Paul Ryburn's Journal

Let’s start off with what I did yesterday. I decided to eat lunch at the Flying Saucer and get a little side work done on my laptop. While there I grabbed a copy of this week’s Memphis Flyer and flipped through it. On the back page there’s an ad for the American Apparel store at South Main and GE Patterson… you know, I gotta say, there may not be much at American Apparel that I would look good in, but they certainly have a lot of clothes I would like to see my female friends buy and wear. That Double U Dress they have pictured in the Flyer ad… wow. They have a tube top dress that ain’t bad either.

So I sat there at the Saucer, surfing the women’s clothing section of their website, and watching one of the waitresses walk around. I thought to myself, it may be called American Apparel but I’d sure like to see some of their clothes become Romanian apparel.

So I tabbed out, went back to work, and enjoyed an excruciating afternoon of trying to remember how to use T-SQL to join tables in two different databases. Finally, 4:45 came, and I drove home. I put my stuff in my apartment, then walked to the Flying Saucer for a beer.

At 6:00 I walked down to Zanzibar, where an arts group I’ve been a member of for 5 years was having their season opener/kickoff. Their calendar of events for 2006-07 looked like the best I’ve seen since I first got involved with the group, and I discovered that one of my good friends is on the board. But you know what? I didn’t re-join for year 6.

I don’t know… it’s nothing against the group, nothing at all. But I just stood there among all the “young professionals, 21-40” in their plaid button-down shirts and their neatly-pressed khakis and their nice shoes doing their “networking,” and quite honestly, I was bored. “Young professionals” can be so stuffy when they get together in a group. They usually wear “business casual” attire to events like these. Some wear suits. Because I have the personality to pull it off, I can get away with jeans. But it bothered me that I put on long pants of any fashion on when it was 100 outside, in an attempt to fit in and impress people that I really didn’t care about impressing.

Again, it’s a really good group and I’m not knocking them. And I’ve done the “young professionals” thing for a while and fit in just fine and even got on the board of one organization for a couple of years. I’m glad I had that experience. But I just don’t feel the need to do it anymore.

I’ll miss out on “networking opportunities” by not re-joining, but you know what? I’ve done almost no “young professionals, 21-40” events this year and yet have done PLENTY of networking. Heck, I’ve probably turned down five grand in consulting work this summer, simply because I don’t have time to do it. I referred potential clients to a couple of friends who are entrepreneurs, and helped a few people find jobs. But this year I’ve done my networking while drinking duck farts at Sleep Out’s, or while drinking wine at South Main Trolley Tour, or while drinking beer at the Saucer. I’m still networking with other young professionals but it’s a lot more relaxed. People tend to be themselves more in those environments. And I can wear shorts without feeling out of place.

So anyway, I slipped out of the event earlier than expected, about 7:00, and stopped by the Flying Saucer for a beer. Afterward I went to the Peabody rooftop for their weekly party. While up there, I noticed a building on fire about a half-mile to the southeast – there was a lot of smoke and I could even see flames. I checked the Commercial Appeal and all the TV stations’ websites this morning but couldn’t find any info on it – does anyone know what was on fire?

Otherwise, not much interesting to report from the rooftop – saw a girl I danced with at Six-1-Six nine years ago and talked to her for a few minutes. After I left the rooftop, I went to the Flying Saucer for a beer, then went home.

I think that’s a new record. 4 trips to the Saucer in one day. And yet in those 4 trips, I only drank 3 beers (I had a coke with lunch).

So that brings us up to today… currently I’m sitting at the Flying Saucer, eating lunch and typing this. Not sure what I’ll be doing tonight… some of my friends who live in my building are having “game night”… trying to decide if I want to do that or go out.

Tomorrow I’ll be attending a friend’s plate party at the Flying Saucer in the afternoon, then later on I’ll be at a friend’s graduation party in the South Main district. Hmmm… that means I’ll be walking back up Main to my part of town at some point, and I just might have to make a detour into Raiford’s, assuming it’s open. Still don’t know why it was closed last week.

