Paul Ryburn's Journal

Mayor AC Wharton has posted a blog on how you can help Memphis’ application for Google Fiber. If selected, we could end up with reasonably-priced fiber-optic Internet access that is 300 times faster than typical cable/DSL connections. If selected, Google will take the connection to every home and every business partner of the community, regardless of commercial potential. Please take a couple of minutes to help. Mayor Wharton is right – this is a chance to truly transform the community.

I mentioned FourSquare, the location-based checkin app, in my last post. Well, this afternoon Brainwoo put up a post on how businesses can promote themselves using FourSquare.  If you want to learn how location-based social media can benefit your business, be sure to read this post.

For example, let’s take a hypothetical juice bar that has 70 different kinds of juice on tap, and another 125 kinds of juice in bottles, as well as “juice flights” and “juice mixers.” Now, let’s say they have a customer who really, really likes juice, and he checks in there 35, 36, 37 times a month, becoming the “mayor” of the juice bar. The bar could reward his loyalty with a free glass of juice every now and then.

Anyway, that’s just one hypothetical example. Check out the post for others.

In the last post, I talked about the Peabody’s rooftop season announcement. I’ve now learned one additional piece of info – this year, ladies will be admitted free before 7 PM (it was 8 PM last year). That gets you access to the rooftop, dancing, and the food buffet that the Peabody puts out for rooftop guests. Free food? Wonder if the Nuh-Uh Girl will show up.

On my way to the SMA meeting with MPD Director Godwin at Local… will take my notebook with me.  Probably a summary post of the meeting will be up tonight or tomorrow.

One of my favorite iPhone apps is FourSquare, which allows me to “check in” and tell my friends where I am. When you check in, you can leave a “tip” to improve others’ experience at those places. For example, I might leave a tip saying “try the West Coast Burger” when I check in at Downtown Huey’s (of which I am the mayor on Foursquare).

Well, this morning LifeHacker linked to a new web application called FourWhere, which lets you see all available tips in a given area. This seems like it would be a great “tips from the locals” idea when you travel to an unfamiliar neighborhood or city. Or a familiar one… I bet it helps me find some tips about Downtown I wasn’t aware of, and I’ve lived here 8 years.

The MPACT Memphis Soul of the City Gala is this Friday at Central Station. They’ll have the MPACT Maker Awards and the unveiling of the new Voice of MPACT Survey, but let’s talk about the things people who read this blog REALLY care about… all you can drink beer and wine, and all you can eat food. All you can eat? Wonder if the Nuh-Uh Girl will show up. Tickets are $50 and you can get them here.

The Peabody has announced its 2010 Thursday night rooftop party season.  They’ve extended the time to 10:30 PM this year, and cover charge has gone up to $10 but now includes one free drink.  Season runs April 15-August 5, and the April-May schedule can be viewed here.

Bad news this morning… due to an extremely unfair law passed by the Colorado legislature, Amazon has been forced to drop all its Colorado affiliates. The law states that if Amazon has any affiliate partnerships within the state of Colorado, then Amazon is presumed to have a physical location within the state, and purchases are therefore subject to Colorado sales tax.

As someone who has many websites which are Amazon affiliate stores (almost all the stores on the right sidebar are), it’s ludicrous to call those physical locations. I don’t keep any inventory. I don’t ship any items. I simply forward business to Amazon, which completes the transactions. Heck, my web server isn’t even located in the same state I am. Thankfully Tennessee hasn’t passed such a stupid law, but my sympathies go out to the thousands of mom-and-pop individual businesses in Colorado who will be hurt by this law. How much do I make from my sites? Not on the order of, say, five grand a month (if I did, it’d be time to re-evaluate this “having a day job” thingy). However, when I got laid off from VP in October 2008, affiliate income in addition to my severance pay allowed me to take a 5-month hiatus before returning to the world of work, and without drawing a cent in unemployment benefits. It’s nice to have that extra cushion to fall back on. It’s unsettling to think it could be taken away by stupid, unfair laws like the one passed in Colorado.

That’s all for now.  My plans for tonight are the SMA meeting with Director Godwin at Local, then over to the Saucer for trivia.  Possibly a trip to the Silly Goose to hear Stepbrothers after that.

Yummy, yummy, for the tummy:  The South Main Association meeting will be tonight at Local Gastropub, on Main Street in the old Sauces location.  Social at 6, meeting at 6:30.  Local will provide complimentary hors d’oeuvres for SMA members.  Free food?  Wonder if the Nuh-Uh Girl will show up.  There will also be a cash bar.

Downtown’s looking mighty bummy:  MPD Director Larry Godwin will speak about panhandling, crime and graffiti in Downtown and South Main.

Hope to see you there!  Trivia team:  I’ll be late tonight.  No way I’m missing this meeting.

I went to Pint Nite at the Saucer tonight.  They now have New Belgium Sunshine Wheat, a new beer, on tap as well as Leinenkugel Sunset Wheat, which they’ve had for years.

Oh poor Brick.  She’ll never be able to keep these beers straight.

Not much to report today, since I had a lot of news in yesterday evening’s post.

Here’s an article from WikiHow that shows you how to make a fun appetizer for your next party – candied bacon.

If you hung out at Club Six-1-Six in the 1990s, you may be interested to know that DJ David the Worm is returning this month. He’ll play a show at Nocturnal at 1588 Madision in Midtown, along with Mary Jane and AVH-1 on Friday, March 19. $5 cover, 21 and up.

