two dolla

According to Justin Timberlake’s MySpace blog (what?!?), he’s coming to my neck of the woods January 27th. Performing alnog with him? Pink. Someone named Wendy is so going.

Justin Timberlake? Pink? If only Clay Aiken were opening for both of them, right?

I went to Chicago this weekend and it was awesome. I hadn’t been to Chicago since either ‘92 or ‘93, so clearly a lot had changed. I posted a few pictures to Flickr while we were there, but have hundreds to go through from my regular camera(s).

My neck? Horrible. Seriously.

I feel like it’s in a constant state of swelling. My hands are quick to get numb while I’m typing today. It hurts to hold the phone while making work-related calls. So, yeah. It’s going well. I have standing appointments with the chiropractor and my regular physician over the next couple of weeks.

This whole thing makes me extremely furious. It’s slowing me down to the pace of a snail. I can’t go to the gym. I can’t do anything that involves turning my head more than 45 degrees. I can’t do anything that I want without preparing imyself for a great deal of pain. And it’s not even my fault.

Like my chiropractor Dr. Matt (yes, seriously) says, I should feel lucky I walked away from any accident, and I am. Very much so. I just hate that someone felt it important to take his eyes off the road for 20 seconds and consequently slammed into the back of my car going at least 35 mph, which has turned me into a whiny crybaby who just wants to be able to take a shot of insert anything here without wincing in pain. Is that so much to ask?

All of you. It’s The 612 Party.

And so is the rest of the free world.

Seriously. Be there.

Next Friday. Minneapolis. Food & drink provided. Feel free to bring your own, too.

Because according to Google, if you search for ‘when two boners touch‘, I’m #5 in all of the internet-land. My dream has come true.

To celebrate, I think I’ll go to Chicago. Oh wait. I was going to do that anyway. My flight leaves in less than six hours. SCORE.

I had to stop to get a copy of the accident report this morning, so I could get this insurance rental car bullshit all straightened out. Here’s a quote, directly from the report, from the guy that slammed into me: “said he was distracted when he looked down to place his coffee cup into the cup holder. When he looked back up, he was unable to stop to avoid a collision. #2 (that’s me) said her pushed her SUV 10 feet forward into #3.”

This explains why I spent some time this morning on the phone with his insurance company arranging a rental car from the airport when I return, as well as letting them know I had a damaged vertebrae and would be heading in to see a chiropractor this afternoon. Suddenly, they were very accommodating about whatever I needed. I should probably call them back, though, and find out what my limitations are on the rental car. Otherwise, I saw a Hummer there last night that might suit me just fine for a couple of weeks.

The current rental car, a Dodge Stratus, isn’t really cuttin’ it, and isn’t really covered by his insurance right now, so I’m dropping it off at the airport today. Good riddance to that 4 cylinder.

I hope I see Oprah this weekend. Or Michael Jordan. Or even Vince Vaughan.

Multiple co-workers either emailed or said to me, “hey, what happened yesterday?” or “how was the drive in?”
How did they know something happened? Because they drove my car that was crashed on the side of the road and me standing outside with a polo shirt and no jacket on in 35 degree temperatures. Thanks for stopping to see if I was okay, assholes. You really made my fucking day.
Two summers ago when I crashed, another co-worker was sure to stop and see if I was okay. He even gave me a hug and asked if I wanted him to stay. “No, thank you, kind sir, but thank you for giving me confidence in humanity.”

I’m going to get the police report this afternooon and then I want a nice new rental car, maybe a Hummer or a Porsche. Enterprise has those, right?

I think I should start a new catagory called: The Tales of Wendy’s Trips to the Doctor.

I now have an appointment with a family doctor on 10/17 and a physical therapist on 11/9, because that’s the soonest they could get me in. I’m feeling slightly uncomfortable about waiting almost a month before starting physical therapy.

