• This Leprechaun Robbery business just gets weirder and weirder. Turns out our Leprechaun Robber used another festive getup to break into a Brentwood middle and elementary school back in 2007. [Tennessean]
• Metro is practically begging for people to apply to their Teaching Fellows program, so if you’re about to graduate from college or you’re looking for a career change, the applications are due Monday. [WSMV]
• We forgot to tell you that the people who dressed the naked statues up for St. Patty’s Day came clean, and it was indeed the Willis Clan. For those wondering, they actually custom-tailored the clothes to fit the giant-people statues. [Tennessean]
• It’s not going to rain tomorrow, hooray! We’re actually supposed to get another day sort of like today and then the rain will move in on Sunday. [NashvilleWX]

Photo by turkeyjerky.

Good morning, Nashville. Despite the fact that we’ve all been navigating around the convention center construction and road closures for several weeks, the “groundbreaking” ceremony is scheduled for Monday. During that time, the Mayor and other city leaders will do that thing where they put on hard hats and pretend to dig important holes while people take pictures. Should be a party.

• No jobs for you. After yesterday’s news that our February unemployment rate was 10.7% (this is the third straight month), we’re disappointed to hear that the new $38 billion federal jobs package won’t really make much of a difference in Tennessee.
• Pekka! Preds goalie Pekka Rinne is on fire this season, racking up his 12th shutout in last night’s 5-0 win over the Minnesota Wild. Rinne is only the second Nashville goalie to do this.
• Bits & pieces. Williamson County was named the most conservative-friendly county in America by some political publication … A chunk of I-440 west will be closed this weekend … 600 Tennessee National Guardsmen are headed home from Iraq this weekend … At least a few of the big TennCare cuts will now be postponed for a year.

Photo by ept_0202.

• We hope you all enjoyed slaving over your brackets only to have them blown at the last possible moment during Vandy’s big upset against Murray State this afternoon. You’re in good company, though; even the President lost this one. [City Paper]
• Now here’s an interesting twist: The Leprechaun Bank Robber from yesterday and the Santa Bank Robber from Christmastime are actually the same person. [WTVF]
• Oh hey! It turns out that the County Clerk offices actually were not breaking any laws by playing slot machines yesterday, despite the best efforts of News Channel 5 to prove otherwise. John Arriola apologized anyway (sort of), saying: “Even though I did not know this was happening and even though everything was technically legal and ethical, it should not have happened, and I take full responsibility.” [WTVF]
• Gwyneth Paltrow had some super-flattering things to say about our city in her blog this morning. Though we can’t quite picture her packing away some Prince’s Hot Chicken and we’re not quite sure where this Fido inside of Bongo Java is and her shoutout to the Turnip Truck’s “staff of hipsters” makes us giggle, we sure do appreciate the love. Come on back and see us, Gwyneth, ya hear? [GOOP]
• We’re feeling for our friends at the Tennessean this afternoon upon hearing the news that parent company Gannett gave its CEO a $1.6 million raise despite laying off 6,000 people and imposing unpaid furloughs on most of the folks left. [Poynter]

Photo by Nathan T. Baker.

Good morning, Nashville. About 7,000 Vanderbilt students are the lucky recipients of a year’s worth of free identity theft protection after a professor’s computer was stolen containing their social security numbers. Apparently the incident happened in February, and the school has since instructed professors to “purge personal information like social security numbers from their files.” No kidding.

• Hog wild. Tennessee will soon begin hunting feral hogs from the sky, because these hogs eat crops and carry diseases and “breed prolifically.” They estimate they can wipe out 400 hogs in just 8 hours of helicopter hunting.
• Playing the slots. News Channel 5 busted up a St. Patrick’s Day party at County Clerk John Arriola’s office yesterday by barging into the break room and discovering that city employees were amusing themselves with slot machines. After hassling the employees, the news crew was asked to leave but continued being obnoxious, so now there is a painfully awkward news story to document the whole thing.
• Bits & pieces. We always love it when we make INTERNATIONAL NEWS for things like yesterday’s unsuccessful leprechaun bank robbery (Thanks to Drew L. for the tip) … Hey East Tennessee, could you stop falling apart already? … Lest you forget about all the water main street closures downtown … We’ve got some wet weather in store for the weekend.

