Author: paulryburn

The Snuggie Pub Crawl was last night at four Downtown bars.  I made a last-minute decision to buy a Snuggie and do the crawl, and am glad I did.  It was a lot of fun.  Here are some pics.

Meredith finally made the blog for something other than wearing a tube top.  Here are Tom and Meredith in their Memphis Tigers Snuggies, in the VIP area above the Tap Room.

On the right is @finnious, one of the best Memphis Twitterers, rocking the Auburn Snuggie.

Crystal and Tyler.  I got Tyler hooked on the Foursquare app for the iPhone last night.  Looks like the Majestic Grille will soon have a new mayor.

These girls won the best group Snuggie award for their holiday Snuggies.

A parade of Snuggies comes through the gate at Silky’s.

Samurai Snuggie

Silky’s courtyard.  I kept moving back and forth between the courtyard and inside the bar to watch the Arkansas-LSU game on the big screen.  I’d been saying that I hadn’t seen a good overtime game in a while.  I got what I wished for last night, although not with the outcome I wanted.  LSU won 33-30.

Leopard Snuggies everywhere

Brandon double-fisting beers at Kooky Canuck

The Kooky super-sized ice cream sundae.  I forget what this thing is called since they changed the name.  This guy better be happy that the Nuh-Uh Girl did not attend the pub crawl, because if she did she’d be right in his face going, “Can I have some???”

Snuggie wearers getting down at Club Chill.  I must admit, I found it hard to dance in a 6 foot long Snuggie.

Now I know how astronauts must feel when they view Earth from outer space.

Christina announces the winners of the Snuggie contest.

Yeah I know, kind of a blurry pic, but it’s hard to hold a beer and zoom in with a camera.  The guy in the orange Snuggie won for originality for incorporating the booklight that came with it.

Full album (134 photos) can be viewed here and is worth a look.  This is an event I just can’t do justice with a dozen or so selected photos for the blog.

Also don’t forget to visit Amelia’s Voice and consider making a donation if you couldn’t make it to the pub crawl last night.

Next week is the grandaddy of all Downtown Memphis pub crawls… Stumbling Santa.  It’s also the marathon, the holiday parade, the SEC championship game, and about a zillion other events.

Hmmm I’m up too late to make it to brunch at the Majestic… think I’ll play another freeroll tournament on PokerStars, then head to the Saucer for Sunday Fun Day.

Recap here. The SEC’s most overrated team loses again.  Guess the Rebs weren’t as fired up as they were last week when they had the pep rally… er, KKK rally.

Okay, so it looks like I will do the Snuggie pub crawl after all.  I just paid my $10 on PayPal.  After I finish my current freeroll tournament on PokerStars, I’ll run over to Walgreens and buy a Snuggie.  Something different to do.

By the way, I’ve heard people asking, “If I don’t want to put on a Snuggie and donate $10 to the charity, can I still come and hang out?”  I’m not one of the organizers, but from everything I’ve read, the answer is NO!!!  You get a lanyard for participating that gets you in the clubs.  This was a huge mistake we made with Stumbling Elvis, not making participation mandatory.  We had hangers-on who did nothing but get in the way the entire night.  Glad to see they’re cracking down on this.  I’ve heard Stumbling Santa next weekend will do the same.

Anyway, I have time to burn until the pub crawl, so I decided to clean out my camera and see what I could find that I hadn’t posted.

Lizzie and friends at Calhoun’s, RiverArtsFest weekend

My friends Shawn and Joe.  Not only do we share similar tastes in college teams (GO HOGS!), we also share similar viewpoints on who’s a good bartender.

Jessica and Amber from the Saucer, at Kooky Canuck’s Halloween party.

My name atop the leader board.  I’ve since finished my 200th beer, and as soon as I figure out when I want to do my plate party, I’ll print out the receipt from the computer and my 3rd plate will be done.

Amazing.  This tournament has been running 13 minutes and 1300 of the 4500 participants have busted out.  I’ve folded every hand, and of my initial stack of 1500 chips, I’m only down to 1470.  Top 675 places pay out, although being a freeroll you have to make it to the final table to make some serious money.

