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.

Strike day 1 came and went. Some pictures of the group picketing the lot this morning are up on LAist, but our writers were on the afternoon shift, so none of my friends are pictured there.

However, this afternoon I found out another friend I used to work with got hit by a car and badly injured while she was riding her motorcycle yesterday. She’s going to live, but only because she was wearing her helmet.

She’s still in the ICU, and after a very long time in surgery yesterday, it looks like she’s going to be okay, or at least as okay as you can be after having one of your hands crushed into a million pieces and having your femur break so badly it breaks the skin, among her many, many injuries.

As much whining as I do about my stupid foot and all the horseshit it’s given me after I tripped on a stupid fucking rock, it’s nothing compared to the utter hell my friend is about to go through.

It also gives me perspective about my worries about unemployment: If I lose my job, I can get another one. My friend might never be able to get back a lot of what she lost yesterday.

Cross your fingers for her. She’s a good kid, and I wouldn’t wish the pain and frustration she’s about to go through on my worst enemy.

The streak lives! My iron stomach continued to hold its own against all comers. About partway through Thursday my appetite came back in full force, and I ended up eating my way through half the food in the kitchen at work.

The foot’s also been behaving better. I was doing something that, to the naked eye, resembled walking yesterday. I’m still having a few incidences of intermittent stabbing pain, but it’s better than constant stabbing pain.

And now, I’m waiting for the cable guy to get my HD TiVo recording in SPECTACULAR HD. All in all, it’ll be a nice improvement over the last week.

My dad passed along the story in the local Sun Valley paper about Arnold’s unfortunate accident, which identifies the culprit run:

The California governor, Hollywood actor and part-time Ketchum resident was taken off the mountain in a ski patrol toboggan after he reportedly tripped over his ski pole, fell and broke his right femur near the half pipe on Lower Warm Springs, a gentle ski run marked “Easier” on Sun Valley trail maps.

I think it’s hilarious they took him such a short distance in the toboggan. I suppose it would have been a little more undignified for the governor of California to slide down the hill on his ass, but it would have been a lot faster.

I’ve seen Arnold ski (he blew by me real fast one time and I almost went and “accidentally” sprayed him on a hockey stop, until I recognized him and realized he could crush me like a bug), and that’s maybe four, five turns at most from the bottom of the mountain.

As my dad put it, “That is almost as bad as breaking it in front of [ski shop] Paul Kenney’s.”

That injury would be dad’s from about six years ago, when he fractured his tibia slipping on the ice walking from returning his skis over to the hot dog stand.

To Arnold’s credit, he at least agreed to seek medical help immediately. Dad drove all the way home to Atlanta, then waited another two weeks and eventually had to have the bone reset.

In tomorrow morning’s LA Times there’s an update that finally, among many other things, discloses some of the circumstances surrounding the Governator’s skiing accident:

A friend who spoke to Schwarzenegger after the accident said the governor was “aggravated” about what happened, describing the accident as a “slow fall” on an icy surface.

Schwarzenegger’s press office would not release any details about the accident. But Adi Erber, a ski instructor who was with him at the time, said Schwarzenegger was standing still before the accident, preparing for the final 200 yards of the run.

The governor’s ski pole became caught in one of his skis, causing him to trip and fall, Erber said, describing it as a “freak accident.”

He said the governor was in pain and that a rescue team took him down the hill on a toboggan.

I said it before as a hypothetical, and I’ll say it again now: I’ve taken that ride in the toboggan, and it’s no fun for either party.

Still no word on what run he managed to mangle himself on, but from what it sounds like, he could have done that on any run and still come out feeling just as dumb.

Well, probably even dumber if he did it on some easy slope. But still, I can say from experience that injuring your leg doing something simple in the midst of an extreme sporting experience is, indeed, pretty damn aggravating.

Apparently it’s a good thing I wasn’t out on the slopes today, because I would have had to deal with the circus of Arnold Schwarzenegger snapping his femur up on the mountain.

I feel a bit bad for him, as I’m well aware that leg injuries are No Goddamn Fun.

Especially if some poor ski patrol guy had to snowplow down the mountain with him on a sled. I’ve taken that ride before, and it’s pretty undignified for both parties.

I’m not seeing anything about it in the AP story, but the ever-reliable Boise local news was reporting he did it on Arnold’s Run (which is, of course, named after him). Which, if true, is fucking hilarious.

More to come tomorrow, I’m sure.

Last night when I woke up from a nap, I noticed an irritant in my eye. I figured it was an eyelash or a speck of dust or something, so I went to the mirror to try and get it out.

After poking myself in the eye for a couple minutes, I realized that what I thought was a speck was not moving, and was actually a slight cut on my eyeball.

Luckily, working on a show about pretend doctors, we have a registered nurse and a couple actual doctors wandering around the office to ensure we have something that at least resembles accuracy.

The RN listened to me describe my symptoms and immediately diagnosed me with a small corneal abrasion, also known as…a cut on my eyeball.

The good news, she told me, is that because it’s not very severe, it should go away on its own in a couple of days if I don’t rub my eye when it itches. Which of course, I want to do all the fucking time.

Her recommended treatment was also kind of hilarious: Put on an eye patch when I got home and wear it overnight to stimulate the healing process.

She meant of gauze, but I immediately had this mental picture of running into one of the now-closing Halloween discount stores and picking myself up an eyepatch.

Although that’d be slightly less ridiculous than my current getup: Gauze held in place by a hilariously oversized ace bandage because I couldn’t get the tape to stick.

No, there will not be pictures.

…Hilary Swank, for “Got hit in the face with a co-star’s errant suspender during a striptease scene”!

Bonus points for the injury actually requiring stitches and halting production for three days.