Paul Ryburn's Journal

Here are a couple of ways you can give the gift of warmth and comfort this extremely cold week.

MLGW has a “Gift of Comfort” assistance program.  If there’s someone you know who is not doing so well, you can give the gift of comfort by making a payment toward their utility bill.  Get more information about this program here.

Or, you can donate to the Memphis Union Mission.  I hear they are in need of coats and blankets right now, as homeless flock to the mission in this cold weather to try to get a warm night’s sleep. 

In other news… congrats to our trivia team on a first-place win last night.  We’re now up to $250 in beer money to spend on our next big party.

I had a good night before trivia too… I decided to play an hour of $1/$2 fixed limit hold’em on PokerStars before making the trek to the Saucer. I sat down with $40 just after 5:00 and had turned it into $85 by 6:00.  I’m finding that I like fixed-limit hold’em better than no-limit for cash ring games (still prefer no-limit for tournaments though).  You can play at a higher level and accumulate frequent player points much faster.  Also, fixed-limit forces you to hone your intution and develop a fine sense of whether you have best hand.  You can’t rely solely on aggression to be a winning player.

I’ll probably do the same thing tonight, an hour of poker then the Saucer.  It’s glass night, Carlsberg I believe.

It’s time for the annual State of Downtown address given by the Center City Commission every January.  It will happen at the monthly South Main Association meeting on Tuesday, January 12 at the Center for Southern Folklore.  Featured speakers will be Leslie Gower, VP of Marketing, and Jerome Rubin, VP of Operations.  Downtown is thriving, even in the economic downturn, so come hear the speeches and find out what all is happening.  Social at 6:00, event at 6:30.

There will be a cash bar, and complimentary hors d’oeuvres catered by Neal Jackson.  Free food?  Wonder if the Nuh-Uh Girl will show up.

This one didn’t happen last night at the Goose, but rather in the World Record tournament I played on PokerStars the Sunday after Christmas.  It was about midway through and I had a medium-sized stack.

In early position, I was dealt AA.  Happy to see the best starting hand in no-limit hold’em, I put in a standard raise of a few times the big blind.

Player two seats to my left went all-in.  Player two seats to that player’s left called the all-in.  I happily called with my pocket rockets.

We flipped over our cards.  Player to my left had AJ.  Player to his left had A8.  I smiled, seeing that my opponents were way behind in the hand.  I was likely about to triple my stack.

Flop was interesting – 999.  I liked that flop a lot, because it improved my hand to a full house.  It would be virtually impossible for my opponents to come from behind to win.

Then the turn came and I wanted to throw my netbook across the room.  Turn was another 9.  Since hold’em takes the best five cards of seven, my opponents had now tied me – all three of us now had four of a kind, Nines, with an Ace kicker.  The river card, which was meaningless, was a deuce.

I still finished in the money, but I would’ve got much deeper into the tournament if that hand had gone my way.  Can’t win ’em all I guess.

Time to shut down the laptop and head to trivia.  I need to learn how to use the Voice Recorder app on my iPhone so I can make sure I don’t miss any pearls of wisdom that come out of Brick’s mouth.

For a list of birthday celebrations this weekend, check out this post on the I Love Memphis blog.

Home from work… I just did a search and found the free poker tournament director software that Poker Jon used last night at the Silly Goose.  You can set the number of players, buy-ins, and blind structure, and the tournament software will take care of the rest and automatically inform you when it’s time for the blinds to go up.  It can even handle fixed break times, rebuys, and add-ons.  If you host poker tournaments at home, this is a neat little tool to have, and it’s free.  Get it here.

I’m dead tired today.  I got to the “final table” poker tournament last night at the Silly Goose, and host Poker Jon informed us that “we’re going to do this WSOP style, with big stacks and long blind levels.  Get comfortable, you’re going to be here for a while.”  Uh oh, I thought, on a school night this doesn’t sound good.  Still, with a cruise as the grand prize I had no intention of dropping out.

Play started at 8 PM.  Tournaments at the Goose usually take a couple or three hours, but not this one.  All nine players were still there at about 10:30, and I looked at my average-sized stack and it was still more than 60 big blinds.  Not long after that, I eliminated “Satellite” who had won a tournament the week before to reach the final table.  By 1 AM it was down to two others and me.  I hadn’t eaten, I needed to get to bed and I surely wasn’t playing my best poker by that point.  I called an all-in and lost, finishing third.

So, no cruise for me.  I was trying to figure out who I’d take with me if I won… I was thinking maybe Brittney from the Saucer.  Not because I enjoy her company, but because it’d be a good chance to throw her overboard.

Poker Jon had a really cool program on his netbook that manages poker tournaments.  I’ll try to find it when I get home and post a link.  He said it’s freeware.

Ready for another themed pub crawl? There’s going to be a “Jersey Shore Pub Crawl 2K10” (search for it by that name on Facebook) on Saturday, January 30 with stops at Wet Willie’s, Silky’s, Club 152 and Republic. “Get your spray tan, your blow out, get “juiced” and join us for a crazy night of fist pumping and battling,” the event listing reads.

