Author: paulryburn

People have been telling me about the hot wings at Calhoun’s for a while. Tonight I finally got down there and tried them. I must admit, I was skeptical… the wings were recommended by Calhoun’s regulars, not always the most objective bunch. They’ll tell you Calhoun’s school lunchroom pizza is the best pizza in Memphis.

Their wing recommendation, though, was right on the money. I tried the habanera honey wings. Not normally a fan of “honey” wings but Max said they were the hottest ones. They were outstanding! So hot they almost made me cry, perfect with blue cheese. Comparable to Three Mile Island wings from Hooters in hotness, except that Calhoun’s wings had actual meat on them. Highly recommended.

The Dempseys play Downtown Huey’s Sunday night at 8:30. Best place to hear them Downtown, plus it’s their Friday so they’re always in a fun mood.

At the Saucer blogging from my phone. Thanks to Jeff for the Jager shot. One of the girls is wearing a “Bag it at the Saucer” tank top, which I think is an artifact from the old Sunday Night Swill promotion that I wish they’d bring back. I told her she should wear it on Fridays and Saturdays because a lot of people bag it at the Saucer on weekends.

Forgot to post this earlier on… the Flyer will have a happy hour tonight at the Silly Goose.  $2 domestic longnecks, $3 wells, $4 flatbreads.  Drawing for two tickets to the August 20 O.A.R. show at the Mud Island Ampitheatre.

I’ll definitely be there… should arrive around 5:30.  Hope to see you there!

Not much Downtown news to post today, so I thought I’d mention a free tool that helped me recently.

I needed to build an application to place locations on Google Maps.  So I was in the process of learning the Google Maps API, geocoding, latitudes, longitudes, and all that jazz.

While I was doing that, I learned of a free store locator offered by the website Zip-Codes.com.  You simply sign up for an account, import your list of stores or locations via a CSV file, and Zip-Codes.com will geocode them for you.  It will then give you several lines of Javascript to add to your site, and voila – your locations appear on a Google Map, you can search them by city/state or ZIP code, and it will even give you driving directions to the locations.  Pretty cool for the price of free.  I’d recommend it to anyone who wants to put stuff on Google Maps but doesn’t want to do any programming.

Why do they offer this for free?  Well, because the resulting Google Map contains a “powered by Zip-Codes.com” link.  They’re hoping your site’s visitors click through to their site and buy some of their zip code search products.

They say the script can even be pasted into Facebook and MySpace pages, although I haven’t tried this.

Cool tool.  I can think of a lot of uses for this.

The Orpheum is having an auction to benefit local artists and to fund the Orpheum’s student art program. Local artists have a chance to display and sell their work at the auction, with 75% of the proceeds doing to the artist and the other 25% to the Orpheum’s student program. The auction will be Thursday night, July 16, with a silent auction beginning at 5 PM and a live auction taking place at 7. During this time there will be happy hour drink prices and complimentary hors d’oeuvres. Free food… wonder if the Nuh-Uh Girl will show up? For more info call Kate Hackett at 529-4224 or e-mail hackett@orpheum-memphis.com.

For those whom I’ve given a date for TubeTopalooza… hold up, probably going to have to change it. I have a good friend who’s throwing another event that day, and I don’t feel right about double-booking the date, even though his event is daytime and TubeTopalooza is night. Let me talk to my co-planners and see if we can figure out some alternate arrangement.

Lots going on tonight… Mpact happy hour at Grill 83 at 6… SMA meeting at the Orpheum, social at 6 and presentation at 6:45… and of course it’s trivia night at the Saucer. Our team scored our first $50 toward our next party with a first-place victory last Tuesday… hopefully we’ll push that to $100 tonight.

The Power House e-mailed me this week’s film for their Midnight Matinee series, to be held this Friday, July 17, doors opening at 11:15 PM. Hmmm the film choices they make certainly are interesting to say the least. I have a birthday party to attend that night, but based on their first two selections I may have to pay more attention to the Midnight Matinee series in the future… and I’m not even a movie person. Details of this Friday’s movie below.

TEETH

Starring: Jess Weixler, John Hensley
Directed By: Mitchell Lichenstein
94 minutes; 2008; Rated R

In this horror black-comedy film, high school student Dawn works hard at suppressing her budding sexuality by being the local chastity group’s most active participant. A stranger to her own body, a forced sexual encounter causes innocent Dawn to discover she has a hidden curse– an adaptation– that may turn out to be an asset.

