Paul Ryburn's Journal

FINALLY… now that I’m free from the rat race, I had time to give my Memphis Wallpaper site a much-needed overhaul. You can find the new site here. I’ve added the first new pictures in 4 years (including a pic I snapped of Raiford’s before it closed – that’ll be one for the memory books).

The good news is that the site is on a new server with 1000x the storage, so there’s no longer a limit to the number of photos I can post. That means I’ll be adding more in the future. From now on I’m not going to post the images in different sizes, because there are too many monitor sizes to bother with. The “Save as background” option should handle it automatically if you choose to make an image your desktop wallpaper (the site explains how to do this). Otherwise, you can save the full-size image and pull it into Paint or your favorite image editing program if you want it in a different size.

The site is kind of Downtown-centric right now (big surprise), but I plan on extending it soon, adding a Midtown section and possibly others. If you have requests let me know.

Been a good weekend. Hung out at Pearl’s with friends Friday evening – got some good pics, may post a few of the best once I get them off the camera. Then I moved on to Earnestine & Hazel’s, then EP’s. EP’s is really growing on me as a place to hang out Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights. Good, young singles scene, but it’s comfortable – it doesn’t have that “meet market/air of desperation” feel like some places do.

Saturday I made a trip to East Memphis for shopping, then in the evening I went to my rooftop to catch Blackberry Wednesday’s debut. The gang showed up and we all hung out. The Nuh-Uh Sister has a new tube top and I got a pic – will be posting that soon. Afterward we went to the Saucer and called it an early night.

And of course today was Sunday brunch – Majestic then the Saucer. The gang wanted to go to EP’s to get one of those high-alcohol F.U.C.T. drinks, then out to MLGW’s lawn to throw Frisbee. This was about 3:30 in the afternoon, sun was bright and it was 95 and humid. I thought about the proposed plan and decided… hell no. Sounded like a recipe for instant dehydration. So I bid them goodbye and continued to play pool at the Saucer. I feel like I should go drive a Gatorade truck over there to rescue them.

Mikey came up with a new Mikeyism today (actually I’ve heard it once before) – a member of our gang was in the bathroom for a while and Mikey commented that the person was “taking the Browns to the Super Bowl.” Heh.

Dammit, Jessica had a tube dress on and I forgot to take a picture for the blog!

Still at the Saucer, after having gone home and got the laptop. Time to post, then shut it down and be social for a while.

I had lunch at Superior Bar on Beale Tuesday, and wanted to type up a review.

First of all, I can get a wireless connection there, which is a good thing because it allows me to do a working lunch. Superior doesn’t provide Wi-Fi but it’s available through MoochNet, meaning someone nearby has an unsecured wireless network.

I took the suggestion of my server Josh and got the crawfish and corn chowder soup, which was quite tasty, lots of meaty crawfish in a creamy broth. Very good. It’s the Tuesday soup of the day, but Josh tells me they have it every day of the week. Other soups of the day are

• Monday – red beans and rice
• Wednesday – chicken tortilla
• Thursday – ham & tater
• Friday – Mamou’s gumbo
• Saturday – Momma Reynolds’ chili topped with cheddar, onions, jalapeno
• Sunday – mushroom & potato

I spent some time studying the menu and here are some of the other things I noticed:

– They have a Black & Bleu creole salad – blackened sirloin medium rare, blue cheese, tomato, cucumber, carrot, spaghetti over mixed greens with basil dressing. Sounds tasty.

– As I’ve mentioned before, I’m not a grits person, but I know a lot of my readers like shrimp & grits… well, you might want to try Superior’s crawfish & grits.

– I mentioned earlier the eggplant club sandwich, which substitutes slices of fried eggplant in place of the bread.

– Other popular sandwiches: The King’s peanut butter and banana sandwich (nice that they have a menu item honoring Jerry Lawler), a Cajun fried turkey melt, and oyster, shrimp and catfish po-boys.

– They have meat-and-two ($6.99) and meat-and-three ($7.25) options available every day for lunch. Heck, why not pay the extra 26 cents and get the third vegetable?

– They have several BBQ options: Ribs, pulled pork, chicken dinner, sausage platter, and barbecue nachos. Josh told me that unlike many places, the nachos come fully dressed with lettuce, tomatoes, sour cream, etc.

– They have $2 domestics for Happy Hour. Not sure when Happy Hour ends, but it had started by the time I arrived for lunch at 1 PM.

