Have you ever heard of Mosio? I hadn’t until recently, but Mosio is a “mobile community  enabling you to text any question from your phone and have it answered by real people (other Mosio members).” It won the 2008 SXSW award for the best Mobile Web application, and users in Nashville are taking advantage of the wisdom of its members and asking for advice. Here are a few things you might have learned about Nashville by using Mosio recently:

• Casa Fiesta and La Hacienda Tortilleria No. 1 are the top-ranked Mexican restaurants in Nashville, but they might or might not be open on July 4th.
• St. Louis is 300 miles away (4 hours and 45 minutes by car).
• Image Optical on West End is one location where you can buy sunglasses.
• Nashville’s population is 552,120 (city) or 613,856 (city and county), depending on how you categorize the area.
• The best place to buy a cowboy hat, RCC Western Store in Opry Mills Mall, is “slightly outside” downtown. (Sure it is. And Pacman Jones has an “occasional tendency” to get arrested.)
• Blackstone Restaurant and Brewery is a good pub serving lunch on West End Avenue.
• We still don’t have an IKEA store.
• Patsy Cline grew up in Winchester, Va., but lived in at least two locations in Nashville.
• Nashville is the capitol of Tennessee.
• Tour Supply on Cowan Street and Rock Block Guitar on Elliston Place are good places to buy Robert Keeley guitar effects.
• Watermark, Melting Pot and Jack’s BBQ are good downtown restaurants. Someone on Mosio thinks Robert’s Western Wear is a restaurant.
• The Perfect Pair in Green Hills is a good place to buy Mingle jewelry.
• Bonnaroo is held in Manchester, Tenn., each year, and it will change your life.
• Nashville is known for bad drivers and car accidents. (Shoot. I thought we settled this already.)

Mosio sounds like a pretty cool service, even if the information you receive isn’t always accurate. I’m not sure I’d make any life-or-death decisions based on some of the answers above, but I might use it the next time I’m looking for a good place to eat when I’m out of town. Mosio is free to use, and you can use it directly from your cell phone or via any of the numerous ways you can use Twitter (when Twitter is up and running, of course).

Tomorrow is the last day to register to vote in next month’s general election. There will be plenty of interest in Nashville’s School Board election and a few General Assembly primary races, but not a whole lot else. With early voting set to begin on July 18, the city Election Commission hasn’t even posted the ballot online yet. This election may serve as a study in contrast to the November session, when the hotly contested presidential race and, likely, the misguided English First initiative will be on voters’ minds. If you haven’t registered, please take time today to do so.

I’m not sure if “miss” is the right word for me when it comes to Nashville’s Y-107/WYHY-FM, but it definitely is for local disc-jockey DJ Shawn . Shawn has created a Y-107 tribute page for a station that dominated the local airwaves back in the 80s (and is now known as The River). He even credits “The Outrageous FM” for inspiring his career path.

As long as I can remember growing up in Nashville Tennessee, WYHY Lebanon, Nashville,Y-107 was my favorite radio station of all time! You never knew what you were going to hear next, maybe dead air, a cuss word or two, or most of all your favorite song! The Dj’s that made Y-107 what it was were always funny and really did have a good time on the air! The station was dubbed the “Outrageous FM” and that was what set them apart from the rest, they didn’t seem to play by the boring rules of modern day radio! They would play and say what they wanted most often when they wanted.  You could actually call the request line and get a song played, unless of course the song sucked, then the Dj’s would make a big joke out of it and probably you too, but it was all in good fun! No other stations in Nashville could even come close to the sound of Y-107! They ruled the airwaves!

I used to dream about one day becoming a DJ on Y-107 but sometimes life has other plans. I love my job as a nightclub DJ and have been doing it now for about 10 years. But I still feel that if I ever get the chance to DJ on the air I really hope it is a station like, The Outrageous FM, Y-107!

I remember the first time I went to the Y-107 studio to meet Gary Jeff Walker on the Friday 5 o’clock Whistle Party, he was kicked back with a beer in one hand, a cigarette in the other and a big fat boom mic in his face Rocking the 100,000 watt air waves! I couldn’t help but think, “Daaaaaaaaaamn, this is the life!” He even welcomed me as an in studio guest and let me say a few lines on the air! Needless to say I was nervous as hell! But it was a really cool feeling knowing my voice was being transmitted over a 150-mile radius of Nashville on a big fat 1000-foot tall antenna! The energy rush of live broadcast really got me excited about Dj’ing to a live crowd and wanting to entertain people with music. Thanks Gary Jeff Walker!!!

