• 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.