Very comfortable atmosphere. Once you’re inside you don’t feel like you’re at a bar on Beale Street, and Superior could easily be used for business lunches.

Some of the menu items seem to be priced a little high ($9.95 for a bowl of soup, $10.95 for the eggplant club), but it is in a tourist district and the prices are no worse than what some of the other restaurants on the street (BB’s, Alfred’s) charge.

Overall, I enjoyed it and will definitely be back. I hear they have good music at night too – will have to go down there some evening and check it out.

Just watched the last episode of The Price Is Right with Bob Barker – no one’s tube top fell off this time. A woman won two cars – a Corvette and a Cadillac convertible – and some other crap worth $140,000 total. Not a bad day for her.

In honor of Tube Top Month and Bob Barker’s last day:

(It’s work-safe for those of you reading this from the office)

Amazing what you can find on YouTube these days. Thanks to Marcus for sending me the link. I should’ve known this video would be on there.

Today is the last Price Is Right episode starring Bob Barker. And in my opinion it should be the last one ever, because no one can replace Bob. But what do I know compared to corporate execs.

But, it made me have a thought… you know how there are people who come from all over the country to have Civil War re-enactments? They’ll pick a Civil War battle and fight it out as realistically as possible.

Well, it’s time to make love, not war. It’s time to re-enact the greatest moment in the 35-year history of Bob Barker and The Price Is Right. It happened in 1979. A woman got called to Contestants’ Row and got so excited that she jumped right out of her tube top.

Re-enactment clubs are forming all over the country as we speak. I’m willing to get the Memphis chapter going. I’ll be Bob Barker. Who’ll be the contestant?

– Just got home. After getting tired of being at Starbucks, I headed to The University Lounge at 663 S. Highland. It’s about a block south of the train tracks. The lounge’s claim to fame is that it’s a hookah bar, where you can buy and smoke their flavored tobacco. I didn’t smoke, though; I was more interested in their free Wi-Fi. Very nice place and the owner couldn’t have been friendlier. There were couches to sit on, and a big TV tuned to CNN for me to watch. They had Sirius Satellite radio tuned to the coffeehouse channel (channel 30). The volume was just right, not too loud like it had been at Starbucks.

I had a strawberry smoothie and some chicken spring rolls while I worked. They have a full range of coffee drinks, smoothies, and desserts, and a limited appetizer menu. They’re open 10 AM to midnight Sun-Thur, 10 AM to 2 AM Fri-Sat. I was impressed with the place and it seems like a very good place for laptoppers to go during the day to get work done. I’ll be back soon.

Is there anyplace else near the U of M that has free Wi-Fi? I know MO’s does. Any others? I love hanging out in that neighborhood.

– I just went on an Amazon.com shopping spree. It started when I stopped by Bookstar at noontime and saw the following book on the shelf:

Wikinomics examines how global collaboration through social networking is changing business. You’ve heard of Wikipedia, MySpace, YouTube, and Flickr, but there are also large, traditional corporations such as Procter & Gamble, BMW, and Lego that have embraced the new model. A good look at the direction business will take (whether it likes it or not) in the 21st century. I almost bought it at Bookstar, but then I realized that Amazon would probably have it for 30% cheaper and I wouldn’t have to pay sales tax. So I ordered it there, and I’m glad I did, because while I was reading reviews for Wikinomics I found this book:

Wealth of Networks appears to offer more in-depth, scholarly coverage than the other book on the phenomenon of social networking and how it will change business. I ordered them both.

Since I’ve been programming mainly in ASP.NET for the past three years and will now be building some sites with PHP, I decided I needed to brush up. The last book I bought covered PHP3; PHP5 is out now. So I did a search and this one

came up.

PHP and MySQL for Dynamic Websites was among the highly rated books on PHP (4.5 stars out of 5), and several reviewers said it was the only book you’ll need. They also said that it’s free from the typos and errors that render many computer programming books useless.

And just for fun, I ordered

In 1997, World Championship Wrestling was the number-one pro wrestling promotion in the world, generating tens of millions of dollars of profit a year. It was so strong that they were on the verge of putting their major competitor the WWF (now WWE) out of business. However, just four years later in 2001, it was WCW that went out of business, purchased by WWE for only a few million dollars. The Death of WCW looks at the causes of WCW’s decline – idiotic storylines (making David Arquette the world champion), wrestlers whose egos came before the good of the company (Hulk Hogan, Kevin Nash), corporate execs who ass-kissed the wrestlers when they should have been managing the company (Eric Bischoff), writers who didn’t have a clue what wrestling fans wanted to see (Vince Russo), talented young wrestlers who were kept down in favor of the older guys (Steve Austin, Mick “Cactus Jack” Foley, Chris Benoit, Booker T). WCW was just plain awful to watch for its last three years and this book chronicles the events that led to the company’s demise.