Sunday will be another Emma extravaganza at Sleep Out Louie’s, starting a little later this week, at 4 PM and continuing on until close. Semi-Charmed Kat has said she’ll probably return this week, although I’m not allowed to take any more pictures, because we certainly wouldn’t want any “young professionals, 21-40” who Kat “networks” with to think badly of her. More and more I’m beginning to understand why Kat’s Cordova neighborhood is such a good fit for her.

There’s a Database Analyst position open at the City Schools where I work. Unlike my contract position, this is permanent, full-time. The position is at the school board office at Hollywood and Avery, and it’s not a bad place to work – more relaxed than corporate America, and lots of good places to eat lunch in Midtown.

That’s it for now – hope everyone has a good weekend.

(Edited 10:00 pm August 17: Kat has requested that her pics be taken down after realizing what a large audience I have and who might see the incriminating evidence. I am honoring her requests. I don’t allow comments on my blog but ATTN PHILIP: If you have anything to say, e-mail me and it will be printed in full.)

This is one of the rare times on this blog when you’ll ever see me do this:

VULGARITY WARNING: There were a lot of juicy quotes from the Sunday brunch crowd, and some of them are not exactly rated G. Some would probably be rated X, or at least NC-17. If you prefer to read family-friendly posts, you should probably skip this one.

Fellow blogger Semi-Charmed Kat and her 38DD breasts joined me for brunch at Sleep Out Louie’s this past Sunday. As I mentioned earlier, Sunday promised to be a brunch extravaganza because bartender extraordinaire Emma was back on the morning shift for one week only. Not only did Kat feel right at home, but she provided much of the entertainment and blog-worthy quotes. Let’s start with some pictures:

(Edited: All pics of Kat have been removed.)

One of the regulars brought in a cute baby. Here’s Emma, one of the most awesome people to ever set foot behind a bar, with the baby.

(Edited: Kat didn’t tell me to take the quotes down.)

All right, that’s it for pics. Let’s move on to some classic Kat quotes. Once again: IF YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WITH VULGAR LANGUAGE OR TOPICS, STOP READING NOW. I have a feeling that my mother won’t be saying “Paul, I would love to have Kat as a daughter-in-law” anymore after reading these.

As we ate and drank, the NASCAR race was on TV and someone mentioned that Rusty Wallace’s slogan, in conjunction with Miller Lite, is “We race for beer.” Kat: “The only thing better would be, ‘we race for dick.'”

Then we brought out the video crack boxes and started playing NTN Trivia. Kat tried to log in and it wouldn’t accept DDKAT (in honor of her breasts) as her player name. “Name unacceptable,” it told her. She had to settle for the much more tame KATDD.

In this quote Kat gives away the fact that she lives in East Bumblefuck and is therefore, by definition, boring. I told her that she’d have to see the dance I do when I win at NTN Trivia, and Kat responded, “You’ll have to do the Microsoft Excel dance I do at work.”

Then we started doing duck farts, the potent concoction of Bailey’s, coffee liqueur, and whiskey that has become a Sleep Out’s tradition.
Me: “Duck fart?”
Kat: “No! Those taste like asshole. And I should know.”

Kat: “I’m not a sex bomb, I’m more like a sex bottle rocket.”
Otto: “Quick and fast, with a bang at the end.”

Otto commented that he doesn’t like Jello shots. “I just don’t like big, thick liquid.”
Kat: “That’s my job.”

And those were the best of the quotable quotes. In other news: Downtown is Number One! Eyewitness News 24 reports that Downtown is the top spot for flashers. Along with Brooks Road, more people expose themselves Downtown than in any other part of Memphis. What an honor to be mentioned in the same breath as Brooks Road. I have seen Woman Without Pants, mentioned in Channel 24’s story, several times downtown, including one day when the circus was going on and there were a lot of children out on the streets.

That’ll do it for now. I’ve been at the Second Street branch office for three hours now, and it’s Elvis glass night (I actually participated in “buy the beer, waste money on the glass” for once) and it’s getting crowded. Time to pack up the laptop and sit back and enjoy the scenery.

The Rapscallions lost at trivia tonight at the Saucer. According to this week’s Trivia Guy we finished in the middle of the pack.

