Paul Ryburn's Journal

Rolling Stones lead singer Mick Jagger turns 65 tomorrow, and as such, will be eligible to receive 91 pounds (about $180) per week in benefits, according to this article.  That pension should nicely supplement the $558 million his band grossed on their 2005-07 world tour, and should provide him a little extra financial cushion in case his $450 million net worth is not enough to support him for the rest of his life. 

Happy birthday to Mick, and here’s hoping there’s another Stones album and tour to come, if they can ever get guitarist Ron Wood to sober up.

I’ve been hearing about a new video camera called The Flip which is only about the size of a pack of cigarettes, starts and stops recording with the touch of one button, and which is relatively inexpensive (not much more than a hundred bucks).  They’re becoming the rage to whip out and film at parties and clubs.

Hmmm… I can see another use for this.  On the Handling-Panhandling group, we’ve been trying to get video evidence of Downtown’s most aggressive panhandlers in action, following people and harassing them for money.  Of course, when they see us whipping out big, bulky cameras and video cameras, they quickly stop their activities and leave the area until we go away.  But if this new camera is the size of a pack of cigarettes – and I’m thinking maybe it can be disguised as a pack of cigarettes – this may be a way to get video of the species bummus downtownis in its native habitat, behaving as it naturally would in the wild.

Fellow Downtown Memphis blogger Sig shot me an e-mail this morning to let me know that there’s something even cooler out there than OpenOffice, which I recommended yesterday.  It’s called PortableApps, and it’s an entire suite of open-source software that you can carry around with you on any storage device – for example, a USB flash drive, iPod, or external hard drive.

Being able to carry all your software, files, and bookmarks around with you has a number of advantages.  I can see this being especially useful if the main computer you use is not a computer you own.  For example, if you use the computer lab at school, you can use the word processor running on your flash drive with your customized settings and preferences, rather than the school’s.

It’s also useful because it doesn’t leave a footprint… no evidence is left of what you’ve been doing on the computer you’re using.  This could be handy if, for example, you want to use your office computer to edit your resume.

Sig tells me that he has an 8 GB flash drive with PortableApps installed, and still has 7 GB left for files.  That’s really cool.  Sounds like a real winner.  We’re starting to see a lot of innovations in software, and this time around they’re not coming from the big dogs like Microsoft.

These two St. Jude scientists have been trying to figure out what to do to get on my blog for months:

Finally the one on the left figured it out:  Wear a tube top!  It may not be Tube Top Month anymore, but still, tube tops are a good way to get your pic on the blog year ’round.

Finally made it to the Peabody rooftop party last night, and had a very good time.  I’ll try to make it back next week for their season finale with Dr. Zarr’s Amazing Funk Monster.

Got to get to work right now, but I’ll be back later today with cool technology stuff and more reader comments on the Trader Joe’s/wine in grocery stores debate.

I’ll be at the Red Rooster at 6 to support Make-a-Wish and catch The Dempseys.

There’s an excellent recap of the CCC’s forum on re-opening Main Street to cars on the Memphis Limelight blog.  You can read it here.

For the past year, I’ve been debating what to do when it’s time to replace my laptop, which is now 2 years old. One option would be to buy another PC-based laptop, probably from Dell (although, I’ve had good luck with my current Gateway laptop). However, I’ve always wanted a Mac, and have thought about a Mac laptop even at the extra cost. Well, yesterday, a co-worker REALLY made me want a Mac. Our VP of development showed me his new iMac, with 24-inch screen, 4 GB of RAM, and a 500 GB hard drive. Not only does it run MacOS, but it runs Windows and CentOS (a flavor of Linux) at the same speeds those operating systems would run on PCs. It cost more than your average computer ($2500) but it’s like getting three computers in one, without even one tower to sit awkwardly on or under your desk (the screen itself is the computer). With 500 GB storage, there’s plenty of room for each operating system’s files. Not to mention that the display is the best looking display I’ve ever seen. Wow. I really really want one.

However, being a mobile person, I actually wouldn’t choose the 24″ iMac, but rather a Mac laptop, probably a MacBook Pro with 15.4″ screen (they make them with 20″ screens but those are too big to fit into a standard backpack or laptop case). The top-of-the-line MacBooks come with only a 250 GB hard drive, but I could still probably find a way to make that work, given that I don’t do extensive video editing. My current laptop has a 100 GB hard drive and I’m not even close to running out of space. There are three options for running Windows on Macs, all three are available for MacBook Pros, and all three appear to give acceptable performance. I’d probably install Linux too, just for cross-browser, cross-OS testing of my websites.

In the meantime, I’ve been trying out more and more open-source and free software. I’m now of the opinion that people shouldn’t have to pay for any software products except operating systems and small niche products. There’s just too much good free stuff out there to pay. I’ve been using OpenOffice for a year now, especially the word processor OpenOffice Writer, which is not only as good as Microsoft Word, it’s BETTER. And free.

