Paul Ryburn's Journal

May 21 is National Waitstaff day, so be sure to treat your bartenders and servers extra well when you go out tonight.  Here’s an article from WikiHow on how to tip your server at a restaurant.

There’s a Facebook promotion going on right now called Bullseye Gives. Through this promotion Target will give $3 million to St. Jude and other charity partners. Your votes will determine how much of the $3 million St. Jude gets. Go to Target’s Facebook page to vote, and you can vote once per day through May 25.

On May 26, Target will announce the amount each charity gets, based on vote percentage. So if St. Jude got 50% of the vote, they’d receive 50% of the money, or 1.5 million dollars.

Something else I saw on Facebook – this coming Monday, the Red Rooster will throw a Monday Fun Day party entitled “Luau – everyone gets Laid.” It’s a chance to show off your summer beach bodies and tans. Attire is beach or summer clothes. Domestics and vodka drinks will be on special for $2.50.

Also, the Rooster’s prize for this week’s “You Got the Look/Chicklette of the Week” contest is a Big Buddha handbag.  It’s Thursday night after the Peabody rooftop.

If anyone is looking for a C# programming position, I know of a recruiter who has one open. It requires 3-5 years programming experience and some project management experience. It would be ideal for someone out east in the Germantown/Collierville area, and it’s for a large manufacturing company. If interested e-mail me at paul@paulryburn.com and I’ll put you in touch with the recruiter. No need to send resumes, just send a paragraph summarizing your past experience, and if you seem qualified, I’ll put you in touch.

Hmmm… the recruiters never give out the names of the companies, but I think I know which one they’re talking about… if I’m right, I interviewed with them 2 years ago and got asked one of the dumbest IT interview questions ever. “How many languages support the .NET framework?” The real answer is, it doesn’t matter, because as long as you know one of them, you’re good to go. The answer he was looking for was 23 (this was 2 years ago – may be more or less now). I have no idea why he asked that. It was completely useless trivia.

Outta here… I was asked to do a photo shoot for some social media presentation and they want to do it at the Saucer.  Now that I can handle.

Congrats to the Rapscallions on taking first place in trivia with a very high score.  Post-trivia, I joined the Nuh-Uh Girl, the Nuh-Uh Sister, the Nuh-Uh Brother (rare sighting) and the Nuh-Uh Brother’s Girlfriend at the Silly Goose.  Here’s a pic of the Nuh-Uh Girl eating off the Nuh-Uh Brother’s and Nuh-Uh Brother’s Girlfriend’s plate:

Ques Brothers booth video has been uploaded and will go up in the morning.

There will be a block party on the block of the Main Street Mall just north of Peabody Place this Thursday, May 21, from 5:30 to 7:30 PM. Free to the public, with music by Blind Mississippi Morris and the Bluff City Backsliders, and the following businesses will offer specials:

• Majestic Grille – buy one appetizer get one half price for dine-in only; $4 mojitos on the patio.
• Circa – $5 appetizers, $5 featured wines by the glass, $20 bottles.
• Center for Southern Folklore – $4 peach cobbler and ice cream, $16 64 oz. Ghost River growlers.
• Shelton Clothiers – 20% off entire store excluding sale items.
• Bluefin – Kono Grilled Beef, Chicken or Shrimp with teriyaki sauce $12; $5 Bluefin Cosmo, $2 domestic beer.
• Silly Goose – $3 wells.
• Tobacco Bowl will have a table on hand for the debut of their new Bluff City Cigar.
• Belz Museum of Asian and Judaic Art – 25% off museum admission, 15% off any one item in the museum store.
• Art under a Hot Tin Roof – preview of their new store; showcase of pearl and leather jewelry.
• RiverTown Art Gallery – specials on Memphis prints.

Great way to start your evening before the Peabody or Madison rooftop parties or whatever you decide to get into.

Ques Brothers booth walkthrough video will be posted as soon as it finishes uploading to YouTube.

Last Tuesday, Kooky Canuck put their 34 oz. signature cocktails on sale for $5, and it must have gone well, because it looks like they’re doing it every Tuesday now. One of those will take you from zero to hammered in record time.

Bardog Tavern continues their Freeroll Poker Tournament tomorrow night, Wednesday, May 20, in the downstairs Underdog Room at 7:30 PM. Call 901-275-8752 to reserve your spot. Compete for prizes, as well as points to be accumulated over a 16-week period toward a grand prize of a cruise for two. Space is limited, so call them ASAP if you want to reserve a spot at the table. This is a Texas Hold’em tournament with progressive blinds. The first week they did it, it ran late, but now they’re doing their best to get it done by 10:30. It’s hosted by Gut Shot Poker.

The NBA draft lottery is tonight. I haven’t heard as big a buzz about it as in past years, perhaps because the Grizzlies did a little better this season, and enter the lottery with the 6th worst record in the NBA. Therefore, according to Wikipedia their chances of drawing picks are as follows:

• 1st pick: 6.3%
• 2nd picK: 7.1%
• 3rd pick: 8.1%
• 6th pick: 43.9%
• 7th pick: 30.5%
• 8th pick: 4%
• 9th pick: 1%

Where to watch? The Saucer isn’t hosting the Grizzlies’ watch party this year (Buffalo Wild Wings at Poplar and Highland has it) but there will still be a lot of people there. Another good place would be Calhoun’s on GE Patterson, Downtown’s best sports bar. Silly Goose has a $2 drink menu from 5 to 10 and four TVs, so that would be a good spot to drink for cheap while you watch the lottery. I believe the lottery starts at 7:30 PM, but wherever you go, you better show up early to get a good seat.