Photo by Karen Alisa.

• Tennessee’s Chief Medical Examiner was busted for felony marijuana possession today while staying at a hotel in Mississippi. Predictably, the state immediately terminated his contract and he’s on 90-day suspension as Chief Medical Examiner for the city of Nashville. [WKRN]
• Another reminder that DUI checkpoints have been set up around the city today. No, this does not mean that you should avoid the checkpoints. Yes, this does mean that you should not drive drunk. If you find yourself in a pinch, the Davidson County Sheriff’s Office is offering sober rides until 2am if you call 862-RIDE. [WTVF]
• And OH THANK GOODNESS the Fishtanks In Barbershops bill passed! [WTVF]
• A waterway near the airport was found to be “polluted to the point that I could find only sewage fungus and black sludge when examining the stream for indicators of healthy biology,” according to a representative of the Tennessee Department of Environment. Unfortunately, some federally endangered crayfish were also found dead and the pollution comes from airplane de-icing. [Tennessean]
• Two bank robbery suspects, one dressed as a leprechaun, were killed this afternoon after allegedly holding up a bank in Gallatin. [WTVF]

Photo by victorjames615.

So, as it goes, we were a little distracted by something shiny in the Demonbreun roundabout this morning, and our St. Patty’s Day roundup is rolling in a little late. But it’s never too late for green beer, so check out our top picks for the evening. Be safe, and program 862-RIDE into your phones now – It’s the sheriff’s Sober Ride program, and it’s good for a free ride home until 2am.

Get Lucky East Yazoo Brew Pub Crawl. 7pm-12am, East Nashville’s Five Points, free. Pub crawl around East Nashville’s Five Points, beginning the evening with a Yazoo beer chug contest at Red Door and ending with the “sexiest dressed” contest at 3 Crow Bar, grand prize giveaways and more! We love the Get Lucky East crawl, but good luck getting in the doors. It’ll be packed!

The Greenman Cometh St. Patty’s Day at MAI. 10pm-3am, MAI, free. Our hats go off to MAI for the It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia reference, and for a free party with sweet DJs and cheap Guiness and carbombs. And well, you know how we feel about the Greenman here at Nashvillest… or do you?

David Bazan with Headlights.  9pm, Exit/In, $12. Okay okay, so it’s not a St. Patty’s Day event per se, but it’s where your Nashvillest editors will be spending the first part of their holiday evening. We highly recommend this show if you’re not in the green-beer-and-car-bombs mood.

St. Patty’s Day at Dan McGuinness. All day, both locations, $10 cover. Dan McG’s kicked off their celebration early this morning, Kegs ‘n Eggs style. For the rest of the day, they’re serving up Shepherd’s Pie, corned beef & cabbage, fish & chips, beef & guinness and all the rest of your favorite St. Patty’s fare. The music is already going strong, and we have a sneaking suspicion that the Roundabout Vandals are one of the performing acts this evening. Will we get a confession? We’ll see!

McPatty’s Fest. McFadden’s, $10. Plenty of music & shenanegins to go around. Space Capone? A Lucky Charms eating contest? You clearly can’t go wrong with this one.

St. Patrick’s Day at 1808. 1808 Grille, 11am-10pm, $15 whiskey tasting / $12 pub-style menu. The first 100 guests to 1808 Grille’s whiskey tasting will take home a free whiskey glass, which we think is a pretty sweet deal.

St. Patrick’s Day at Whiskey Kitchen. 5pm-close. Give us any excuse to hang out at the Whiskey Kitchen, and we’ll take it. 2-for-1 Jameson is tonight’s reason!

St. Patrick’s Day at Mulligan’s. 4pm-close, cover starts at $5. Celebrate St. Patrick’s Day at a traditional Irish pub with live music, dancing, green beer, and all the other usual suspects.

Jimmy Kelly’s St. Patrick’s Day. 5pm-close. It’s Jimmy Kelly’s 75th annual St. Patrick’s Day party, which is reason enough to attend. At the oldest St. Patrick’s Day party in town, you’ll hear traditional Irish music by Les Kerr & the Bayou Band, eat traditional corned beef n’ cabbage, and drink yourself silly. It is St. Patty’s Day, after all.