If you’re a fan of pro wrestling, the Monday Night Wars resume permanently tonight. TNA Impact is moving to Mondays 8-10 PM on Spike TV, to go head-to-head with WWE Monday Night Raw. Not sure about the quality of the main event though… Hulk Hogan and “The Monster” Abyss vs. “Nature Boy” Ric Flair and the TNA World Champion “Stylin’ and Profilin'” AJ Styles. I know they need Hogan and Flair to pop ratings, but Hogan has had a hip replacement and Flair is 61 years old. I have a feeling that Impact is going to suck, but curiosity may get the best of me and get me to come home from Pint Nite early to watch. Wish I could find a bar that showed wrestling on TV. Not since Darrell worked the Tap Room in 2005 have I been able to find one.

Slow day at work. About a third of the staff, including most of management, is gone to Reno for one of our three national tournaments. I almost got to go. Most likely I will get to go to the next one, in New Orleans in July.

That’s all for now… I’ll be at Pint Nite after work.

48 Hour Launch happened this weekend.  This is a weekend workshop in which participants launch a new business, including all aspects such as putting together funding, writing a business plan, putting together marketing, and putting up a website.  Although I didn’t get to attend 48 Hour Launch, I followed the project on Twitter and Facebook, and they came up with a very cool business, idea, TippJar.  TippJar will be a place where any creative person can get tipped for their work.  Musicians can get tipped if people like their recordings.  Programmers can get tipped if people like the software they write.  And, now that I think about it, bloggers could use it to receive tips too.  I want to hear more about this project – would definitely be willing to drop PayPal and instead use TippJar for my Buy-Paul-a-Beer.net site once TippJar gets going.

Slowly but surely, Downtowners are sending the message that we’re tired of street hustlers, of scam artists, of BUMS, and we’re not going to take it anymore.  My friend Mikey checks the Shelby County Warrants site several times a week and runs the names of our known Downtown scammers.  When he finds active warrants, he prints them out and puts them in his pocket.  So today, we were sitting in the Saucer, when Fake St. Jude Donation Guy walked by.  This guy panhandles all over Downtown, telling people he’s collecting donation money for St. Jude.  “Hey, Mikey, look, isn’t that St. Jude Bum?” I said.

Mikey dashed out the door and ran over to a police car that was parked across the street.  “See that guy, right there, crossing the street?” Mikey asked the cop.  “This is his warrant.”  Mikey handed him a piece of paper listing the warrant number and containing his mug shot.

The officer smiled and said, “Thank you,” and turned on his siren and lights.  Not 45 seconds later, St. Jude Bum was in the back seat of the squad car.  The car remained parked for about 20 minutes, then delivered St. Jude Bum to 201 Poplar.  Another scammer off the streets!  We’ve had enough of these morons and we’re not going to take it anymore.

I saw a flyer today listing new hours for Cafe Napoleon, the soul food restaurant at 86 N. Main Street, north of Jefferson across from the Renaissance Apartments.  The cafe is now open 4 PM to 3 AM Monday-Saturday, and 8 AM to 8 PM Sunday.  They’re also offering delivery within a half-mile radius of Main Street.  That’s an unusual move, for a restaurant that is only a restaurant, not a bar, to stay open until 3 AM, especially one as far north as they are.  I guess they’ll catch traffic as people walk home to the Renaissance, Claridge, and the Marriott though.  I hope it works out for them.  Anything that gets more foot traffic on Main Street is a good thing.

Also in restaurant news, on a sadder note, it looks like On the River Seafood & More at 51 S. Main didn’t make it.  There’s a “space for lease” sign in the window.  It’s a shame – their food was as good as the Flying Fish, but they didn’t have as high a volume of foot traffic passing by their door.  Location, location, location.

Calhoun’s has announced that they will carry every SEC and Conference USA tournament game and March Madness game.  They’ll have the Mega March Madness package on their 10 TVs.  Great place to watch a game.

I’ll wrap this post up with some sunset pics I took from the rooftop of Barton Flats this evening.

The latest bracketology update on ESPN.com (as of 11 PM last night) now shows the Memphis Tigers going to the big dance via automatic bid.   We’re third from last in, with San Diego State and Arizona State behind us.  UAB is out.  Of course, we can make our own luck by winning the C-USA tournament next week, but things look more encouraging than they have in months.

It’s Saturday night, and I made it past the stroke of midnight.  Which means, it’s actually Sunday morning, and time for a new “Brick” Quote of the Week.

Brick was working this evening.  She came over and told me that she was tired and ready to leave.  I’m glad she did that, because I needed clarification from the previous 122,734 times she came over tonight and told me she was tired and ready to leave.  That one additional time helped me figure out where her mind was at.

At the time, it was about 8:30 PM.  “I started at 2,” Brick told me.  “If they don’t cut me by the time the Grizzlies game lets out, I’m going to have to work a 12-hour shift because it will get busy.”

“So, if you work a 12-hour shift, what time will you get off?” I asked Brick.  Remember, she said she started at 2.

“Eleven,” Brick replied.

For all of you who wish there were extra hours in the day, you should talk to Brick.  She’s managed to find them.

The Hi-Tone in Midtown just Facebooked their dinner specials for tonight.  Seafood chowder and a PBR for three bucks?  That’s a hell of a deal.

Normally it’s not time for Paul’s Drunkass Food until 10-11 PM, later on weekends.  However, an afternoon trip to the Saucer necessitated a food run at 4 PM today.  One of the bartenders had mentioned she was hungry for South Philly, and having not been there in 3 years, I decided to get to-go food from there, and I picked her up an order too.  Look at that sandwich!  Why have I not been going there???  I guess it demonstrates that location, location, location really is everything – it’s just slightly off beaten path and yet I totally forgot about it.  I definitely won’t forget about it in the future – that cheese steak was downright memorable.

Gonna play around on the computer for a few hours, then head to the Saucer at 8 for the Nuh-Uh Girl and Brian’s birthdays.