This weekend I downloaded The GIMP, an open-source image/photo-editing program that has been around for years. Due to all the collaboration in the open-source community, all the sharing of ideas, the GIMP is now on par with Photoshop in terms of capabilities. After downloading and installing, I fired it up, and was immediately like, “WTF?” I had no idea how to use it. I had heard The GIMP has something of a learning curve (Photoshop does too), but it’s worth it once you understand how to manipulate images. So I got on Amazon and ordered Beginning GIMP: From Novice to Professional. Once it arrives I’ll start learning The GIMP. I’d much rather spend $31 on a book to learn a program as good as Photoshop than to spend over $600 on Photoshop itself.

Hmmm… maybe I’ll do a page of the best open-source and free software.  I recommended Nvu to a friend the other day.  It’s a what-you-see-is-what-you-get web page editor that lets you design the page on screen (you don’t have to know HTML).  It does almost everything FrontPage can do, and it’s free.  There’s lots of software like that out there.  Yep, I think I’ll put an info page together.

Lunch break is over… I had crawfish enchiladas at Cafe 61, then stopped home to do this post.

This week I didn’t forget.

• Mean Green Music Machine on the Peabody rooftop.  6-10 PM, $5 cover, ladies free ’til 8.  This is the next to last rooftop party of the season, and don’t forget, it’s Wired Memphis night, where IT, marketing, advertising, PR, and entrepreneurial professionals are invited to network.
• Reba Russell on the Madison rooftop, 5:30-10:30 PM, $7 cover.
• Jazz and blues by two people whose names I can’t remember on the rooftop of the River Inn of Harbor Town on Mud Island.  Also Ladies’ Night at Tug’s restaurant with half-off drinks for ladies.
• Party on the Patio with the Mississippi Mudslingers and Q107.5 at EP Delta Kitchen, 9:30-’til
• Deep Shag at the Flying Saucer, 9:30 PM, $3 cover.
• Gabby Johnson at the Red Rooster
• Eric Hughes Blues Band at Ground Zero
• Frankie Hollie and the Noise at Alfred’s
• ’80s for the Ladies Night at Hollywood Disco (Raiford’s) with doors opening at 9, mixed drinks and Bud Light quarts served
• Boy does our crowd suck night at Club Atlas
• Team trivia at TJ Mulligan’s Pinch

I’m going to try to make it to the Peabody rooftop tonight to do some “Wired Memphis” networking and dance and drink.  After that, don’t know… Saucer or Rooster probably, will play it by ear.

The Red Rooster is throwing a Christmas-in-July block party, with music inside and outside this Friday, July 25 from 6 to midnight.  The important thing to know is to get there early, because THE DEMPSEYS will play inside from 6 to 7.  The Plaintiffs will play inside from 8 to midnight, and Frankie Hollie and the Noise will be outside.  Tickets are $20 in advance, $25 at the door, and a portion of every ticket goes to Make-a-Wish.

Friday is South Main Trolley Tour, but with the Dempseys kicking it off at the Rooster, it looks like I’ll be arriving late for Trolley Tour, if I get there at all.

A couple of readers have e-mailed to let me know that there is going to be a Trader Joe’s in Tennessee… but in Nashville.  Looks like the ability to sell wine in the stores is not the only issue… one reader speculates that Trader Joe’s believes there is the desire for its products in a city as unhealthy as Memphis.

Maybe we should push for a Trader Joe’s in West Memphis.  It’d be right across the bridge, and at least they’d be able to sell wine there.

Another reader writes that the beer, wine, and liquor scene as we know it in Tennessee would drastically change if wine were sold in grocery stores.  Big chains, he writes, would do business directly with the wineries, cutting the distributors out.  The loss of the revenue to the distributors would hurt their ability to bring in other products, such as import beer above the 6% threshold that is sold as liquor in TN.  So businesses like the Flying Saucer, Blue Monkey, etc. would be hurt by the change.  So I guess there are pros and cons to both sides.

Back later with details of a charity event coming to Downtown Memphis this weekend.

This morning I posted that there’s a Facebook group that has been created to recruit Trader Joe’s, an upscale health-food store that is very popular, to open a location in Memphis.  Since then I’ve been told that it’s not gonna happen, given the current Tennessee state laws.  Specifically, Trader Joe’s derives a significant amount of its revenue from the sale of wine in its stores.  Wine is not allowed to be sold in grocery stores in the state, so there’s a huge disincentive for Trader Joe’s to relocate here.

A reader sent me a link to a site called Red White and Food which is petitioning to get Tennessee’s archaic liquor laws changed, to allow the sale of wine in grocery stores.  Regardless of whether you drink wine, you should be concerned about this, especially as Downtown residents.  A grocery store like Trader Joe’s would be a great fit for Downtown, and would sell not only wine but a variety of healthy items at reasonable prices, items that would not be found elsewhere in Memphis.  The outdated liquor laws get in the way of recruiting this kind of store.

Why haven’t the laws been changed?  Because the liquor distributors spend a lot of money lobbying the state legislature to keep the current, closed system.  They’ve been getting rich off the current system for many years and are not interested in seeing it change.  Once again, the politicians are looking out for special interests, not your interests.

Check out the site, and sign up to help if you want to see the laws changed.