See the Peking Acrobats

For those of you in the Nashville area that have the time, there is something that I recommend you see. The Peking Acrobats have a daily show in the Opryland Hotel Delta Conservatory at 8:30 pm which will run until early September. I am not easily impressed with "stunt show" types, but these performers were very good. It was well worth the walk and navigating the crowd. The show is free. Parking at the hotel is $10, but you can park for free at Opry Mills and walk, also.

Darwin's flytape

A nice product at the store is that fly-killing stuff that you hang on a wall or ceiling. It has a scent that attracts flies and gooey surface that traps flies once they land on it.

My wife bought discount flytape. Instead of being scented, it has drawings of flies underneath the goo. I think the premise is that stupid flies will just run into it.

How to retaliate against the zoning commission

This is the story of what is perhaps the biggest eyesore in Nashville, A.K.A the Nathan Bedford Forrest statue on I-65.



There is a strip of unusable land where Interstate 65 and the train tracks to the CSX Radnor Yards run parallel between Harding Pl. and Old Hickory Blvd. The owner of the land spoke to city councilmen to get the area rezoned for permission to build a storage facility here, but when nearby residents complained, the city council voted against rezoning.

The landowner was upset, but how could he get even? A sign of complaint would violate city ordinances. However, there is no law against ugly statues of persons regarded as prominent white supremacist. (If you didn't know, Forrest was not only a notable Confederate Civil War general, but also a primary founder of the KKK. to be fair, NBF supporters claim that the KKK was not a white supremacy group until after he left the Klan, but that they were formed as a war reconstruction organization. I have no opinion on the matter.)



Atop the Bronze horse, is the silverish fiberglass Forrest with a pistol in one hand and sword in the other. He also has an expression that one makes after sitting on a thumb tack.

Of course, not everyone hates it. For instance this page is what the creator has to say.

Other notes: In the first picture, you see several white poles. These 13 used to each have a confederate flag.
Also, in the late 90's, there was a sign which essentially said," Welcome to Nashville: Future home of the ex-Tennessee Oilers" implying that Bud Adams would move the NFL team again to the next city that gave a sweeter deal. In 2002, there was a different sign added which said "Welcome to HistoricNashville site of U.S. Army War Crimes against black southerners @ Ft. Negley 1863."
In 2002, the statue was shot at, but the General was missed and only the horse was hit. I don't believe that is a bullet hole in his knee.
Finally, in the state of Tennessee, there are more statues and memorials to Forrest, than all three of our U.S. Presidents (Jackson, Polk and Johnson) combined.
EDIT to add: this post helped my blog get 666 hits. It probably doesn't mean anything...I'm just Sayin'...

Because he wanted clean air

Irony of the day:

I was at the grocery store yesterday, and a guy came in wearing a mask like this:



And, the only thing the guy bought was a carton of cigarettes.

Dr. Wham

Out of all of the Dr. Pepper clones I have tried, I am not sure if I have tasted one as close to the original as this one. Dr. Wham is Dr. Pepper clone made by Buffalo Rock, the Pepsi distributor for a large portion of Alabama. They have a Jekyll and Hyde thing going in their ad: The Good Doctor gone mad.

Currently, there are no plans to distribute a Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr. Wham Berries and Cream.






P.S. At this time, reports are not clear as to whether or not the product contains enough Caffeine to Wake you up Before you Go-Go.

Fireworks and Jewelry

There's one thing that fireworks and jewelry both have in common: They are both usually advertised as being 70% off. If you saw a store for either one that claimed to have prices 10% off, you wouldn't be impressed. On the other hand, if they're all 70% off, then 70% off isn't really 70% off.