St. Patrick’s Day at Hard Rock Cafe. 8pm, $5. While many St. Patty’s parties will set you back $10 or more, the Hard Rock is charging a wee $5 cover tonight. As you might expect by now, the evening will feature live music (Stacy Mitchhart Band, Kendra Chantelle, Brennin and Clay Evans).

St. Patrick’s Day Party at the Flying Saucer. 9pm, $6. Live music by Bueller until the wee hours (1am), and lots of great drink specials on Irish beer.

Photo by Dizzy Girl.

Check out the pics below, and stay tuned for our St. Patty’s Day roundup coming soon. See also: The Tennessean gets video of the clothed statue and the reactions of a few shocked Nashvillians.

Update: Thanks to an anonymous tipster, we think we’ve pinpointed the pranksters, and our initial guess of Dan McGuinness was close. The bandit(s) may be appearing there tonight. Use your imagination!

Good morning, Nashville, and happy St. Patrick’s Day!  Councilman Charlie Tygard has chosen to hold off on a bill he was sponsoring that would have reworked our public art funding to spread the love all across the city rather than just downtown. As much as we’d love to see some more riverfront rollercoasters, naked people and giant buffaloes spring up in other parts of Nashville, it looks like the Metro Arts Commission is doing a fine job of this on their own and Councilman Tygard doesn’t feel they need the bill anymore.

• Measure it out. Nashvillians are making a splash this year at SXSW and trying to prove to the world that there are no other music cities quite like this Music City. Of course, you all know where we stand on this issue.
• Pandora’s box. Speaking of luring people to our fair city, the Nashville Convention & Visitors Bureau is kicking around a new concept of using Pandora internet radio to give people a little taste of the Nashville flavor. For the next month or so, there will be a Music City button that listeners can click to hear some of the best Nashville tunes that are hopefully not all country.
• Bits & pieces. Downtown Presbyterian might be getting a boozy new neighbor … Rocketown kids are getting into the parking business and learning a little along the way … This is the first we’ve heard of the Radnor Lake Rambo … Council members Megan Barry, Ronnie Steine and Erik Cole are urging Metro to investigate private employers accused of discrimination based on gender identity … We can’t remember if we told you about the TVA’s latest rate hike scheduled for April because we’ve officially lost count of these.

Photo by Peppysis.

• A North Carolinian man stole a giant Statue of Liberty replica from the front yard of a Dickson County woman and it’s sort of a sad story. They caught the thief, but the statue is irreparable. [Tennessean]
• Another unfortunate story that leaves us with an, er, interesting headline is this one: “Baby Unhurt After Being Left In Oven.” [WSMV]
• And then there was the teen who wandered into a Bell Road Mapco in search of Band-Aids after being shot in the hip by accident. Band-Aids. [WSMV]
• Sounds tickets for the 2010 season went on sale today! Don’t forget about those new Throwback Thursdays. [WSMV]

Photo by ept_0202.

Good morning, Nashville. On the eve of St. Patty’s Day, and this means that folks will find many ways to entertain themselves and most of those ways will involve drinking alcohol. A few of those folks will likely get behind the wheel and try to drive themselves from Point A to Point B, endangering everyone else on the road. So, consider this your friendly warning that you shouldn’t be one of those people and that Metro will have sobriety checkpoints all over the city to make sure everyone stays safe and has fun.

• All downhill from here. Tennessee’s Stimulus Czar (yes, we have one of those) announced yesterday that our state has probably peaked in its use of federal stimulus money and in stimulus job creation.
• Not so fast. The state Senate is working to pass a bill that would revoke the governor’s right to limit or stop gun sales altogether should Tennessee find itself in a state of emergency.
• Bits & pieces. Nashville’s Salahadeen Center is reaching out to the sizeable local Kurdish population in hopes of drumming up participation in the upcoming census … The TVA is still trying to learn about the ins and outs of dry ash storage, which would hopefully lessen the chances of something like the Kingston spill happening again … East Tennessee is still falling apart a little bit … Tennessee is changing up the student vaccination requirements by adding a few new ones to the list.

Photo by Paul Nicholson.