Paul Ryburn's Journal

Here’s a Memphis Flyer article on new Downtown restaurant Cockadoos. They’re Project Green Fork certified, and you can place an order via Facebook or Twitter! How cool is that? When I was in there last week, I saw a computer monitor displaying Facebook and Twitter, but I didn’t realize they were using it for ordering.

The Venus Mission will perform this Thursday at the Peabody’s rooftop party. Theme this week is “A Taste of Asia,” with teriyaki chicken kabobs, egg rolls, and pork fried rice on the food buffet. In VIP there will be fried dumplings with soy sauce, fried wontons, Thai chicken, and cashew spring rolls. Asahi and Sapporo will be the featured beers. Also… this isn’t part of the official Peabody program, but… you’ve heard of cooking demonstrations? I’ve heard the Nuh-Uh Girl will give an eating demonstration at approximately 7:30. If you miss it, there will be additional demonstrations at 7:37, 7:46, 7:59 and 8:14.

There will also be a Third Thursday party that night, as the businesses on Main between Gayoso and Peabody Place throw their monthly block party. Entertainment by Bluff City Backsliders, Star & Micey, and the Daddy Mack Blues Band. Food and drink specials, retail discounts. Good stop for pre-rooftop warmup.

The second round of Corporate Karaoke happens tomorrow in Court Square at 11:45. Click this link to register and get a crack at $200.

Friday is Bike to Work Day. More info here.

Wow Facebook is screwing up more every day. Privacy invasions, inability to keep data secure, suspending accounts seemingly on a whim, etc. They’re the 800-pound gorilla right now but I really wonder if they still will be in a year’s time. Sounds like their management doesn’t have a clue.

All right, gonna grab a bite to eat then back to work. Damn these “daily update” posts seem so sanitized compared to the fun posts I did last week. I kinda don’t like it. Possibly another post after work, we’ll see. Trivia tonight at the Saucer at 7. May do Super Tuesday at Kooky Canuck ($5 34 oz. signature mixed drinks) afterward.

I didn’t realize this happened until I heard about it last night: Tent S-200, five down from ours, was raided Saturday night. Marijuana and a variety of pills were discovered and three team members were hauled off to jail. Details here.

I always try to do a walkthrough on a weekday when it’s slow.  Here’s this year’s.

Nearly made the 11:30 Silly Goose poker game but talked myself out of it. Going to bed.

Yeah, I know, no lunchtime post today.  Our computers had to be shut off at work, due to A/C issues.  Also, the day after BBQ Fest weekend ends is never a stellar day for my blog posts, due to being so damn exhausted from the weekend.  I need to recharge my brain.

In the meantime, take a look at the blog of our sponsor, Matt Mullenweg from WordPress.com.  Matt has several pics of the Ques Brothers, as well as a pic of the Filet Mignon Benedict from the Majestic Grille.

As I said, I need to recharge my brain.  And I hear beer is brain food.  Pint Nite, here I come.

Saturday was the last day of BBQ Fest.  “Why don’t they have it on Sunday too?” people ask.

“Because one more day of this and we’d probably all die,” is my answer.  Here are some of yesterday’s highlights.

Team member Otto with WordPress guru Matt Mullenweg and his friend Van.  You know what I like about both of our sponsors?  They’re big names in their respective fields – Matt in open-source software, and John Bragg in cooking – but they’re both just regular guys who you can sit down and have a beer with.

One of the judges

Christy took a break from chowing down on BBQ at the Squeal Street booth to stop by and get her photo taken for the blog.

How to break a cart

My friend Nicole was out taking photos of all the BBQ booths.  She had a tube top on.

One of the best photos I took all weekend

Nicole, by the way, is a very talented photographer who often has work on display in Midtown galleries.  You can check out her photography at 11photographs.com.

The Nuh-Uh Girl was mad at me for the comments I made in the Friday recap post.  “I was not hovering by the food more than any other team member!” she protested.  Okay, I’m going to have to call bullshit on that one.  MANY team members saw her doing it and made comments about it.  Fellow Ques Brothers, can you back me up?

After the awards ceremony, the Green Man stopped by our booth.

Nicole with the Green Man

Facebook is being uncooperative right now, so I can’t upload the entire photo album and link to the pics.  I’ll try again tonight.  I’m seriously thinking about doing an anti-Facebook rant, because they’ve been irritating me in many ways lately.

Team members:  I have all the photos in 3264×2448 resolution, which is much higher resolution than what I have posted here and on Facebook.  If there are particular photos you want in high-res, bring me a USB memory stick and I’ll copy them for you.  Photos are about 3 MB each.

I just saw a post on Craigslist about a schnauzer missing in the area of Union and Fourth.  Photo below.  His name is Sampson.  He’s wearing a blue collar, although you can’t see it in this pic.  More details about the dog, more photos, and phone numbers for the owners, can be found in this Craigslist post.

The Memphis Flyer’s Hungry Memphis blog has a post up about BBQ Fest, mentioning the Ques Brothers and several other teams.  Check it out here.

I wanted to pass along a compliment that I heard yesterday.  As I was walking to BBQ Fest, I ran into my friend Sarah who was out walking her dog.  “I just had the best sausage biscuit Downtown,” she told me.  “It was at that little convenience store, Second Street Shoppers.  The sausage was so good.  It was a little spicy and that made it different.”