I already announced the South Main Association meeting (tomorrow, 6 PM, The Orpheum), but I learned some more info in an e-mail this morning… SMA members will vote to amend the organization’s bylaws to clarify the SMA boundaries as the river on the west, Third on the east, Linden on the north, and Crump on the south.  That will ensure that resources get directed to the right areas.  You can read their old and new bylaws here.

The August meeting really sounds like a good one… at the Majestic Grille, with speakers Rep. Steve Cohen and Film Commission chair Jimmy Tashie. 

Envision Memphis, the fitness club on the top of the Cadre Building, is offering a free lunchtime Pilates class tomorrow from 11:30 to 12:30.  It’s being done by the trainers at Push Pilates.  E-mail info@envisionmemphis.com or call 521-8117 to reserve a space if you’re interested, because they have limited space.  Light lunch snacks will be served.  Free food, wonder if the Nuh-Uh Girl will show up… oh wait, she works out East, so I guess not.

And a couple of Downtown-related items from the news:

First of all, beginning this coming weekend, Beale Street security will scan people with hand-held metal detectors at the street’s entrances. They are enforcing a “no guns” ban on the street. That will probably slow down entrance onto the street a little, but after reading that 200 to 300 guns have been confiscated this summer alone, I’m all for the detectors.

Also in the news… there was a ceiling collapse at the Scottish Rite building on Union, near the Office Depot on the outskirts of Downtown. The Sons of Confederate Veterans were having a lunch there, and as they stood in line for food, ceiling tiles started to fall. As they ran out of the building, the entire ceiling collapsed. No one was injured.

Plans for tonight:  Pint Nite, of course.  It’s amazing that I’ve reached 124 beers toward my third plate and still have some Pint Nite drafts left to do.  Going to try the newest beer on tap, Victory Prima Pils, tonight.

Today at the employee meeting at the Saucer, they announced who won a cash prize for selling the most New Belgium.  The winner behind the bar was Marci.  Hang on, let’s post a pic of Marci.

There ya go.  That’s Marci.  With the help of this blog and Facebook and Twitter, she took the victory and a cash prize.

Marci leaves for medical school soon… details on her last shift and her bon voyage party coming soon.

Congrats also to Venus for winning the server competition for New Belgium.

In other news… I had the chorizo patty melt for brunch at Sauces today and it was as badass as everyone has said.

Last night I was at the Beetle at 5 AM and this dude kept looking over at me and I thought “I’ve met him before, who the fuck is he?” and then on my way out he saw me and stopped in his truck and said “How come we aren’t friends? We should have a beer sometime. Be nice” and I was still trying to figure out who he was, and then I walked home, and right around the time I crossed Beale I realized he was the owner of the Italian restaurant on South Main that won the Flyer poll for best cougar bar.  Whatever.

Thanks to Daniel for the burger tonight… it was outstanding.  As was the PBR.

Time for bed.

Last week I was surfing Amazon and noticed that they carry quite a few NFL team logo cornhole and bag toss games.  Since my site College Logo Cornhole is doing well, I decided there should be a pro version as well.

Football Cornhole organizes the NFL logo cornhole games on Amazon into an easy-to-shop storefront.  Amazon handles the secure checkout and shipping.  I never see your name or credit card number; all I receive is a notification that items were ordered, and how much commission I made.

Only a month until pre-season football games!  Why not get in the mood with a little cornhole?

So I took a nap tonight from 9 to midnight, then went out.  I closed the Saucer, then closed the Goose, then went to the Green Beetle with my new friends Chris and Peter and Jaclyn.  Jaclyn had a tube top dress on.

Earlier in the day I stopped by Republic Nightclub and Restaurant while they were doing their job fair.  It’s a work in progress so I didn’t take any pics.  Talked to the owner for a while; this is his 29th nightclub, so he knows what he’s doing.  He told me about the plans for the place, including lighting/lasers to rival the FedExForum.  He truly does know a lot of celebrities and is ready to bring them in.  He said the place will be open six days a week (Monday being the exception) at 5 PM-til.  Is Memphis ready for this?  Remains to be seen, but the guy clearly thinks big.  More details to come as the opening draws nearer.

At the time I got to the Beetle (3:20ish?), two cabs were dropping people off there.  Wow people take cabs to the Beetle.  They do have a good menu though.  It’s better than the other option – Denny’s – that’s for sure.

Looks like TubeTopalooza II may actually happen… preliminary plans were laid today at the Saucer and via my iPhone.  Gotta meet with my two partners in crime this week and plan it.  Those who need to know will get details in the weeks to come…

Off to bed.  Not sure if I’ll make it to brunch in the morning or not.