Paul Ryburn's Journal

If you’ve never made it to a Memphis Roller Derby event but have thought about going, Saturday would be a good day. They’ll have a doubleheader at the Mid-South Fairgrounds, Pipkin Building, and while there’s usually a $10 entry fee, this Saturday it’s FREE. Cheap beer and good BBQ available for purchase, as well as Memphis Roller Derby merchandise. Doors open at 5, first bout at 6.

Link to the event on Facebook is here.

Learn more about Memphis Roller Derby here.

SMA meeting recap will be up tonight… simply too much info for me to type on a lunch break. Not only will I cover Paul Morris’ State of Downtown speech, but I’ll have info on a second Downtown Night with the Grizzlies, and on the expanded International Blues Challenge coming up the first of next month.

This is just a placeholder to let you know that I’ll have my notes from CCC president Paul Morris’ “State of Downtown” address typed and posted within 48 hours, hopefully. I took a notepad and got over 10 pages’ notes. Takes a while to get them in the blog.

I can say that the slate of SMA board of directors was elected tonight without dispute. Congrats Robert, Clay, Mikey and the rest of the board. Now we can get on with business for the coming year.

After the meeting I went to the Saucer for trivia, then back to Bar None to watch the second half of the Florida-Tennessee game with Frank and the Nuh-Uh Girl. Always good to watch UT lose with UT fans. Shame we didn’t get “Bruce Pearl CouchCam” to see how he was enjoying the game at home.

I was in Kooky Canuck yesterday, and I heard that all the employees had been told to stop checking in on Foursquare. As it should be. Foursquare is a marketing tool and employee checkins mess it up.

Today I found out why they made that rule. The “mayor” of Kooky on Foursquare gets 50% off one meal daily. Reeeeeeally… if you haven’t tried the food at Kooky, it’s pretty damn good. Cornish hen? Steak & Fries? Wings with dill ranch? Yes please. Cookies a la mode… poutine… nachos with cilantro sour cream (which I’ve told Shawn D. he should bottle and sell. The dill ranch too.)

The current mayor, Shawn L., is a good friend, but at 50% Shawn, I have to come after you. Hope I get it before the Nuh-Uh Girl does.

I’d like to make a personal request of readers of this blog who are members of the South Main Association: PLEASE come to the meeting at Bar None (in the former Circa space) tomorrow night, Tuesday, January 11, and vote for the slate that will be presented to be elected to the board. The slate is

President- Hank Cowels
Vice President- Mike King
Secretary- Aleta Boyd
Treasurer- Robert Maloney
Business Representative- Steve Doss
Resident Representative- Clay Thompson

I spoke with Robert Maloney at length about this Saturday, and he told me how important it is that we take care of this vote so the SMA can get on with its business for the year. Social at 6, program begins at 6:30, so the vote should take place not long after 6:30. If you have somewhere else to be and can only stay for the vote, that’s fine. If you can stay, there will be an excellent presentation by CCC president Paul Morris on “The State of Downtown.” Food is excellent and the drinks will be priced for happy hour, so please come down and help us elect these people.

Snow pic on the Main Street Mall:

I was walking from the Saucer to Bardog about 8 PM when I took this. While hanging out at Bardog, I received this text:

“Office closed tomorrow. Enjoy snow day.”

WIN!

It’s 9:39 AM and I’m contemplating my options: Go back to bed for a couple of hours, or hit Bardog again for breakfast with Bloomers. I guess I should do Bardog. I’m rarely down here for breakfast on weekdays.

As for what’s open and what’s closed, not sure yet since I just woke up. McEwen’s tweeted that they’re closed for lunch but will try to get open for dinner. I know that Kooky Canuck always opens on snow days even if Shawn has to personally drive out and pick up his employees. Follow me on Twitter @paulryburn and I’ll tweet more openings/closings in the Downtown core today once I get out.

There will probably be some drunk tweets too, given that Pint Nite could start as early as 11 AM for me.

Wednesday night I stopped by Bar None for a snack. I had the crab cake and beef tenderloin sliders, pictured below.

Delicious. I ordered the beef tenderloin slider, on the right, on the recommendation of bartender Leigh Ann. A good recommendation indeed. Bar None is now open 7 nights a week until 2 AM. This will be a frequent stop for Paul’s Drunkass Food on the way home.