WTF was going on at the Cadre Building this morning?  I live a half block away and can see it out my window.  There was all kinds of whooping and hollering and car horns honking.  It must have woken me up a half dozen times.  Usually, being 13 stories up, I don’t hear all the noise from the street.  They didn’t quiet down until almost 5 AM.

While I was proofreading this post another 200 players busted out of the tournament.  Incredible.

If you’re looking for an alternative to the Snuggie Crawl and want to hear some live music, it’s the Hard Rock’s 12th anniversary tonight.  Above Only, Agent Jane, and Egypt Central at 10 PM.  Not sure of the cover but usually it’s inexpensive there.

All right, blinds are getting high, time to hit Publish and actually start playing this tournament.  See you at the Snuggie crawl tonight.

About a week ago I had a blog reader e-mail me, telling me he’s a big fan of international soccer.  He asked if I knew of anyplace Downtown that showed it on TV.  Since McGuinness closed, I knew of no such place, and asked the readership of the blog if they knew.

Well, today I got a response from the GM of Bangkok Alley, who plays soccer himself and is a fan.  He says they have 3-5 channels that show soccer.  They don’t always have it on, to appeal to the masses, but they do have it.  With 2 TVs and about 6 bar seats, I imagine most of the time it would be pretty easy to get them to switch one TV to whatever match you want to see.

(Food’s good, too)

I went to the Rent Party fundraiser at Kris K’s Warehouse last night after Trolley Tour.  Here are a few pics.

DJs Joe and Jay

Rockin’ Santa

Food by the Majestic Grille.  Last night was the first time I’ve tried their chili.  Outstanding!  I believe they have it every Wednesday.

Rudolph the red-nosed… horse?

The silent auction

The Nuh-Uh Girl, holding a plate of food, tries to dodge the camera.

… but persistence pays off.  Here’s a pic of the Nuh-Uh Girl eating.

Neon Kris

I am going to take the Blues Foundation to task for one little thing.  Let me quote their Facebook listing for the event:

“The Blues Foundation will hold our annual fund raiser November 27, 2009 at The Warehouse, 36 E GE Patterson, Memphis, TN. The “Rent Party” will begin at 8:00 pm with food from The Majestic Grille and Memphis’ best beer from Ghost River Brewery.

Jay and Joe will spin your favorite Blues music; we will have great Silent Auction and Blues Foundation merchandise. Admission is only $10 at the door.”

Reading that listing, would you assume that food and beer are covered in the price of admission?  Especially if you’ve been to Warehouse parties in the past, where that is usually the case.  As it turned out, the food was covered with admission price, but you had to pay for beer.  The prices were very reasonable – $5 for 3 tickets for pints of Ghost River beers, no doubt a bargain.  However, due to text messaging word got around that they were charging for beer, and I know for a fact that 5 to 10 of my friends who were planning to attend were turned off and did not come.  The point is, if there’s a cash bar you need to be sure and specify that in ads, event listings online, etc.

Again, just a minor gripe, and at the end of the day I’m thrilled with the job both the Blues Foundation and Kris do to support great music in Memphis.

After leaving the party, I had a beer at Calhoun’s, then headed north.  As I got to my usual weekend hangout locations though, I thought, “You know, I’ve had ENOUGH of hanging out at bars and drinking.”  At least for one night.  So I came home and went to bed at 10:30.  As a result, I was up and feeling great at 8 AM.

Played some more poker yesterday.  I moved up to the $13 buy-in 6max turbo Sit’n’Go tournaments, and finished the day up $19.  I also discovered that there are freeroll tournaments I can buy into on PokerStars with the frequent player points (FPPs) I earn for playing.  These freeroll tourneys pay out real money to the winners.  So I entered two of them, and man, the players were horrible – they were dropping like flies.  There were 4000 entrants, and 1000 had already busted out by the end of the first blind level.  I’m going to enter some more today and try a new strategy – fold every hand through the first four blind levels, unless I get a monster like KK or AA.  By that time so many players will have likely dropped out that I’ll have made it past the bubble and into the money.  Then I can start playing aggressive poker and attempt to come in first. First and second place in these freerolls pay north of $100 each.