In keeping with the blog’s theme for the month, I need to mention that WCW employed dancers (The Nitro Girls) who looked smokin’ hot in tube tops.

Since I develop affiliate marketing websites, I should have no problem writing the first three books off on my taxes. It may be harder to convince the IRS that I had a business reason for buying the WCW book.

Friends of mine pointed out something VERY interesting last night – since I now have an online store called The Romania Store, if I took a trip to Romania I could write it off as a business expense. Good point! Too busy to go this summer but maybe in ’08 I’ll visit Romania.

Whew! Tired of typing. Going to head to the Second Street branch office with the laptop to get a couple more hours’ work done, then head to the Madison around 6 for The Dempseys.

Posting from the Poplar/Prescott Starbucks this morning. I don’t know if this is going to be a place where I can get a lot of work done. Music’s a little too loud, tables too close together. And no one here has a tube top on. I’ll probably stay here about an hour, then move to a different Wi-Fi hotspot.

– Big controversy in Memphis that’s getting national coverage: Jessie Morrison, a local projectionist at Malco’s Ridgeway Four theater, got fired from his job this week. He had written a negative review of “Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer” for Ain’t It Cool News, and Fox, who distributes the movie, saw it. The Fox execs apparently called the theater and threatened to pull the movie from the entire Malco chain if Morrison wasn’t fired. Fellow blogger AngieDawn is a friend of Morrison’s – check out her blog for more details.

– The Orpheum invites you to Breakfast at Tiffany’s tomorrow night, the first in their summer classics movie series. There will be an after-party at the Westin Hotel, and while there you can register to win a night’s stay at the Westin. Details on the flyer below (click it for a larger-sized image):

– I’ll be sweating to the oldies tonight, as I hang out on the Madison rooftop in 94-degree heat to listen to “That’s All Right Mama,” “White Lightnin’,” “East Bound and Down,” and other songs performed by The Dempseys. I’ll be there by 6, which is when the band starts. I have a feeling I’ll get tired of the heat by the end of their first set, and will probably move on to the Saucer for a beer, then to EP’s for their rooftop party. Won’t make it to the Peabody tonight, but Kevin and Bethany Paige are playing there, so that should be pretty good as well.

– Last week I posted about a job-hunting site called Climber, which is like a dating site for finding jobs – you fill out a personality profile, companies fill out a profile of their corporate culture, and then Climber’s computers match you up. This morning I received an e-mail from Climber’s CEO thanking me for the mention. I thought that was a really classy move, and it’s smart of them to search to see what people are saying about them. I’m all for any resource that helps people find jobs they love. Click the link below if you want to check out Climber and fill out a free profile.


– Last spring, I hung out with fellow blogger Ptolemy Kat one night. I had just started my Memphis City Schools job, and I commented that it paid more than my previous job. Knowing how I love Romanian girls, Kat replied, “You’ll be making enough money to BUY a Romanian if you want!” She was joking, of course – but yesterday I was doing some surfing online, and it appears that it really is possible to buy a Romanian. Romania has one of the worst records of human trafficking – young girls get kidnapped over there and get sold as sex slaves for as little as $300. Check out this very disturbing story and also this CBS 48 Hours report about Romanian girls for sale. Bulgaria, the Ukraine, Moldova, and Belarus were also mentioned as problem areas for human trafficking.

All right, I’m gonna go find a quieter place to work. Have a good Thursday afternoon everyone.

– After ignoring it for a year, I finally logged back in to my LinkedIn account, updated my profile, and approved the 5 people who have asked to add me to their network (some of the requests were as old as May 2006). LinkedIn is sort of the professional equivalent of MySpace or Friendster. You set up a profile listing your work experience, education, and professional goals, and then invite people you know to join your network, so you can have access to their contacts. You can write recommendations for people you know, and you can use your network to hunt for jobs, business leads, or other professional opportunities. Here’s a link to my LinkedIn profile – I’ve also added a permanent link to it on the right site of my blog, underneath my picture. If you’re on LinkedIn, or if you’d like to join (it’s free) and do some professional networking, I invite you to add me to your network.