The next night I stopped by Bar None again, where poker players had their own private room:

That’s Poker Jon, standing near the door. I’d already been knocked out at this point. I was rooting for the guy in the Yankees cap, because as you can see he had the best taste in beverages of anyone at the table.

In other news: Arkansas 68, Tennessee 65. The Hogs are 11-3 and I may have to start following them more closely in basketball. They may get to the dance this year. I hope Bruce Pearl enjoyed watching the game on TV.

Made it to Paula & Raiford’s Disco for the second time in a weekend last night. Had a good time as always. I’m closing in on the mayorship of Raiford’s on Foursquare.

Attn snow: BRING IT. We deserve a snow day tomorrow.

Time to go out for Sunday Fun Day, for what is hopefully Day 2 of a three-day weekend.

I didn’t get out until 11 last night. I’d been reading a very helpful poker workbook, and I wanted to see if it had improved my skills. So I entered a $4.40 buy-in tournament on PokerStars last night. Thanks to things I learned from the book, I made it into the money, finishing 72nd in a field of 1000. I’ve written more about the tournament in my poker blog, but I’ll just say that the $10.80 payday I received was nothing compared to the confidence I gained. I feel like I’m a serious threat in any no-limit hold’em tournament from this point forward. After four hours of play, I was quite happy and ready to celebrate with a beer.

So I grabbed my jacket and walked toward my usual destination, the Saucer. It was packed, because there was a Pi Kappa Alpha convention in town. Nothing against Pikes, but the convention added an extra hundred guys to the Saucer’s crowd. Not my cup of tea. Also, all my friends had gone out earlier in the evening, and they’d already gone home. I decided the Saucer wasn’t worth it.

Silly Goose was more packed than I cared to deal with, as was Bardog. “Where can I get a beer at 11 PM that isn’t super crowded around here?” I thought. Then the answer hit me: Paula & Raiford’s Disco. I hadn’t been to see Paula in a while, and 11 was far enough before “prime time” that I’d have breathing room. So in I went. This was probably the first time since I moved Downtown that I showed up at Raiford’s sober. Keisha helped me take care of that problem, with two quart bottles of Bud Light.

At 1 I figured the Saucer had cleared out enough to be tolerable. I walked down there, hung out at the bar and talked to Jim until the place closed. Then I went to Bardog and closed it down too.

Weird night. I hung out mostly by myself. It’s hard to find people to meet up with when you go out at 11 and don’t make prior plans. Yet, I was rather happy. I was basking in the feeling that I’m going to make some serious money in tournament poker in 2011. If Congress gets stupid and shuts down PokerStars and Full Tilt, screw them, I’ll go to Tunica. (Sometime I need to do a rant about how hypocritical the Republicans are for thwarting online poker.)

I came home a little after 3, got on the computer, and got some very sad news. My friends Air Traffic Mike and Chris had to make the most difficult decision pet owners ever have to face, concerning their dog Rhondo.

Over the past year, many Memphians have read about the adventures of Rhondo on Air Traffic Mike’s blog. Rhondo was not the brightest dog in the world, but he more than made up for it in personality. Unfortunately Rhondo did not have much of a chance. He was born sick, was sick at times throughout his life, and this week his kidneys began to fail. Air Traffic Mike explained Rhondo’s health issues in this post. Hours later, he followed that with a Goodnight Rhondo post. Rest in peace, Rhondo. A lot of people who never met you and who lived 1500 miles away were big fans of yours. Mike and Chris, my thoughts are with you.

May post again later. I think I have some food pics to download from the camera.

Last night I attended the first night of a new poker league being hosted by “Poker Jon.” It consists of five poker games, held four nights a week. The locations are

• Silly Goose, Mondays 9 PM and 11:30 PM
• Bardog Tavern, Wednesdays 7:30 PM
• Bar None, Thursdays 7:30 PM
• Bayou Bar & Grill, Sundays 7:30 PM

Players will compete to accumulate points. You get 1 point for showing up, 1 point for bringing someone who has never been to league play before, 1 point for a 6th place finish, 2 points for 5th place, 3 points for 4th, 4 points for 3rd, 5 points for 2nd, and 6 points for finishing first in a league game. Points will be accumulated over 10 weeks. At the end of that period, the top players (top 9 I think he said) will be invited to the final table, where each player will get 20,000 chips and play will be a deep-stacked, slow-blind structure. Prizes are still being discussed, but there will definitely be a gold bracelet for the league champion. Other prizes will be awarded too – in the past, Poker Jon’s bars have given away prizes like a trip to Las Vegas and a cruise.

