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Day off work today.  Sitting here at the Second Street branch office getting some stuff done on the laptop.  Although, the connection sucks here… the Saucer’s Wi-Fi seems to be down, so I’m sitting in the window and MoochNetting off Jillian’s across the street.

The South Main Association will have its monthly meeting tomorrow at 6 PM at Ground Zero Blues Club.  The UrbanArt Commission will be there to discuss ideas for murals to brighten up the South Main streetscape.  They’ll be looking for your ideas too, so if you’re an artist or creative person, this would be a good meeting to come to.  Free appetizers for members (non-members $5 to attend) and cash bar.  Ground Zero is on Lt. Lee Avenue next to the Westin Hotel, one block south of Beale.

Just received information about a dodgeball tournament to benefit Youth Villages:

Dodge This will be a 32-team dodgeball tournament to be held at the Wellworx sporting club on Shelby Oaks Drive on August 2nd.  Presented by CH Robinson.  The tournament is co-ed, and registration is $180 per 6-person team, $10 per additional player.  All players must be at least 18.  Registration deadline is July 25 and only the first 32 teams get in, so sign up now.

Had a beer with a friend of mine yesterday, and she told me that she’s now working for ADP, the largest payroll processing company in the country.  She’s signing up small businesses that have 1-49 employees, and she told me stories about saving some of them a couple grand a year.  They also have a guarantee that they can match or beat the price of their competitor.  If you own or manage a small business and want to talk to her, shoot me an e-mail (paul@paulryburn.com) and I’ll put you in touch with her.  ADP is a great company, one of the true blue-chips… I used to own shares of them in my Roth IRA.

Speaking of businesses, if you read the blog from work and haven’t scrolled back through the weekend’s posts, you may have missed the announcement about my newest website, Mid-South Alcoholic Supply.  There you can find books about beer, wine, liquors, and drinking in general, as well as drinking games, glasses, mixers, bar sets and equipment, everything the accomplished drinker needs.  My friend Dr. Booze is writing a blog for the site as well, where he’ll keep you informed on the latest developments in the world of alcohol.

It’s killing me to look at that picture of that South of Heaven Roll I took last night… I’m starving for one now, and Hoop’s Bar doesn’t open until 7 PM (or whenever Hoop puts the sign out).  My health guru AL commented that her heart is palpitating just looking at it.  Guess I’m going to have to hit Publish and go find SOMETHING to eat… so that’s all for now.

Tried the South of Heaven Roll on the menu at Hoop’s Bar tonight.  Here’s how the bartender described it.  You take a cheddar & jalapeno sausage.  Wrap it with a slice of cheese, bacon and onion in a tortilla.  Roll it up, dip in tempura batter and deep fry it.  Result is shown above.

Hoop’s Bar is open from 7ish PM to 3 AM.  Walk down Second between Peabody Place and Beale and look for the yellow sign that says “Hoop’s Bar” pointing to a flight of stairs.  Wheelchair-accessible admission through EP’s next door.

When you think print media in Memphis, your first thought is probably The Commercial Appeal, right?  Not according to Google.  This morning I downloaded Google’s toolbar, which shows how relevant Google thinks a site is, called the PageRank, on a scale of 1 to 10.  The higher the number, the more relevant Google considers the site to be.  For example, Yahoo, considered a very relevant site, carries a ranking of 9.   Wikipedia, another relevant site, is an 8.  PageRank is one of the factors Google uses to order search page results.

So I decided to look up the PageRanks of some well-known Memphis media sites.  The Commercial Appeal had a PageRank of 4 as of the time of this post.  However, the daily newspaper is outdone by two weekly newspapers, the Memphis Flyer and the Memphis Business Journal, both which hold PageRanks of 5.  It’s also outdone by a smaller daily newspaper, the Memphis Daily News, which also holds a 5.

Looks like the CA has some catching up to do.