I recall having a love-hate relationship with Y-107 (mostly love in my younger years, mostly hate as I got older), but it was an unavoidable part of Nashville’s radio landscape at the time. If you are a native Nashvillian looking to reminisce, Shawn’s tribute page (complete with original audio files that may transport you back in time) will do the trick. There’s also an online Y-107 Museum and an archive of the station’s final Web site (after the “Outrageous” era, when it was searching for a new identity) prior to its becoming The River.

The Barbershop Harmony Society (note the Wikipedia entry), which is headquartered in Nashville and is hosting its annual meeting at the convention center this week, is performing on Seventh Avenue this morning. Hundreds of society members (above) are singing in the middle of the street. It’s surprisingly quite relaxing, especially from my vantage point a couple hundred feet overhead.

I don’t make it a habit to praise car dealerships, but this move by Darrell Waltrip’s company was both kind-hearted and savvy.

Waltrip said the general manager of his Franklin auto dealership, John Gallagher, alerted him to the [Tennessean] story and recommended the vehicle giveaway. “I thought that’s a no-brainer — let’s help this kid out,” Waltrip said after handing [Iraq war veteran Jay] Strobino the keys…

“There are so many fake sites,” he said. “You really have to be sure. We’re in the car business, and he got ripped off by someone pretending to be real.” Waltrip said he also was motivated by Strobino’s military service.

Strobino, who was injured in a firefight south of Baghdad in 2004, is a Silver Star medal recipient, the third highest-ranking military honor. When hearing the Honda dealership was going to give him a car Tuesday, Strobino, who described himself as being “broke,” said simply: “Are you serious?”

The cost of donating a nice used car to help a veteran in need was tiny compared with the substantial media exposure generated by a front-page story in the newspaper. This was a good deed and a smart decision to move fast and do the right thing. Well done.

According to the following statistic and related study, I am overdue for my next car accident:

Nashville drivers are 10 times less likely to get in a crash than the average U.S. driver and average about 11 years between collisions.

I last had a fender-bender in October 1995, so you’ve been warned. Does this mean that Nashville drivers’ reputation for being awful on the road is greatly exaggerated?

I’m all for people continuing to keep an eye on Google since the Web dynamo has so much power, but I think Google Street View is an amazing resource. I’m happy that my house is on it, and I don’t even mind that my Jeep is clearly visible in my driveway (above).

I think individuals should be able to opt-out if they desire, though I think their homes should be moderately obscured rather than being removed altogether. I can understand wanting to have faces blurred, too. I sure wouldn’t like it if my license plate number were discernible in the photo above, for instance. I disagree with the notion, though, that Google Street View should be an opt-in service:

“If they are going to do that, it seems like there should be some sort of consent,” said Vanderbilt University sportscaster Kevin Ingram, who lives in Hermitage. He said he wasn’t particularly troubled that his own home was pictured, “but they should at least ask.”

It is incredible that technology now grants us the ability to see street corners across the country with a few clicks of a mouse. If residents had to opt-in, though, almost no one would, and it would take a lifetime to get all the approvals needed. Even worse, the few people who did opt in would be easy targets because they would be unusual and easy to find. What makes Street View acceptable, in my opinion, is strength in numbers: If everyone is in there, what does it matter if you are, too?

I have virtually zero interest in auto racing, but I sure hope the Indy Racing League keeps its Nashville race here in town. The city essentially forfeited its two Winston Cup races in the mid-80s and has watched from the roadside as NASCAR has enjoyed an unprecedented boom the past two decades.

Nashville’s annual IRL race is good exposure for the city and adds to the entertainment options available for local residents. I will likely never traverse the gates at the superspeedway, but I hope that many others have the opportunity to do so to see IRL events and, hopefully someday, Sprint Cup events there.

As unlikely as adding a Sprint Cup date might be today, losing an IRL race would do nothing to help that long-term cause. It would be especially unfortunate to see the IRL leave town just as the league’s ugly battle with the Champ Car series is ending. That’s a development that will likely lead to renewed interest and increased popularity for open-wheel racing.

Bridgestone Firestone Motorsports Executive Director Al Speyer said the company would not insist that an IndyCar race remain at Nashville Superspeedway; however, that is the company’s preference. “I hope the race continues, but at the same time it is not our personality to demand that a race remain here just for us,” Speyer said.

I hope local officials–including those at IRL sponsor Bridgestone-Firestone–will do everything possible to keep the race in town. It’s fine by me for Bridgestone to say publicly that they won’t “demand” that IRL keep a race here, but I sure hope the company lobbies hard behind the scenes for Nashville to stay on the calendar.