Attn pro wrestling fans:  Here’s a good blog to read:  The World According to Dutch. It’s by Dutch Mantel, who wrestled in Memphis for years, and until recently booked TNA Wrestling.  He’s a hell of a storyteller.

Snuggie Pub Crawl is tonight… undecided if I’ll do it.  The Snuggie I ordered never came in the mail, so I’d have to purchase one at Walgreens.  Plus I haven’t purchased my ticket to the crawl, and the Arkansas-LSU game is on tonight at 6 PM on ESPN, and I may well just go to a bar (Saucer probably, unless Fire Sale is bad) to watch it.

Several people pointed out that my post about viewing the shuttle yesterday was inaccurate, as the shuttle had already landed.  As I told Internet legend The Mexican Wolf, when I start getting paid full-time to write this blog, I’ll start fact-checking.

That’s all for now… time to log on to PokerStars and attempt to build my bankroll.

Thanks to WildBill for posting this to Facebook:

The space shuttle and international space station will both be visible tonight in the Memphis sky for 5 minutes each.  Each will appear at 10 degrees above WNW and disappear 5 minutes later at 12 degrees above SSE.  Shuttle will appear at 6:01 PM, space station at 6:03 PM.

More sighting times and dates here.

The big thing going on Downtown tonight is the Rent Party fundraiser for the Blues Foundation, at The Warehouse at Front and G.E. Patterson.  $10 cover gets you food from the Majestic Grille, Ghost River beer, and Jay and Joe spinning blues tunes.  There will also be a silent auction and Blues Foundation merchandise for sale.  It starts at 8 PM.

Also in the South Main district tonight, it’s Trolley Tour.  Many of the galleries and shops of South Main will be open from 6 to 9 PM tonight.  Who cares about Black Friday at the mall?  Come support some local businesses and shop at a decent hour.  Many of the galleries put out wine, beer, and appetizers to encourage patrons to stay a while and look around.  Free food?  Wonder if the Nuh-Uh Girl will show up.

In other news, I see that Republic Nightclub is making a special one-week-only change to their Friday entertainment lineup.  Usually they feature Jello wrestling on Fridays, but tonight they’re going to have Thanksgiving pie wrestling instead… come watch hot girls wrestle in turkey day leftovers.  Nice.

As planned, I spent most of the daylight hours on PokerStars yesterday.  I decided to play $6.50 buy-in turbo tournaments, which have 5 minute blinds each… I figured they’d more closely approximate the number of hands per blind level that I’d find at live games, like the Monday night ones at the Goose.  I entered 5 tournaments.  In one I busted out because I never got good cards.  In another I busted out because I made a stupid decision to call an all-in early in the tournament.  However, in the other three I won first place, putting me up more than $52 for the day and reversing the disastrous Sunday a couple of weeks ago when I took the netbook to Calhoun’s and basically served as an ATM for other poker players.

While I was at the Saucer last night, I saw them put next week’s “buy the beer, keep the glass” glass on the chalkboard… it will be a Ghost River glass next Wednesday.  I stopped buying beer glasses some time ago, but I guess I’ll have to get one Wednesday since Ghost River is the home team.

More PokerStars today… will probably hit happy hour at the Saucer around 4, then Trolley Tour, then the Warehouse party.

Tonight I plan on spending a fine Thanksgiving evening at home with family.  And by “home” I mean the kind of home that has 70 beer taps on the wall.  And by “family” I mean, waitresses in short skirts.

Have you ever been to A. Schwab and looked at their “magic” section?  They have all these oils and potions that are supposed to be used in spells to manifest whatever it is you want in life.  I’ve seen oils that bring wealth, attraction, love, power, happiness, all that stuff.