The Commercial Appeal projects Memphis Tigers guard Tyreke Evans as the 7th best player in the draft, so if the Grizz don’t move up in the draft, there’s a possibility we could end up with a local guy.

A few articles in the CA this weekend that are relevant to Downtown, which Downtowners may have missed due to BBQ Fest:

• A profile of Sridhar Sunkara, the Center City Commission’s IT director and a Leadership Academy Fellow. I’ve had the pleasure of working with Sridhar on MPACT Memphis projects, and he’s a good person to know in the world of IT.
• An article on the the Pink Pig clothing line at Shelton Clothiers
• An article on a couple living in the 2 West condos on GE Patterson

Block party at Main and Peabody Place Thursday night.  I’ll post specials later today or early tomorrow.

If BBQ Fest didn’t completely do you in, here’s a reminder that you can get dollar cocktails at the Silly Goose tonight from 5 to 7. Fifteen classic depression-era cocktails go on sale for a buck apiece. Needless to say, that is where I plan to be tonight, possibly with the laptop because I still need to upload BBQ videos.

I’d like to wish a happy 100th birthday to Brigadier Gertrude Purdue today. She volunteers twice a week at the VA Med Center, chairs the Salvation Army’s Women Auxiliary League of Mercy committee, and participates with the Optimist Club and Quota Club. She is a beacon of light for the homeless, the hopeless, and the sick. Happy 100th, Ms. Purdue, and I hope you have many more years left to serve the Memphis community.

The Voodoo Room in the downstairs of Orleans on Front is closed until further notice for renovations and upgrades. Right now I don’t have any more details than that. Hopefully I’ll talk to Chef Clint this week and get the full story.

If you like beer, there’s a tasting at the Memphis Zoo this Friday night from 7 to 10. $20 for zoo members, $25 for non-members. More details here.

Whew… still decompressing from BBQ Fest… I’ve posted pics but I’ll probably do a post of random BBQ-related thoughts in a day or two. For now, back to work. I’ll be at the Goose’s dollar cocktail night and the Saucer’s Pint Nite after work.

Sleep Out Louie’s, one of the last places to carry NTN/Buzztime Trivia Downtown, closed in February 2007.  Since then there has not been a Paul vs. Skippy trivia match.

Until tonight, at Calhoun’s.

The results (my handle is PROFPR):

PROFPR, over 12,000… Skippy, under 9,000.  I also got the #1 monthly score on Countdown at Calhoun’s for the month of May.  I did the trivia victory dance.

Walked home after that, but of course the Saucer was on the way… good seeing former Saucer Girl Marla tonight… she showed me her new librarian glasses.

Six hours of sleep and then I get to go to work.

So, I got to the Ques Brothers booth about 2 PM yesterday, and what was the first thing I saw?

Yep, the Nuh-Uh Girl eating yet again.

Not long after I got there, I decided to walk around the south end of the park, and discovered that my landlords Henry and Heather had a booth.  Here’s a pic of their Chilean chili, which was AMAZING.  I texted the Nuh-Uh Girl and told her about it, and not long after she arrived back at the Ques Brothers booth with two big bowls of it.

Henry holding the Anything But trophy his team won Friday.

This is The Shed, the team that beat us for best booth.

Best Saucer waitress ever.  There will never be another Jenn B.

Take a look at the guy on the left… THIS IS THE MAN if you’re throwing an event.  He’s the reason our booth looked so good.  His name’s Brent and you can reach him through the Holliday Flowers website.

People were doing keg stands at the awards ceremony.  I wish I’d waited another 2 seconds to snap this photo, because this girl pretty much had no secrets left when they brought her down.

We waited to hear our name announced in the Top 10 but it didn’t happen.  We later found out that we slipped all the way to 33rd in shoulder.  The godfather of the Ques Brothers expresses his feelings on the standings: “BULL….. SHIT…..”

Awards ceremony notwithstanding, it was still time to party when we returned to the booth.  Here’s a pic of Skippy getting down.

Here’s a pic of Alexis getting down.

Here’s a pic of Terry getting down.  “Lady Marmalade” came on and he did a solo dance.

Clay didn’t get down, he got up.

Here’s a pic of everybody getting down.

Strip club The Pony rode around Downtown and handed out passes.

Post-BBQ Fest, my neighbor Nick and I and two girls went to Paula & Raiford’s Disco, and who did we see there but…

Apparently he didn’t get enough dancing in the Ques Brothers booth.

The disco was packed last night.  We stayed until about 3.

I’m not done with BBQ Fest yet… I still have more stuff to post.  Someone gave me a copy of the video of our Ms. Piggie Idol contest, and I’m going to upload it and post it.  I also did a booth walkthrough video that I’ll post, and then there’s a video of Skippy dancing last night that I need to review and decide if it is blogworthy.  Most likely it is.

I added about 160 pics from yesterday to the Ques Brothers photo gallery.  To jump right to yesterday’s pics, go to Page 12 and locate the photo tagged “Saturday, May 16.”  If you like looking at photos of 50 year old black men dancing, you’re probably going to be real happy with yesterday’s pics.

The team is tearing down the booth and loading out as I type this.  I’m using my webmaster exemption from physical labor.  I’m sure I’ll probably meet up with the team later today.

Hey, I just looked at the clock… it’s 12:03 and that means the Saucer is open.  Time for a beer.