Here’s a pic of me pouring the Duvel I ordered into a Saint Brendan’s Irish Cream coffee glass. It’s the closest they could find to a Duvel glass. By the way, the waitress, Kristie, is awesome. She has had to deal with some large and unruly groups on our team and has taken care of us like a pro. If you hit the downtown Saucer and she’s working, definitely look for a table in her section.

Here’s a closeup of the Duvel in the glass:

Still working on the Semi-Charmed Kat pics. I need to come home sober one of these days and get them done.

Well, I woke up late this morning, and don’t have time to type up the Semi-Charmed Kat/whipped cream post before I go to work. I guess it will have to wait until tonight or tomorrow.

However, I do have one pic for you… last night I went to Pint Nite at the Saucer (I’m sure that surprises no one) and ran into these two:

As you can see, Meredith (on the left) has a great sense of fashion. Mendi, where’s your tube top?

Today’s lunchtime post is being brought to you by the free wi-fi at the Flying Saucer. Man… you should see this place. It’s like the AutoZone corporate headquarters, Second Street annex. Nearly everyone in here has a boring gray shirt and boring black pants and a boring black belt and boring black shoes – black POLISHABLE shoes, mind you. Oh, a few have on a boring red shirt rather than the boring gray shirt. Most of them have their corporate ID badge clipped to their shirt collar, in an attempt to make an already stupid uniform look even more ridiculous. I’m not happy about having to share my Second Street branch office with these people.

Semi-Charmed Kat joined us for brunch at Sleep Out’s yesterday, and she loved it. “Why haven’t I been doing this before?” she asked. She has already written a blog entry about brunch. Later in the day when I have access to my digital camera, I plan on doing an entire post about Kat’s day yesterday. There are pictures, and let’s just say that whipped cream and Kat’s 38DD boobs are involved. Kat also provided several good quotes yesterday which were blog-worthy – however, I may have to take the extreme step of putting a vulgarity warning at the top of the post. Let’s just say that some of the quotes make Emma’s Vagisil comment look tame by comparison. Hopefully it will be up later today, tomorrow at the latest.

Ummm… that’s about it for now. I’ll be at the Saucer tonight for Pint Nite. I’ll be at the Saucer tomorrow for trivia. I’ll probably be at the Saucer all the rest of the days this week too. Bravo Memphis is having their season kickoff at Zanzibar Thursday night from 6 to 9, and I’m trying to decide whether I want to go, and whether I actually want to re-join for a sixth season. I’m kinda down on “young professionals” events lately – I have more fun hanging out in bars, people are more real there. We’ll see. I have a good friend on the board this year, and that may tip the scales toward joining.

Monday sucks. If I can’t stay here and drink all afternoon, can I at least take the waitresses back to work with me?

So yesterday I finally got my wireless router installed, and spent a couple of hours walking around my apartment with my laptop, surfing the web. I fired up Google Earth, figuring that was the program on my computer that would give my Internet connection the most intensive workout. It had no problem keeping up. Google Earth’s satellite images are so good that I was able to zoom in on my apartment building and could actually see the patio furniture, grills and hot tub on the roof.

Discovered something interesting while surfing… Prince Mongo has a MySpace page. For those of you from out of town, Prince Mongo runs for mayor, senate, etc. in just about every election. According to Mongo, he came here from the planet Zambodia and is here to save Earthlings from self-destruction. He calls his supporters “spirits.” He has operated several nightclubs around town, including Mongo’s Planet and The Castle.

I met Mongo a few years back. I was out at Raiford’s on a Friday night… it was fairly early in the evening, about 11, early enough that the crowd had not yet arrived. So when Raiford put on KC and the Sunshine Band, I had the dance floor to myself. I had one of my disco outfits on – can’t remember if I was still wearing the blue leisure suit at that point, or if I had switched over to the sequined shirts. Anyway, I was at just the right point of drunkenness (had consumed about one 40 at that point) and was tearing it up on the dance floor. All of the sudden a man who had been in the DJ booth talking to Raiford came up to me.

“Hello, spirit,” he said to me. “I just wanted to tell you that I like your style. My name is Prince Mongo.” Of course, I already knew who he was. I told him it was a pleasure to meet him and we talked for a few minutes. That was kinda cool, to have someone like Mongo tell me he likes my style. One of the biggest compliments I have received in my lifetime.

