• So Twitter is was down, you say? That’s as good an excuse as any to catch up on the real news.
• Such as: Young Buck’s IRS auction happened this morning, so you’re out of luck if you were hoping to snag any of that sweet memorabilia. If we told you what happened to the glow mirror marijuana leaf picture, we’d have to kill ya.
• TriStar Southern Hills Hospital has started using a fancy high-tech badge to track how often their employees are washing their hands. The badge also indicates when they’ve walked into a room, and the room greets them by name. The future is now.
• Whiskey theft is a pretty hefty offense here in Tennessee.
• Tennessee’s blood supply is at a 15-year low, so now is a great time to find your nearest Red Cross and donate.
• Shea Weber is staying, hooray! Now, let’s read this depressing thing about how his contract costs about as much as the entire Bridgestone Arena.
• Governor Haslam is in the unique position of defending the state’s interational director in Economic and Community Development Samar Ali against accusations of being “an inroad of spreading Sharia Law in state government.” Ali is from Waverly, Tennessee, her father is a colonel in the Tennessee National Guard, and she just wrapped up a White House fellowship last year.
• “Murfreesboro Police said a drunken homeless man greeted folks on the greenway there with a full moon.” Doesn’t it sound so friendly that way?
• Kenny Britt will not be starting training camp with the rest of the Titans due to a bum knee. And PS: He tried to drive drunk into Fort Campbell last week?
• Sex ed teachers are still sort of confused about that “gateway sexual activity” concept.
• Following last week’s movie theater shooting in Aurora, Nashville gun shops say they haven’t noticed any increase in sales.

Photo by Paul Nicholson.

• Sinkhole! Other sinkhole! If you don’t hear from us some day this week, we’ve probably been swallowed into the earth.
• And that giant hole on West End that has been there since we moved here, basically, is finally set to turn into hotels or something but we can’t read the rest of the article because of the paywall. So.
• Jack Daniels cordially invites you to stop using their trademarked logo design, if you don’t mind.
• Malt-flavored Tennessee-themed Mountain Dew, anyone?
• Everyone’s worst nightmare came true the other day as a worker at the waste water treatment facility took a tumble into a sludge tank. Physically speaking, he’s going to be fine.
• Kenny Britt landed himself in the drunk tank this past weekend after trying to drive onto the Fort Campbell Army base, while intoxicated. Clap clap, KB.
• We Tennesseans love our e-readers.
• “You get an ice rink, and you get an ice rink!” – Nashville Predators

Photo by decafeined.

• Don’t y’all just hate Alaska, sometimes?
• Meanwhile in West Tennessee, a man was “found naked and hugging a fan.” And who could blame him? Anyway, there was maybe some meth involved and he left a trail of butt prints and neighbors hollering things like “Don’t look, Ethel!” in his wake before getting picked up by the police and taken to (hopefully an air conditioned) jail.
• A federal judge overturned the state court decision to keep the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro from opening, meaning that the facility will likely be up and running by sundown tonight which marks the start of Ramadan if it passes county inspection.
• Congratulations, Tennessee: We are currently tied with Alabama and Mississippi for being the worst state at carpooling.
• Shea Weber reportedly has a 14-year $100 million offer on the table from the Flyers and the Preds have one week to match it. Shea has been with the Preds since 2006.
• Opryland started decorating for Christmas yesterday!
• Metro Schools were forced to slice $3.5 million from their budget, and were actually able to increase starting salaries to $40,000 per year. They’ve also been making good use of the funds kicked back by the 53-cent property tax increase by using it to train more teachers ahead of the 2012 school year.
• Rutherford County residents are understandably kind of concerned about the gun range in their backyards.

• The Titans and Chris Johnson (because CJ is his own thing) are planning a successful outing this year and CJ2K has already informed everyone that he expects to have a big role.
• In other Titans news, Forbes has them listed as the 32-most valuable sports franchise in the world. Also, Kenny Britt is having some more knee problems that we can probably trace back to that glorious night of Britney Spears lapdances.
• The MTA is breakin’ all sorts of records with their ridership, which reminds us! Here is a Kickstarter-ish thing for a new MTA app that would deliver our bus info in real-time.
• Mark your calendars: The Tennessee sales tax holiday is August 3-5!
• You should probably not start out your day by reading about this swarm of brown recluse spiders that took over an apartment in Brentwood like something straight out of a horror movie.
• But you probably should immediately read up on what those crazy/awesome Kentuckians are doing, which involves a 38-foot alien flying saucer “comprised of two tons of metal and flashing lights, it’s designed to give visitors an alien experience.” The Little Green Men Festival will be held on August 17th-18th in Kelly, KY, and we’re not gonna lie–we’ll probably see you there.
• Director of Schools Jesse Register and the Metro School Board are being sued by the SEIU for rescinding a labor policy adopted back in 2000.
• The Barista Parlor is the latest establishment to draw some national attention to our fair city in the New York Times. We’ll take it!
• The Metro Council repealed a piece of the zoning code that prevented farmer’s from setting up roadside stands to sell their produce.
• We can see it now: “Franklin, Tennessee: Home of the world’s only electric stretch limo.” Y/Y?