TV station WREG had them all beat, though, with a 6.  Eyewitness News is only a 2.  Google doesn’t seem to know what to do with WMC-TV as its site doesn’t have a PageRank at all.

My blog has a PageRank of 4.  I pulled up a few of the other popular Memphis blogs and they were 4s as well.

After almost a month of work, it’s finally done! It’s my pleasure to announce to you my latest website:

Mid-South Alcoholic Supply is your place to go for all your drinking-related supplies. Whether you’re an alcoholic, a drunk, a boozer, a lush; whether you prefer to get hammered, trashed, wasted, or sloshed, there’s likely something on this site for you. Inventory includes

• A large selection of drinking games and books on drinking games. Beer pong has its own section.
• Bartender guides/drink recipe guides
• Books about the art and humor of drinking, as well as books on wine, beer, and various liquors
• Kegerators/keg refrigerators
• A huge assortment of coolers including electric cooler scooters
• Everything you need to build a bar at home. The store has the bars themselves (ranging from inexpensive ones around $100 all the way up to $10,000 restaurant-quality ones) as well as bar mirrors, signs, mixer sets, liquor dispensers, and everything else you need to stock up.
• Glasses of all shapes and sizes. If you pour booze in it, we likely sell it.
• Hangover cures
• Accessories like cocktail napkins to make your next party unique
• Wine openers, stoppers, refrigerators/wine cellars, wine racks, wine cabinets
• All kinds of cool flasks

… and much, much more. Checkout and shipping are handled through Amazon.com, so you know your order will be processed securely and professionally.

The reason I decided to create this store is because Amazon.com carries a huge selection of drinking-related products… but good luck trying to find anything on there. Their site is a mess. Items that are placed in the wrong category, items that are really cool but get buried under pages and pages of search results. What I tried to do (and in general, this is what I do with all my Amazon storefronts) is to find the best of the best and present it to you in a format that’s easy to navigate.

When you make a purchase, I get referral commission as an Amazon Associate. The commission scale slides upward from 4% to 8.5% as I sell more and more items per month. All of my stores – Tube Top Boutique, Pro Wrestling Book and Video, and the others – count toward my total monthly sales. Last month enough items sold to put me in the 6.5% commission category. This month I’ll probably move up to 7%. You have to sell a TON of items to top out at 8.5%. I’ll probably never get there.

Why do I spend a lot of my free time creating these sites? Well, one of these years I plan to actually break down and finally buy a condo. But, I’m not a big fan of committing myself to a $1500-1800 payment for the next 30 years. I’ve always held the belief that a paycheck from a job is a really risky way to pay a mortgage, even though it’s what almost everyone does. I’d prefer to have passive income coming in to pay the note. When these stores throw off enough passive income to pay for my mortgage, then it’s time to start shopping for a condo. (Real estate agents: “Cool your jets, Turbo,” to use a Mikeyism… it’s still a year or more from happening, so don’t start contacting me yet.) That way, if I buy a place to live and then leave my job at some point after that, I’m still covered and don’t have to be scared to death of foreclosure.

Better yet, if I buy a place to live and then don’t leave my job, I have an extra $1500-1800 of paycheck that’s not going to pay for a home. I can use that money for other things, like drinking at the Saucer or taking trips to Romania to check out cute Eastern European girls.

And yes, there is some risk involved in my plan. If Amazon goes out of business, its Associates program will be gone and my monthly commissions will evaporate. But come on, it’s AMAZON. Do you really see that happening? And as I go along, I’ll be looking for ways to diversify into other affiliate programs as well, just as a stock investor looks to diversify by buying stocks in different sectors, or by buying mutual funds.

So anyway, that’s why you didn’t see me out yesterday. I had plans to meet a co-worker and her friends at Tom Lee Park for the July 4 fireworks, but by 7 PM I was seriously close to being done with Mid-South Alcoholic Supply and I didn’t want to stop. I stayed up ’til midnight working on it. Then I stayed up ’til 5 re-reading Purple Cow by Seth Godin.

