A Grand Lynching

Billy Lynch is considered the Godfather of Metro. He's been through six different mayors over 45 years and run many different departments from HR, to Fire, to Public Works. I never met him but Mari knows him pretty well (I secretly think Mari is the other Godfather of Metro, literally everywhere I go everyone knows who she is, but that's another story.) He's a powerful player and he's retiring. When we got invited I thought, being such a popular and influential guy, there'd be decent crowd, a few hundred maybe? He packed an entire ballroom to standing room only, it was pretty amazing. It says something that with Mayor Dean sitting right there (along with Phil Bredesen, Bill Boner, and with Bill Purcell Skyped in) more than one speaker called him the real Mayor of Nashville. Dean didn't look too thrilled about that. Anyway, it was fun and a very interesting peak into the history and politics of Nashville. Oh, and he had cookies.

Mixed Emotions

I was always against the MCC. I thought it was a big waste of money and a lot of what I read said the numbers they used to justify its construction (such as ROI from conventions) were very inflated. That said, it really is impressive inside and very pretty. If they had to build it, it seems they did it right.

Getting Centered

We went to the new Music City Center for the first time, having been invited to Billy Lynch's retirement gala. I was almost as interested in seeing the inside of this building as I was in the party.

Carpet Bagger

I got to help decide what our new carpet and tile should be at work since they wanted a man's opinion on the formerly all female panel. Here's my pick (trust me the others were worse.) Nothing but cutting edge, exciting news here at Snicker Snack.

Two Cute

Mad likes watching the show Too Cute on Animal Planet.

Starry Made Of Stars

This is a repost of something Amanda sent me (special thanks to her) that I had to put up so I'd have it saved somewhere. It's Starry Night made up of images from the Hubble Telescope. Very cool!

In Soviet Russia, Subway Takes You

Metro: Last Light, the sequel to Metro: 2033 (which I played but I can't find the post to link, so maybe I didn't blog it.) Kind of the opposite of Far Cry 3 in that the gameplay was only average, but the story was fantastic. Which goes to show the story is the thing, because despite playing it for much less time than FC3 I'm walking away from it with a better impression. Also, this game was made by a Russian studio, takes place in Russia, and has some interesting peeks at different cultural views and legends.

The Butler

We saw this today (for some reason the French version amused me), and it was OK. Great acting but it suffered from what one review called "an uneven script." It seemed to flash by interesting things and linger on other stuff that was more mundane. Also, we thought it would be about his life at the White House but very little of it involved that, it was mostly about his family and the civil rights movement. Then as we were driving home Mari looked the inspiration up...turns out that aside from there being a black butler that served the White House for 30 years, everything else in the movie was made up. We were under the impression it was semi-biographical, but it's not at all so that kind of knocked our opinion down a bit as well.

Navel Gazing

I love my wife.

Far Cry 3

Hard to give a final consensus on this game. The gameplay was fantastic, which I guess is the most important thing. But the plot was thin at best and most of the voice acting was terrible, with the exception of one character named Vaas who was so well done he was wasted on the plot.

Flash Unflood

And just like that, most of the water is gone and the fire department is packing up. Our theory is something was blocking the drainage pipe and the firemen fixed it because it all drained out in a hurry. Our house is fine and I'm thrilled once more that we got the water heater moved because I know our crawl space is/was flooded. Off to work.

Getting High

The houses across the street have flooded and it's getting higher, this doesn't do it justice but that's a lake in the street (not the one they blocked off which is even deeper) and our house is just up that curb. Getting nervous.

What The Flood?

It's been raining pretty steadily the last few days, which culminated this morning in a flood similar to the one in 2010, only somehow worse. It was bad enough the fire department came and blocked off the street when the water got too deep. For reference check out the water level on those cars to the right, and that's not in the deep area which is farther up.

WOTM

August comes rolling in, just like it has since 45 BC. Entertaining and informative? We do it all here at "the Snack" (tm).