Spring may mean pollen and the start of Braves baseball to you, but for Decatur High Juniors, it means the start of SAT season.

Last year, Decatur had the highest systemwide SAT scores in the state.  But this year, a group of Decatur students are speaking out and criticizing Decatur City Hall for not allowing them to perform even better than their already impressive levels on the standardized test.

“We love Decatur and that’s the problem.” said one local student who totally exists.  “How are we supposed to post the best scores in the country on a dreadfully dull, yet necessary multiple choice test when there’s so much to do in this freakin’ town? And I don’t even need a car to do it?! Come on.”

He continued, “I have friends in Cobb, Gwinnett and Fayette counties and I know they don’t need to deal with the distractions that I do.  Once they come home from sports practice after school, they know they’re stuck in the house until their parents can drive them somewhere.  So they can buckle down and study.  But me?  I’ve got friends left and right stopping by the house on the way somewhere, asking if I want to go to the Square or CVS or some event downtown.  How am I supposed to get anything done with that kind of constant temptation?”

A group of students have signed a petition asking the city to cancel all city-sponsored events and festivals for the coming year and to stop funding sidewalk repairs around the city in hopes that it can lessen distractions as they prepare to take this Spring’s round of SATs.

“Sidewalk repairs have probably done more to hurt Decatur students than any single factor out there.  And these are my tax dollars at work!  Well, my parents’ tax dollars.” said a student who recently signed the online petition.  They added, “I’m pretty sure its a conspiracy.”

The parent of an affected student was incapable of commenting on this story because any mention of the school system quickly devolved into a panicked rant on school enrollment levels, before morphing into a philosophical statement on restaurant etiquette and ending with a mention about how their friend saw a coyote in a neighborhood recycle bin last week.

City officials declined to comment on this story because it totally didn’t happen.

Pic courtesy of Invisible Summer

Google’s April Fools Day joke this year is great.  Play PacMan to your heart’s content on the streets of your city in Google Maps!

That of course includes Decatur.

Click this link to head on over and start playing Pac Man around Decatur Square right now!  (The loop around the Old Courthouse makes the whole game extra tricky.)

If you want to play another area, you can leave the PacMan overlay, adjust your location and then click the Pac Man icon in the lower-left corner.

Happy chomping!

It seems increasingly common that talk of Decatur comes to include the phrase, “Victim of its own success.” And it’s true. Our years of vision and hard work are absolutely paying off, with all the challenges such transformation entails.

For better or for worse, we’re on the map.

So that got me thinking: What if the city ran a series of ads that played up some of our most desirable qualities, but in a way that made them seem a little less desirable?

Could we, with a healthy dose of painful honesty, maybe turn the heat down a bit?

Don’t get me wrong. I love Decatur and see the Town Center Plan and subsequent Strategic Plans as visionary models for collaborative community building. But, dang! I don’t want us to flame out. Be a flash in the pan. For everyone’s sake, our renaissance needs to be long-term proposition.

So, submitted for your approval are three parody ads (two fall after the jump) addressing a handful of our most discussed and presumably admired qualities: our restaurant scene; our schools; and our sense of community.

Maybe they can help slow things down a bit to a more manageable pace of change. What do you think? Take a gander (click each ad for a larger view), then put on your Don Draper hat and submit some parodies of your own. We’ll even mock up the funniest, most affectionate ones if they’re fleshed out with headline and text.

Read the rest of this entry »

Who knew that Decatur had it’s own version of Punxsutawney Phil and Gen. Beauregard Lee?

Lori send in this great video of guinea pig Decatur Frank, “the great prognosticator of Decatur”, at the bandstand this morning announcing to the entire Decatur community and the larger world that he did in fact see his shadow.

So go buy a shovel and a couple more sleds.  It sounds like we’re in for six more weeks of winter. 

Winnona Park Elementary Principal Greg Wiseman recently braved the ripples and lily pads of the elementary school pond for this gripping photo op.

Thanks to Ilene and Chris for the great pic!

Downtown Decatur-based Pogo Pictures sends along an email urging DM readers to vote for their “Goat 4 Sale” ad, which is a finalist for this year’s Doritos Super Bowl commercial contest.

The ad is already racking up supporters at big name media companies like Fast Company and Jezebel.   The top two voted ads will appear during this year’s Super Bowl.

If you’re wondering how such an ad came to be, here’s the inspiration…

Are you interested in participating in a gnome march this weekend?  Would you be even more interested if it was a world-record breaking gnome march??  Jenn points to this Facebook post…

Gnomies! The bloody Brits have the record now at 478 gnomes! Damn! Last year we had 239. Are we going to give up? Never! Why do we throw our pointy red hats in the ring year after year? Because it is ridiculously fun and we are silly people!

SO, bring two friends and let’s git ’em! We are in cahoots with the Euclid Avenue Yacht Club and marching in the Inman Park Festival Parade, as always!

To be counted, you need: a pointy RED hat, American working class garden gnome attire (ie. overalls), and a sign expressing your pet gnome issue. Popular issues with gnomes are gnomophobia, dandelion genocide, and the legalization of weeds, etc.

Please be sure to sign in, get your individual gnome portrait taken, and stay for the group photo at the finish of the parade!

We will adjourn to the Euclid Avenue Yacht Club afterwards for our victory celebration!