Lots left to do… gotta put links to the new site on all my existing ones, then it’ll be time to start on my next site, which is a much smaller niche. I’ll be spending the afternoon doing DVD screen captures for it. If this rain moves out of here maybe I’ll take the laptop to the Saucer.

I’m skipping brunch tomorrow, because I want to continue work on the next site, and I may get out by myself for a while mid-afternoon and see what goes on besides the Monkey/Majestic and the Saucer on Sundays. Sunday night a friend of ours from Monterrey, Mexico is cooking an authentic Mexican dinner for the gang… YUM! I said I was going to be a hermit all weekend but there are some events you just don’t miss. Hopefully having the food in my stomach will let me make Sunday a late night, since I have Monday off. I’ve been meaning to check out the Red Rooster’s SIN Night with tricycle races, cornhole and other games, but just haven’t had the energy after getting started at 11 AM the past few Sundays.

Woohoo… I feel a sense of accomplishment this morning. Happy Saturday everyone.

Great article in the Commercial Appeal this morning about the conversion of the old WDIA building, at Main and Union, to apartments. Those have got to be some unique living spaces with lots of character, and it’s great to see new apartments (as opposed to condos, of which there are already too many) opening Downtown.

Also in the news: The conservative movement really is dying. Literally. Former North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms kicked the bucket this morning.

Cool site I found this morning, Zon, an interactive multiplayer site for learning Chinese language and culture. I’ll have to spend some time on this site. Chinese girls are hot.

Speaking of foreign nationals who are hot, it’s the time of year when Eastern European college students travel to America on their summer vacations. They come over here on visas that allow them to work in the US for up to four months, and many of them take service industry jobs. Hottest among these Eastern Europeans are the Romanians. I encourage all Downtown business owners to beautify Downtown by hiring some Romanians if any come to you and apply for work. Then e-mail me (paul@paulryburn.com) and let me know where they’re working.

Lenny’s in the Falls Bvilding (no I didn’t misspell that), at Front and Court, has expanded their hours. They are now open 10:30-6:00 Monday-Friday, and 10:30-3:00 Saturday. That’s a great move… it’ll give Downtown residents a chance to run by after work and pick up a sub for dinner. My favorite: The #11 Philly Cheese Steak sub with hot pepper relish. Nice to see them open on Saturdays too. Looks like they’ve cut out their breakfasts. Recommendations for displaced Lenny’s breakfast customers: Elliott’s on Second just south of Madison, and Blue Plate Cafe on Court Square.

My plans for today: Going to work on the two websites I plan to roll out this weekend. Later today I’ll be watching fireworks. This time I’m actually going to the celebration at Tom Lee Park, rather than watching from a rooftop as I’ve done the past several years. A friend of mine wanted to go, and I realized that the rooftops have become a “been there, done that” thing over the past couple of years, so this will be something different.

Downtown rooftops are taking measures to prevent filling up beyond capacity. My apartment building is only allowing residents one guest each this year. The condo building where I’ve spent the past two July 4s is only handing out 40 passes to their rooftop, mostly to residents and a few to go to guests. If you’re looking for a rooftop, the Madison Hotel will have a party on theirs with Amy LaVere tonight, although you might want to call in advance and make reservations.

Time to get some websites done… happy Fourth!

Welcome to another installment of the “what’s going on Thursday night” post.