Well, I have a suggestion for Schwab for a new potion that I think would sell really well Downtown:

Yes, what I’d like to see is an oil that manifests good beers on $2.75 Fire Sale special at the Flying Saucer.  Schwab’s sells most of their oils in 3-ounce bottles, but they could make a 3-liter bottle of Good Fire Sale oil and it would get bought and used.

So, anyway, the Saucer opens at 5 this afternoon, and I will be there.  But first, I will cast a spell using Good Fire Sale oil, to send positive energy toward the Saucer, plant good Fire Sale thoughts in the managers’ minds, and drive away negative influences.

And by “negative influences” I mean, Abita Turbo Dog.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!  It figures that a food-related holiday would be the Nuh-Uh Girl’s favorite day of the year.  I wonder how many plates she’ll go through at her family’s Thanksgiving dinner tonight.

About.com has a new writer who is a Downtowner.  Check out her first two articles here, on Beale Street music venues and late-night dining.

* Grumble * Walgreens is closed today, so I had to walk all the way to Jack’s for my wake-up Mountain Dew… passed some people on their way to the convention center to volunteer for the Thanksgiving dinner for the homeless.  Free food?  Wonder if the Nuh-Uh Girl will show up.

After I posted my list of Thanksgiving openings and closings yesterday, Lansky at the Peabody e-mailed to let me know that their stores will be open. Lansky at the Peabody and Lansky 126 will be open 9 AM to 2 PM Thanksgiving Day, and Lansky Lucky Duck Gifts and Lansky Essentials (books, sundries, drinks, magazines, etc.) will be open 9 to 6.

Also, Lansky 126 is doing a special event Friday from 3 to 7 in conjunction with the tree lighting and Santa at the Peabody. Rebecca Belz, a former Memphian who is a jewelry designer, will be at the store to show off her latest collection, Becca Belz Jewelry. Her signature pieces include chains, stones and clustered perals, and are designed to be versatile enough to be worn with everything from jeans to a cocktail dress.

Also today, Circa by John Bragg sent out their holiday e-mail. I already mentioned their updated website where you can buy 50% off gift certificates. Order them by 12/19 to have them delivered by Christmas Eve. Certificates can be used anytime from January 1 to June 30, 2010 except Valentine’s Day. Certificates exclude tax, tips, and alcohol.

I wasn’t aware that Circa does a “Sunday Night Tasting” menu, 3 courses for $35. Here’s the lineup:

Choice of

• Mesclun Salad or Soup du Jour

Choice of Main Dish:

• Beef Tenderloin Medallions – Certified Angus Beef, with mashed potatoes and demi-glace
• Trout “Grenobloise” with fingerling potatoes, capers, lemon, and brown butter
• Roast Ashley Farms Chicken – lemon and garlic, with roasted fingerling potatoes, mushroom cream sauce

Choice of Dessert:

• Crème Brulee with fresh berries
• Chocolate Tart with Raspberry sauce

Two things going on tonight. First of all, it’s the Turkey Tip-Off Party at Kooky Canuck, with 99 cent super cold Bud Light draft. That’s actually going on all day and all night til close, so if you’re off today, what are you waiting for? Get up there.

Secondly, it’s the annual “Turkey of the Year” glass at the Flying Saucer. I’ve heard that this year’s turkey is Bernie Madoff, although I think it should be whichever Saucer manager it is who keeps putting Turbo Dog on Fire Sale. Glasses go on sale at 7 PM.

I’ve heard that this is the second busiest bar night of the year… oh goodness… gonna have to make this a late one. I’ll be bouncing back and forth between Saucer and Kooky, probably, with at least one stop at the Silly Goose as well so I can retain my mayorship of the Goose on Foursquare. The Nuh-Uh Girl has been on Twitter complaining that she doesn’t want to join Foursquare because she doesn’t want everyone seeing where she is at every moment. I think this is because she doesn’t want people to see how many times she checks in at venues that have free food.

Office closes at 3 today, so I’ll be out at the bars early.