Reminds me… last night I walked down to Raiford’s about 12:30 and it was closed! Anyone know what was going on? I hope it was a one-night thing and nothing permanent.

All right… guess it’s time to go buy a Sunday paper and do my Deal of the Week blog for the CA. Don’t forget, Emma’s Sunday Brunch Extravaganza today at Sleep Out’s – I’ll be there from 11 to 3, then I’ll tab out and walk over to the Second Street branch office to see my waitresses.

By the way – the Majestic has been approved for branch office status, but it needs a name. I can’t call it “the Majestic branch office,” obviously. It isn’t on a street like Union or Second, and there are so many businesses on the Main Street Mall that no one would know what I’m talking about if I call it the Main Street Mall branch office.

Time to get it started… have a good Sunday, and I hope to see you at Sleep Out’s.

(Edited Saturday, August 12: Bumping this post to the top to make sure everyone puts this on their calendar for tomorrow…)

I would like to invite all my readers to Sleep Out Louie’s this Sunday, August 13, for brunch. I intend to be there from about 11 AM to 3 PM, and it should be quite a party.

“But Paul,” you’re probably saying. “You’re at Sleep Out’s almost every Sunday for brunch. What so special about this week?” A fair question, I suppose.

What makes this Sunday so special is that bartender EMMA will be back on the morning shift, for one week only. I like all of the bartenders at Sleep Out’s, but most of the wild and crazy stuff that has made Sleep Out’s so much fun the past few months has happened on Emma’s watch. Only when Emma is working will you hear pearls of wisdom such as the following:

“Vagisil – rub it on your cooter!”

There will be mimosas, bloody marys, duck farts, steak, eggs benedict, pancakes, NTN Trivia, good friends and good times. It’s a can’t miss. It’s a Must Eat.

Got plans? Cancel them.

Afraid you’ll be too hung over from Saturday night? Learn to deal with it like I do. I’ll probably be out at Raiford’s drinking a 40 or at the Diamond drinking a PBR until the wee hours, but I’ll still make it to brunch. You can too.

Have church on Sunday morning? Skip it. God won’t mind. Seriously. Hang on, let me post a transcript of a conversation I had on AIM last night:

paul38103: so, god, did you hear about sleep out’s?

god: of course i did, i hear everything. emma’s back on for brunch this sunday.

paul38103: can i ask a favor?

god: sure, go for it

paul38103: would you be terribly mad if i told people to skip church and come to brunch instead?

god: fine with me

god: church would be more interesting if they served duck farts like sleep out’s does

god: and if they replaced the choir with music by kermit the me-damn frog

god: anything else i can do for you, paul?

paul38103: yeah, how about sending some more romanians over to memphis?

god: workin on it

paul38103: all right, thanks god, you’re a sport. gotta go, i need to clean the lint out of my dryer

god: ok talk to u later d00d

See? It’s totally okay if you skip church to come to Sleep Out’s on Sunday.

All right… time for another four and a half hours in Cubicle Hell. Tonight I will most likely be at the Saucer, playing trivia and listening to one of my team members complain because the waitress didn’t bring his Duvel in the correct glass. Have a good afternoon everybody…

Couple of weeks ago, I mentioned Bren Olswanger, aka Bren from The Apprentice, who ran for judge in the August 3 election. Well, today he found my blog and sent me an e-mail… turns out I know him not only from The Apprentice, but from class – he was one of my computer science students at the U of M in the mid ’90s. I always thought that name sounded a bit familiar but I never could figure out why… he was in one of those big auditorium classes that seated 90 and ended up seating 105 because I’d give people permission to add over the limit. Kinda cool, I taught a celebrity.

After work, I gave a Romanian a ride to the mall. “I had planned to go there at 1, but my ride never showed up,” she told me. Now I only have 4 hours to shop instead of 8.” No kidding. She was going to spend EIGHT hours shopping. I dropped her off at TJ Maxx across from the mall and went in myself to look for shirts (didn’t buy any though – the selection reminded me what a ghettofabulous town Memphis is). By the time I was done, about 10 minutes later, she already had a cart full of purses. Man… I feel sorry for her future husband, whoever he turns out to be. Actually, I don’t feel sorry for him at all, because she’s totally hot.