• Conch Republic on the Peabody rooftop 6-10 PM, $5 cover, ladies free until 8.
• Amy LaVere on the Madison rooftop, 5:30-10:30 PM.  $7 cover.  Amy LaVere will also be performing at the Madison Hotel’s July 4 rooftop cookout tomorrow night.
• Jazz and Blues with Andrew Sharp and Matt Gooden on the River Inn of Harbor Town rooftop, 6:30 PM.  It’s also Ladies’ Night at Tug’s in the River Inn, with half-price drinks for ladies.
• Lyle Jennings and Friends at the Cannon Center for Performing Arts, 8 PM, $39.50-49.50.  Prior to the show Jennings will be at Shoe Happy Hour at Tyiese Scarpa (515 S. Main) from 6 to 7 PM.
• $2 34 oz. Coors Light all day at Big Foot Lodge
• FreeWorld at the Flying Saucer, 9:30 PM, $3 cover.
• Ordinary Citizens at the Red Rooster, ladies get in free and get a chance to win a trip and other prizes.
• Eric Hughes Blues Band at Ground Zero, 8 PM.
• ’80s for the Ladies Night at Hollywood Disco (formerly Raiford’s), doors open 9 PM, mixed drinks and quarts of Bud Light available.
• Poser Night at Club Lame… I mean, Ladies’ Night at Club Atlas

With most everyone off for the Fourth, this will be an additional weekend night and Downtown should be quite busy.  Drive safely – the cops are going to be on the lookout for drunk drivers.  Also, keep in mind that liquor stores are closed tomorrow, so if you need any spirits for July 4 partying, you better go get them tonight.

I had the question arise whether coolers are allowed at the July 4 celebration at Tom Lee Park tomorrow evening – specifically, I had a co-worker ask, “Paul, you know everything, can we bring coolers?”  So I looked it up online, and yes, coolers are allowed, just no glass.  Blankets are allowed too.

If I’m the guy who “knows everything” at work, how come I’m not the highest-paid person in the company?  I need to speak to management about a raise.

After I used a quote from “The American Dream” Dusty Rhodes in yesterday’s blog post, I had a reader send me a link to a great site he created which covers the history of Memphis wrestling 1959-1993.  Very cool!

Yesterday I posted a one-day-only sale on Bulova watches on Amazon.com.  I had a reader e-mail me to let everyone know that there are even nicer watches, often at deeper discounts, on sale at Amazon’s Invicta store every day.  I checked out the store and he was right – lots of diamond watches in the 70-80% off range.

Got an e-mail from Mpact Memphis saying that there will be a debate among the 9th District Congressional candidates Sunday, July 13 at 8 PM.  Gonna have to set the DVR to record that one, as it should be quite interesting indeed to listen to Nikki “No Substance” Tinker try to debate Steve Cohen, one of the best and most well-spoken Congressmen Tennessee has ever had.  Cohen could be asleep the entire time and still win this debate.  Candidate Joe Towns will be part of the debate as well.

Outta here for now… I’ll post a “what’s happening Thursday night” post around lunch if I have time.

Just got a text from a friend of mine, who was passing by the old Frank’s Liquors location (Main at Vance, next to the Green Beetle) and saw that they are turning it into a small grocery store.  South Main has been without a grocery since the convenience store in the Arcade building (now Calhoun’s) closed last year.  That will be a nice addition to the neighborhood.  More details to come.

Just noticed that Amazon is doing a one-day-only sale on Bulova watches today.  Many of them are diamond-accented, and are selling for about 45-55% off their retail price today only.  Furthermore, since it’s Amazon you don’t pay sales tax, which means you save another 9.25% if you’re reading this from Tennessee.

If you’re reading this after Wednesday, July 2, 2008, the link above won’t be valid… sorry.

On Sunday, an opinion piece appeared in the Commerical Appeal by writer Skipford M. Blank.  Blank, known as “Skippy” to friends and as “Christopher Blank” to his readers, wrote about paying Memphis dues.  By “paying dues” he means money or possessions given up due to being a burglary or robbery victim in one of the nation’s most crime-ridden cities.  You can read his editorial here.  Blank refers to himself as a “badass,” and I don’t think anyone who has seen Skippy in person would dare disagree.

Street-People.com followed up with an editorial of their own.  Although they agreed with most of what Blank wrote, they made one addition:  Memphis dues include money given to the street people, bums, vagrants and panhandlers who harass you as you try to go about your business in this city.

Two very interesting articles.  Worth a read in your free time.