Check them out if you need to grab a quick bite.  They have a full deli.  They’re located on Second near Kooky Canuck and the Flying Fish.

BBQ Fest 2010 is over, and it’s time to congratulate a few of the winners.

The Ques Brothers didn’t finish in the top 10 for shoulder this year, but we did bring home the Grilling Green Award for our recycling efforts.

On the way back to the booth, I saw that another local team, Barbecue Republic, had picked up an award in the Whole Hog category.

Our friends at Squeal Street BBQ scored fourth place in Patio Porkers.

Congratulations to ALL the BBQ Fest winners.  What a party.  I am absolutely exhausted.  I took about 140 photos yesterday, and given that it was the final day of debauchery, I have to go through the photos and remove the ones that are not fit for public viewing.  As soon as I do that and take a shower, I’ll post the rest of the pics.

Here are the pics from yesterday.  You can tell that we’re getting progressively drunker as the week goes on.

One of the things I do at BBQ Fest is called “PervertCam.”  Meaning, I stand outside our booth or on the rooftop, and clandestinely take pics of hot girls walking by.  Here’s a pic I snapped of a tube top hottie about to go into our next door neighbor’s booth.

Team photo.  Attn Steve: I had to resize it to 1600×1200 for blogging purposes, but I’ll send you the original photo, which is higher resolution.

Official dinner time was 7:30, but during the late afternoon – from 4:30 to about 7 – the cooks would occasionally bring out food, ranging from shoulder to exotic stuff like duck and lamb.  The Nuh-Uh Girl HOVERED by the server table nearly the entire time to make sure she had first dibs on any food that came out.  She even organized a game of quarters at the server table to make it look like she had a reason to be there.  I lost count of how many people commented to me about her hovering, but it was at least ten.

About 5:00, the rain started.  We covered everything, including our camel.

Team members used 2x4s to push water off the roof of our tent…

…and Joe unfortunately was standing in the wrong place.

One of the many, many, many meals the Nuh-Uh Girl had yesterday.

Looking into the booth of our next door neighbors, the Hogfathers.  Apparently the Nuh-Uh Girl didn’t get enough to eat in our booth, so she went over there and ate too.

Tube top hottie with Terry

Mikey’s rain gear

Magyn dancing

Because of his hard work all these years, our inspirational leader/father figure has earned the right to pass out in our booth without being blogged.  Frank, however, has not earned that privilege.

11 PM, food is still coming out, and look who is back hovering the server table.

Another tube top

I took so many photos that I went over Facebook’s limit of 200 per photo album, so I had to break them up into two albums:  Part 1 and Part 2.  If you haven’t been checking out the complete albums, I highly recommend you look at these.  Many, many tube tops, and you can really see a timeline of the Nuh-Uh Girl’s hovering throughout the day.

Random thoughts, some related to BBQ Fest and some not:

– Thanks to Kao for hanging out post-BBQ Fest.  Sorry I couldn’t hang longer – one beer at the Goose and one at the Saucer and I was about to pass out from exhaustion.  I have not had more than 5 hours of sleep any night since BBQ Fest started.  My feet feel like I’ve been walking on razor blades all week.  Pain in my feet woke me up this morning.  And yet I’m going to go down there today and walk around for 9 or 10 more hours.

– Based on a post-BBQ stop I made last night, I’m beginning to think Polish girls may have overtaken Romanian girls as the sexiest girls from Eastern Europe.

– I shot the Ques Brothers booth video walkthough yesterday, but YouTube is being a bitch when I try to upload it.  It’ll appear here eventually.

– I also have video of Steve leading a poker run group as they do the hokey pokey.  And video of Shane and Esther doing the hokey pokey.  Those’ll eventually make it online too.

– There’s one video I shot and then decided not to post… it was taken Thursday night and it was a video of someone’s mom dancing.  It will be shared with select people.

– Extremely excited about today.  As I’ve mentioned, one of our sponsors is WordPress.com.  Matt Mullenweg, the head WordPress guy, is likely to be in our booth.  I’m really hoping I get to meet him.

– Attn Nice Magan from Kooky Canuck: Welcome to Foursquare!  Suggestion: When you check in and you’re picking up a server shift on the floor, you might want to include that as a comment in your checkin.  Yesterday I saw Magan check in at Kooky, and went up there all excited thinking she was bartending, but instead it was… someone else.  It was like hearing that the Fire Sale might be Dos Equis Lager, and running up to the Saucer and finding out it’s actually Turbo Dog.

– We need a music advisor who is female and 29 or younger.  I loved the music played in the booth yesterday, but seriously, we need to get more songs in the mix that were made after 1980.  We need to appeal to a more diverse crowd with our music.  And by “more diverse” I mean “hot, tube-top wearing crowd.”

– Why I love the Saucer:  This week, one of the girls showed up for her 5:00 shift, but first she had to run over to Victoria’s Secret in Peabody Place mall.  Reason why:  She forgot to wear underwear to work.

Okay.  Time to jump in the shower and get the day started.  The judges come by our booth between 11 and 12, and since presentation is part of the judging, I tend to stay the hell out.  Probably I’ll hit Kooky Canuck, then the Saucer, then head to the park.