She had someone else coming to pick her up at 9, so after making a quick visit to OfficeMax to pick up a wireless router, I got out of East Bumblefuck as quickly as possible and headed to Young Avenue Deli for the Blogger Bash.

Finally met Philip in person after reading his blog for the better part of a year. He told me that his readership, which has been averaging about 100 a day recently, jumped to 350 after he posted a sorority pic where the girls all had bare breasts with stickers over their nipples. Wow.

Hey Philip, I wonder how many extra hits you’ll get from people clicking over from my blog in the next 24 hours?

Reminds me… I need to upgrade my tracker, which means I’ll have to reset it and lose all the data I’ve collected over the past 5 years. Kind of makes me sad… it’s recorded over 30,000 visits to my blog, including 81 from Romania. But, I guess it’s time for a fresh start. Actually, it’s probably a good thing because it figures years of time when no one was looking at my blog into the average and reports it as something like 82 visits per day, when in fact I’ve really been averaging 220-250 visits to my blog on weekdays and about 135 on weekends. I’ll reset it sometime this weekend. If you’ve never seen my tracker, scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on the planet icon – you can get one for your site for free.

Having such a well-read blog is fun sometimes… people send me e-mails all the time saying, “Did you know (person I’ve mentioned in my blog) was at (location) with (other person) last night?” I wind up finding out a lot of things I’m not “supposed” to know. Heh.

It looks like my post advertising the Emma Sunday Brunch Extravaganza this Sunday at Sleep Out’s from 11 to 3 is working. Looks like fellow bloggers Philip and Semi-Charmed Kat will both be there. Boobs have been something of a theme up there recently, and for that reason I have a feeling Kat will feel right at home.

Kat is also somewhat peeved because when she does a Google search for herself, her blog doesn’t come up as the number-one hit – MY blog does. Kat is starting to learn who really matters on the Internet.

Serrabee tells me that Papa Top’s West Coast Turnaround is a good option for Saturday night. They play classic country and are a lot of fun. They’ll be playing at Automatic Slim’s. Might be something fun and different to do – Slim’s isn’t on my normal rotation of downtown bars.

Tomorrow at lunch I’ll be giving a talk at a convention organized by MLGW to teach community members how to blog. My portion of the program (about 10 minutes I think) will be blogger activism, and how blogging was used to successfully address a community issue (crime – I’ll be talking about the formative days of Residents for a Safer Downtown Memphis).

Random fact of the day: In Canada, the Buick LaCrosse is sold as the Buick Allure, because “lacrosse” is Quebecois slang for masturbation.

And with that, you’re smarter than you were 30 seconds ago. Maybe Pete will ask that question on trivia night on Tuesday. I’m still wide awake, so I guess I have time to set up my wireless router before I go to bed.

Just a quick post to say that I had lunch at Dawgie Style downtown today. For $5.41 including tax I had a Chicago-style hot dog with mustard, relish, onions, pickle spear, peppers, and tomatoes. The whole thing fell apart as I ate it, and I don’t remember having so much fun making a mess of my food since I was a kid. I scooped it up with my hands and ate it; I believe it’s sacrilege to use a fork to eat a hot dog.

The owners are so nice too. While I was there, the owner noticed a woman who wasn’t eating a hot dog, and asked if she was a vegetarian. When she said she was, he sat down with her and asked what she’d like to see added to the menu, stressing that he wanted to add quality items.

Next time I’ll get the New York style dog with mustard, sauerkraut and red onions. You gotta give this place a try – it’s on Madison between Second and Third, next to the cigar store.

I have a news article to post, and it’s absolutely hilarious, but I’m posting this from my work computer at the city schools, and this article DEFINITELY crosses the boundary of “inappropriate material.” So it will have to wait until this evening when I can post from home or a branch office.

I’m also considering doing F U Friday tomorrow, a concept which has become popular among local bloggers. It will be a one-time only thing, not something I plan on doing every Friday.

All right. Back to work.