Looks like LinkedIn is really starting to take off in Memphis – when fellow blogger AngieDawn invited me to join a year and a half ago, it was big on the East and West Coasts but not so much here. Now it looks like people are really starting to use it to leverage the power of connections. The more people who know who you are, and what you’re looking for professionally, the better the opportunities that will come your way. I still have plans to build a website about passive job hunting to get out of the rat race, and LinkedIn is going to be one of the tools I talk about.

I hope to use LinkedIn to make contacts who can help me learn about affiliate marketing, where I partner with businesses and put their links on my websites – and every time a sale is made through my links, I get a commission. I was going to list my existing affiliate sites on my LinkedIn profile, but then I thought, how “professional” am I going to look if I mention that I run a site called the Tube Top Boutique? I decided to leave that one out..

– Speaking of affiliate sites… people have asked me if I really think anyone who reads my blog will buy anything from my newest site, The Romania Store. No, probably not. The reason I mentioned the new store is so it will perform well in search engine rankings. If Google sees a popular site (like this blog) linking to it, it figures The Romania Store must have valuable content and will move it toward the top of search results. I’ve tried to search engine optimize the site as much as possible, including each county in Romania as a link (and there’s merchandise for each county, so it makes sense).

– I’m going to have to take one for the team today. The Rapscallions have a $25 gift certificate to the Flying Saucer that expires today, so I’m going to buy it from the team and spend it. Dammit… I’m going to have to drink $25 worth of beer. It will be hard, but it’s a sacrifice I have to make for my friends.

Won’t be able to make that sacrifice until happy hour, though, because it looks like I may have a business meeting for the new job, or possibly a phone conversation to go over how existing sites have been built.

– It was good to meet fellow blogger Amy W Sunday afternoon… I passed her on Main Street as she was walking her dog. I think I insulted her dog though, referring to the dog as a Chihuahua when she’s actually a miniature Doberman. Oh well, what do I know about dogs.

– Bored. Think I’ll hit a coffee shop and work from there for a while, maybe Otherlands. There’s a new Memphis Flyer out today, so I’ll see what’s going on this weekend and post if I see anything interesting.

My new online store – The Romania Store – is open for business. It has links to books about Romania, Romanian language courses and electronic translators, posters, signs, and clothing/apparel about Romania. Unfortunately I could not even find one tube top to sell, which is a shame because Romanians look good in tube tops. This is an Amazon.com storefront with all orders, credit card processing and shipping going through them.

Went to the Superior Bar for lunch, review coming soon.

Congrats to the Rapscallions on their second-place finish tonight. Our stash is now $255.

Last night I ran into former Sleep Out Louie’s bartender Josh, and he told me he is now serving at The Superior Bar on Beale. He told me a little about the menu, and it sounds pretty good – so good that I think that will be my lunch spot for today. He said they had an eggplant club sandwich. I figured that meant it was vegetarian, with the eggplant replacing the meat – “yuk,” I thought. But I was wrong… they deep-fry the eggplant into thin slices and use it to replace the BREAD. Now we’re talkin’. I’ve had salads the past two days in a row, so it’s time for something unhealthy. He said they also have meat-and-two and meat-and-three lunches every weekday, and he mentioned some other tasty items too – I seem to remember lasagna and a Cajun turkey wrap. If I get down there today I’ll get a better look at the menu and make notes on my favorites.

Josh also told me that the King Biscuit Diner which will be located on the ground floor of the Westin, on Lt. Lee Avenue facing the Gibson, is a month or two away from opening. There’s already a King Biscuit open in East Bumblefuck, so you can check out their website to get an idea of their menu and what else goes on there. (And you can buy discount gift certificates to eat there at Memphis Discount Dining.) He also told me that the Ground Zero blues nightclub, also to be located in the Westin, is 2-3 months away from opening and the Eric Hughes Band will be the house band. They’re fantastic and it’s great to see them getting a gig at a big-name club, run by management who will treat them well.

If you’re one of Josh’s former Sleep Out’s regulars, I’m sure he’d appreciate it if you stopped by Superior and said hello. I’ll give a more detailed report on Superior after I’ve eaten there. It’s summer so maybe I’ll see some cute tourists in tube tops on Beale.

My first project for the new company is currently in limbo, so I guess I’ll work on completing my new online store today. Trivia tonight at the Saucer at 7, of course.