It’s a fun time with real felt, real chips and increasing blind structure, so come on out and play.

I busted out early in last night’s game… picked up a pair of pocket Jacks and moved all in. Unfortunately Mark from Marks Menus, sitting to my immediate left, had been dealt pocket Kings, and the flop, turn and river failed to produce the third Jack I needed. Oh well. I still enjoyed playing.

Edison Pena, the Chilean miner who loves Elvis Presley, is being treated like a king (should I say treated like The King?) by the Peabody. He’s staying in a luxury suite at the hotel, and he’s been given a $1,000 shopping spree at Lansky Bros., where Elvis bought his clothes.

One of the Memphis jobs accounts I follow on Twitter, @tmj_mem_jobs, tweeted a Service Express Supervisor job at the Westin this morning, if anyone is looking for a job Downtown.

News from Arkansas: Razorback quarterback Ryan Mallett is entering the NFL draft. Hog fans hoped he’d return for his senior year, but you certainly can’t blame the guy for choosing millions of dollars in salary over a fourth year at school. Congrats to Ryan and thanks for leading the Hogs to their first BCS bowl appearance.

Oh – one thing I forgot to mention about my visit to Bar None last night for poker – my Foursquare check-in there made me the new mayor, ousting former mayor the Nuh-Uh Girl. I should have plugged my iPhone into the bar’s speakers and played the Memphis Tigers fight song to celebrate.

Not sure what to do this evening… boring early January night. May just stay home. Happy weekend everyone.

Lately I’ve been working with QR codes a lot at work. They’re the two-dimensional barcodes that can be scanned with a smartphone camera. They can link to web content, text, an e-mail address, or a phone number. They’re a convenient way to tell mobile users, “Go here for additional information.”

As I was working with them, I had a cool idea… what if, in the future, beer bottles had QR codes printed on the label? You could scan the QR code and it would pull up a page explaining how the beer was brewed, what kinds of hops were used, IBU measurement, that kind of thing. Probably not something that would ever be needed on bottles of Bud Light, but for beer geeks who drink craft beers, it would be way cool.

Wow, the Tiger game last night was a disaster. I’ll repeat a comment I made on Twitter last night: Look at the bright side. Maybe we’ll get a rematch against the Vols in the first round of the NIT.

Lots of Pastner-bashing this morning. I’m sure early in the careers of Adolph Rupp, Eddie Sutton, Bob Knight, etc. they all had a game where they coached so badly that half the town was calling for their resignation. Agreed, Coach P needs to take a hard look at what he did wrong last night, but the city of Memphis needs to stand by its coach.

(Edit: I had a paragraph here blasting Local Gastropub for allowing “Rocky Top” to be played on their jukebox post-game, but I’ve since learned it was played on an iPhone. Assuming they didn’t provide amplification to said iPhone, no hard feelings toward them. Sorry for the misunderstanding.)

According to the MemphisWeather.net blog, we have the possibility of what I call a “just-right” amount of snow Sunday night into Monday. A just-right amount of snow is enough to close most office buildings for the day, but not enough that the bars close.

If you have MLK Day (Monday, January 17) off and are looking for somewhere to volunteer, here’s a good opportunity with MIFA.

The band at the Flying Saucer tonight is called “Lamar Ave. Love.” I know nothing about them, but based on name alone I think I want to see them.

That’s all for now… off to do a little shopping in my lunch break.

A couple of weeks ago, Bar None opened. Maybe you went by. Maybe you didn’t make it opening weekend but got to their place (the former Circa location) later. And maybe you saw “haricot verts” as a side.

And maybe you wondered, “WTF is ‘haricot verts?'”

Maybe you were scared to order the haricot verts.

I didn’t know either, and I felt overcome with trepidation. So I looked it up on Wikipedia.

Haricot verts = green beans.

So if you’re scared of green beans, don’t order them. If not, no harm no foul.

Now you know. I have to give credit where credit is due. The green beans pictured herein, er, haricot verts, were not photographed at Bar None. I copied/stole the image, which was protected under the GNU Public License (GPL). I’ve never understood the GPL but it’s mostly about giving credit where credit is due. With that in mind, credit to Wikipedia and also to whoever the fuck uploaded this fucking image to Wikipedia for the photo. I hope that’s within the spirit if not the letter of the GPL.

Drunk. Good night.