• Westboro Baptist Church’s protest at Cross Point this weekend sort of fizzled out when about 150 folks showed up to counterprotest and reportedly held up a 50-foot black plastic sheet to shield the church from Westboro’s signage.
• Thanks to their delicious nacho salad, veggie burger and grilled veggie wrap, Greer Stadium made PETA’s list of the Top 10 most vegetarian-friendly major- or minor-league baseball parks in the country.
• The hits keep coming for Young Buck, and not in a good way. After the IRS released a list of items to be auctioned later this month, Young Buck has now been sentenced to 18 months in prison on federal weapons charges.
• The Nashville Zoo’s 20-year old anaconda graduated to glory this weekend due to “age-related complications.” Zoo curators note that most anacondas can be kind of cranky, but this one had a charming disposition and she will be sorely missed.
• Taxi drama! While battling for permits, Volunteer Taxi is accusing newcomers Green Cab of simply being a front for the more established Checker Cab, so that they can get more cabs on the road.
• According to Forbes, Nashville ranks 11 out of 51 major US cities for stretching your paycheck.
• One woman who was in town for NAMM last weekend says she was bitten more than 200 times by bedbugs at the Howard Johnson hotel on Brick Church Pike. Yikes!

• Since the yesterday’s news about the $84K tank of gas, even more folks have stepped forward with crazy charges from Mapco. The good news is, our hero from yesterday’s story finally had his bank account reinstated Thursday morning.
• The DMV on Centennial Boulevard is stepping up their game by using iPads to let folks serve themselves rather than waiting in the notoriously long lines.
• We can’t not write about an overturned liquor truck, which contained only four bottles of wine. Luckily the four bottles of wine (and the driver!) made it out unharmed.
• And this morning’s badass award goes to this guy, who caught a four-foot rattlesnake with his bare hands out in Bells Bend. For the children.
• A suspect has been arrested following a mailman’s gruesome lunchtime discovery of a headless body in South Nashville yesterday.
• Early voting is underway for the August 7th election for the state primary and county general elections. Get your sample ballot here.
• Moonpie drama!
• As we shuffle our way through the news this morning, it is still raining. Though we can hardly bring ourselves to complain since this week’s many downpours have gone a long way in helping our rain deficit. Rutherford County and Clarksville have even lifted their burn bans, so y’all out in Murfreesboro can light fires to your hearts’ content.

Photo by Victor Guy.

• We’re pretty excited about that new show Nashville starring Connie Britton (Tami Taylor, what up!), and the show’s producers are looking for some locals to cast as extras. If you’re interested, head out to Franklin this Saturday from 10am-12pm.
• In light of the solid rain in today’s forecast and Tuesday’s flash floods, can we officially call off the drought yet?
• Tennessee lost an estimated 68,000 manufacturing jobs during the recession.
• The good news is, we’ve got a budget surplus of $540 million halfway through the budget year in Tennessee, so that’s cool.
• This guy was just hanging out in Donelson last week innocently filling up his gas tank at Mapco, when he checked his bank statement later to find that he actually paid $84,522.54 for that tank of gas. Mapco generously kicked him a $100 gift card to “get through the weekend,” except he still can’t get into his bank account a week later and $100 doesn’t really get you that far in the year 2012.
• Vandy managed to pack out their bookstore yesterday for the grand revealing of their new football uniforms, which they hope look faster and feel sexier. We’ll be happy to confirm the latter.
• The city is eyeing up a new bus rapid transit route to connect the White Bridge Road area with Five Points, which would require some additional bus-only lanes for part of the route and about $175 million, for which the city plans to seek federal funding. As of the forums this week, West Nashvillians are a little skeptical while East Nashvillians seem pretty excited.
• Speaking of White Bridge, Calhoun’s closed up shop after 25 years and didn’t bother to tell any of its 52 employees, who showed up for work to find the establishment was no longer open.

Photo by Rosa Say.