The illustrious Casey Newton brings us a story from the wilds of Phoenix, where the Mayor of that city decided it would be a great idea to climb a tree to clear debris from a big storm. The tree disagreed, and the Mayor took a 13-foot header, resulting in a fractured vertebrae.

My favorite section:

“It’s a dangerous job even for people who are trained and know what they’re doing,” Jason Nunemacher, an arborist and general manager of Tree Pros in north-central Phoenix. “I would definitely recommend leaving it to professionals.”

Told of the arborist’s recommendations, Gordon said, “Tell him I agree with him,” according to a spokesman.

A close second is the section dealing with his previous battle with a bougainvillea that left the Mayor with a staph infection.

Too bad he’s not a Republican: He’d immediately be qualified as a at least a Cabinet-level official for his work on both Health Care and the Interior.

To balance out my bragging in the post below, I thought I’d share a story about how unbelievably stupid I (as well as several other people I shall not name to protect their pride) felt after bar trivia on Thursday.

The last question was fairly straightforward: There are twelve state capitals that start with the letters d, m, j, and p. Name them all.

We got eleven: Denver, Dover, Des Moines, Madison, Montgomery, Montpelier, Juneau, Jackson, Jefferson City, Pierre, and Providence. We could not, for the life of us figure out the twelfth.

We started verbally going through the capitals in a sort of map of the US: “Washington’s Olympia, so no. Oregon’s Salem, so no. California’s Sacramento, so no.”

Then we hit it: “Arizona’s Phoenix, so no.” We all nodded. Eight of us, over one million dollars worth of education between us. Not one of us listened to that statement and thought, “Wait, Phoenix is not spelled with an F.”

We tried for five more minutes until answer sheets were demanded and then turned it in with the twelfth spot blank. I haven’t felt as dumb as I did when the quizmaster identified Phoenix as our missing answer in a looooooong time.

The hell of it is, we somehow still managed to win the grand prize. We’d been doing well in an extremely tough set of rounds, so getting the eleven answers was enough.

I didn’t think I’d ever be able to describe a bar trivia victory as Pyhrric, but we were so mad at ourselves, I think this qualified.

The fact that we failed in such a doofy fashion STILL bothers me four days later.

You ever have one of those moments where something stupid occurs, and you get disproportionately angry about how stupid it is? You realize you’re overreacting a bit, but it’s just SO flamingly stupid, you get a bit worked up about it?

I went to a free screening of American Gangster with a friend in the camera union, and they had security making everyone empty their pockets.

Now since this was at the Academy, I sort of understand them wanting to make sure there are no recording devices coming in. A little over the top, but I can see where they’re coming from on that.

What made NO fucking sense was their demand that I take my pocketknife and multi-tool (which, yes, I always carry on me because they have come in awfully handy on many occasions) back to my car.

If I had paid twelve bucks to walk into any theater in the country, there wouldn’t have been an issue. What was even sillier was they made a guy with a swiss army knife smaller than my pinky on his keyring take THAT back to his car.

I sarcastically told the security guard when I returned, “Gee, I didn’t realize we were getting on a plane, otherwise I would have left that in the car.” He did not see the humor in that statement.

I’m still really pissed off about that, mostly because there was zero notice posted about the policy that would have given me time during the 45 minutes my friend and I were waiting in line for them to open the doors to put the stuff in my car.

But I mean, really. What the fuck was I going to do with a knife and a multi-tool in front of a theater full of people that they were so very concerned about? Scream, “This movie sucks!” and then stab the person sitting next to me?

I don’t know, what do you guys think? How pissed off would you have been? I mean, assuming you were the type of person who constantly carries implements of stabbiness with you.

You are not the same neighbor over-alarming his 1989 Nissan. You live in the building across the alley from mine, and you park in a spot under your building that’s not walled in, directly across the alley from my window.

You have a new car, but you have purchased a very similar but infinitely louder alarm to the one has already caused me much consternation. You have not figured out how to use your new alarm. The goddamn thing goes off every five minutes.

The sound echoes through the alley, and becomes unbelievably loud in this apartment, to the point of actually being painful when I’m in the bedroom.

I am tired, I am cranky and hormonal, and I am in pain. I need sleep more than anything right now, and you, my dear neighbor, are preventing me from getting it.

If you do not learn to use your alarm properly, I may have to come across the alley and duct tape you to the hood of your car so that you can hear exactly how annoying it is.

That is all.

The next time someone asks me what it’s like to live in Los Angeles with all the celebrities you can see, I am going to direct them to this page.

The writer has perfectly captured the grand “I don’t give a fuck about these morons anymore” feeling you get after about a year here.

via Defamer

I know you prize your ‘89 Nissan, but when moderate rain sets off the alarm repeatedly, you’ve made it too sensitive.

I drove mine into a river following bad GPS directions and it was swept away, I must make amends…

Special bonus quote with hilarious British town name:

Although the track is signposted as ‘unsuitable for motor vehicles’, the driver carried on and found herself at a ford in the village of Sheepy Magna.

courtesy Dave Barry’s Blog

This story about John Popper getting popped for driving over 110 MPH, then having a subsequent search of his vehicle produce a massive cache of weapons and a small amount of weed raises several interesting questions:

- Being the lead singer of freakin’ Blues Traveler, shouldn’t that be “a massive stash of weed and a small cache of weapons”? I don’t think I know one serious fan of theirs who wasn’t a massive, massive stoner.

- What the fuck is he doing driving around in Jack Bauer’s car? Is he planning to singlehandedly invade Canada for the maple syrup? He’s got enough guns in there to start a small terrorist organization.

- Why does this article fail to produce the traditional Fat Popper vs. Thin Popper comparison photo? I swear, that photo’s been on every story even tangentially related to Popper and/or Blues Traveler since Popper had gastric bypass surgery a few years ago and dropped a shitload of weight.

- Is it odd that Blues Traveler is nowhere near as popular with Thin Popper as it was with Fat Popper? Or is a dopey-looking normal-sized white guy playing the harmonica not nearly as interesting as an extremely fat white guy doing the same?

- Where, dear Gods of the Smoking Gun, is the mugshot that goes with this? I can only imagine how fantastic it truly must be.

To the construction workers at working on that new building just east of Olympic and Bundy:

I realize that when you build a building, you have to bring in a large number of steel beams. However, I’d like to request that you do two things for me and my fellow commuters in the future.

1. Don’t schedule the steel beams to arrive at 7:45 in the morning, or really at any point between 7 and 9am, also known as Rush Hour.

2. Don’t have the truck carrying the steel beams be driven by someone who obviously very recently got their trucking license.

It was fun to sit and twiddle my thumbs on Olympic for 15 minutes while you tried - 12 times before I fucking lost count - to back the truck laden with beams onto the construction site.

I realize my fellow commuters weren’t helping by leaning on their horns, but I certainly understand their desire to express their frustration.

Seriously, do not pull that shit during rush hour again or I will get out of my car and steal your little hand-held stop sign and beat you about the head with it.

Love and kisses,
Ellen

Just when you think he couldn’t possibly go and say something any more asinine than…well, any of the other times he’s opened his mouth, he goes out and tops himself.