The Peabody deli is selling “King Cakes” this week in celebration of Elvis’ 75th birthday.  Chocolate cake with peanut butter and banana filling.  Here’s a pic.

MPACT Memphis is doing a Healthy Memphis Outlet on Tuesday, January 26 at Pearl’s Oyster House.  You can get plugged into a healthy lifestyle there.  YMCA, Church Health Center, and the Memphis Farmers’ Market will be on hand to give presentations, and you’ll be able to join MPACTive, an active lifestyle group for MPACT members.  I definitely plan on showing up for this.  Of course the Saucer is on the way to Pearl’s so it’s possible I may just go there and drink beer instead.

Couple of useful items on Lifehacker today… if you are job hunting, there’s a service called Better Talking that will help you practice job interview skills.  It will call you and ask canned interview questions, then send you a link to your interview transcript.  You can then show the transcript to friends and colleagues and get their advice.

If your company’s firewall blocks my blog, Lifehacker has a post about a service called Flexamail that lets you surf websites and social networking sites using e-mail.  They may be able to block sites, but it’s highly unlikely they’ll block e-mail.  Yay for Flexamail for sticking it to the man.  I can understand blocking Facebook or something like that, but my blog is a valuable public service that should never be blocked.  I mean, how else are you going to keep up with what the Nuh-Uh Girl has been eating?

If you’re a fan of marketing guru Seth Godin’s blog, it’s now available as an iPhone app.

Eating a bacon double cheeseburger from Burger King as I type this.  Mmmm bacon.  All right, I’m getting mustard on the keyboard so I’m going to hit Publish and be done.  Trivia tonight at 7.  I hope Brick is working so she can share more of her knowledge with our team.

I’ve been notified that I need to be at the Silly Goose at 7:30.  Over the past 9 weeks, the top winners in their weekly poker tournaments have accumulated points.  The top 9 point-holders earn a seat at the “final table,” which is tonight, with the winner getting a big prize, I think a cruise for two.  I was told I have a seat at the final table.  Not exactly sure what I’d do if I won a cruise for two, since I have neither a girlfriend nor vacation time.

Still, I’m hoping to win… I’ve been trying to build good poker karma lately.  When I’ve played online tournaments, I’ve noticed how many rude players there are… people who get knocked out, and then get on the chat box and cuss out the person who beat them.  So, the past few times I’ve been eliminated in online tournaments, I’ve typed the following in the chat box:

“nh enjoyed playing with all of you gl everyone”  (nh = nice hand, gl = good luck, common poker chat box abbreviations)

I figure maybe it will help me build up some good poker karma, which maybe I can cash in tonight.

Sauces restaurant on the Main Street Mall has closed down, but a new restaurant will soon rise in its place.  Local Gastropub will have its grand opening Friday night.  I don’t have a whole lot of info on this place yet, but there will be a new interior, a new menu, an enclosed patio and HDTVs.  They have a website but not much is there yet.

Hmmm… a restaurant grand opening… that means the Nuh-Uh Girl will probably be bouncing from table to table going, “That looks good, can I try a bite?”

If anyone took pics at the DNA/SMA holiday party, could you please contact me at paul@paulryburn.com.  I have someone who is looking for a few pics to post to Facebook.

If you’re a pro wrestling fan, tonight is a big night, so you may want to set the DVR if you won’t be home.  On Spike TV there will be a special 3-hour TNA Impact, with Hulk Hogan’s first appearance in the promotion.  In addition to Hogan, I’ve read that Scott Hall and Sean “X-Pac/Syxx-Pac” Waltman are likely to be there, and Angelina Love of the Beautiful People will make her return.  Other names that are rumored but not as likely are Sid Vicious, Rob Van Dam, and “Nature Boy” Ric Flair (whooooo!).  Over on USA, there will be a 3-hour Monday Night Raw where Bret “The Hitman” Hart will confront WWE chairman Mr. McMahon, who screwed him out of the then-WWF title in Montreal 12 years ago.  There’s also a chance Bret will confront his long-time enemy Shawn Michaels.

I guess I’ll have to set my DVR, because I’m not missing Pint Nite at the Saucer.  Nearly all their 75 draft beers only $2.75.  I hope Brick is working tonight – I’m starting to run low on quotes.

I’m sure this device has a name but I can’t remember it.  It allows the dim sum to continue to steam after it has been brought to your table.  Henceforth I will refer to it as the “dim sum thingy.”

Shrimp and leek dim sum in the dim sum thingy

Pork and black mushroom dim sum in the dim sum thingy

Crabmeat fried rice

If dim sum sounds like nirvana to you (and if you look closely you actually can see an image of Kurt Cobain in the pork and mushroom dim sum), they have it every Sunday at Bangkok Alley on Union from noon to 3.

Rotated 90 degrees for maximum effect.