very glad Thomas will be covering this festival this weekend, because I’ll be covering the Memphis Music & Heritage Festival happening at the same time and therefore I will miss the heritage pork fest.

Kooky Canuck has 99 cent Bud Light drafts all day Sunday, September 2. Sign doesn’t specify but the cups are most likely 12-ounce. That’s right around the corner from the Memphis Music & Heritage Festival, so it’s a good place to go if you need a quick break. It’s not within the festival boundaries, though, so I doubt to-go cups for the fest will be possible.

For the next three days, tickets to the Big Scoop ice cream Festival Saturday, September 29 at AutoZone Park are on sale for the half-off price of $5. Get tickets here. Proceeds benefit the Ronald McDonald House.

Mark (Marvelous) Baker performs at Bleu tonight, 7 PM. No cover.

It’s the last Wednesday of the Redbirds’ regular season, and therefore your last chance to get a field box ticket, 16 oz. PBR, and a PBR koozie for $10.

My plans for tonight are once again trivia at the Blind Bear at 8. I still need to get to bingo with Diamond Dave at the Brass Door, but the trivia team is so strong right now that I hate to miss it. Outta here for now, quick lunch then an afternoon of experimenting with WordPress categories.