I’m also feeling a little pissed at the nurse that called to schedule these appointments. She was offended when I told her I didn’t want an appointment with the original doctor that she’d scheduled me to see. Why would I want to let some doctor make decisions about my SPINAL CORD if I don’t feel comfortable with them? I think that’s pretty much my right as a patient to not get the heebie jeebies when stuck alone in a sterile room with someone.

Every time I get x-rays, I always want to ask if I can have copies of them. Why wouldn’t I want an x-ray of my neck framed and hanging in my hallway? Plus, it’d be a whole hell of a lot easier to explain. So, here’s a drawing of what the multiple x-rays showed:

I’m sure you can guess which one mine is.

The doctor said, “Did you play sports as a kid? (dramatic pause) Like football or hockey?” When I answered with a no, he said that unless I’d had any previous neck trauma (which I couldn’t remember when or how) then the injury was the result of yesterday’s collision. Neat.

These particular vertebrae are located at the base of my neck. It hurts a lot. There’ll be follow up with another doctor and probably some therapy, so I’m sure everything will heal in time.

I wanted to post this morning about how I went to the Mall of America last night and walked past every store in 1 hour and 50 minutes, and spent less than $80 on two cards, a pair of jeans, a t-shirt, a polo shirt, and two more shirts. But then something else came up.

Like probably the cost of my insurance every month.

This morning, I stopped behind a van that was stopped on the road, because that’s what normal people do. The person traveling at approximately 40 miles per hour behind me, though, was too busy “picking up a cup that had spilled” and smashed into me, causing me to smash into the van. Neat.

At first, I was pissed, because it wasn’t my fault. And then, I was cold, because it snowed this morning on my way into work. But then, I got to sit in the back of the cop car to warm up, which totally made my week. Sitting in the back of the cop car instead of in my 9:00 meeting? ONE MILLION TIMES MORE AWESOME. If it weren’t for the fact that my car has to be smashed in the process.

I rammed my knee on the dashboard and of course, I have the most awesome seatbelt bruise forming as the day goes on. And over lunch, my neck began to get extra achy and now it feels like it’s swelling. Guess who’s skipping a work happy hour to go to Urgent Care? Yep, me.

The car’s been towed away to the towing place, and then towed over to the mechanic. I’m waiting on a call from the assclown’s insurance company to let me know when I can pick up a rental car, because being without a car is something I hate almost as much as I hate a poorly made grilled cheese sandwich.

For now, I’m going to depend on other people to take me places, and hope some type of vehicle with four functional wheels is available on Friday when I have my foot MRI scheduled and need to take my puppy to his home-away-from-home while I’m in Chicago this weekend.

Oh yeah. I forgot. I’m going to Chicago this weekend.

And I happen to think he’s worth it.

MINNEAPOLIS — Torii Hunter will be back with the Minnesota Twins for at least one more year. The Twins said Tuesday they picked up Hunter’s $12 million option. [link]

He’s spent his entire career with the Twins organization and, even though he’s ran into a few walls causing injury, he’s been a permanent fixture in centerfield. He’s so fun to watch.

Swiping Barry Bonds’ homerun during the All-Star game, robbing homerun after homerun at the Metrodome, he’s completely denied runs by rifling the ball from centerfield all the way to homeplate and made it all look easy.

I’m excited to have him back. Even if it’s only temporarily. He apparently wants a longer contract and I can’t say I blame him.

I’m completely speculating since this obviously just happened today. However, with a $12,000,000 highly-desired centerfielder on the team, it could be plenty of room for some trade action.

A couple of years ago (with Lew Ford in his prime season, Jacques Jones, and a healthy Shannon Stewart), there was room to rotate outfielders around. Now? Not so much.

Michael Cuddyer’s a mainstay in rightfield. We need him somewhere and the 2005 season proved 3rd base wasn’t the place to have him on a regular basis. Left field, which was left to Rondell White, Josh Rabe, an only average Lew Ford, and Jason Kubel this year, is up in the air completely. Bringing in a new player to replace Torii in center wouldn’t really be advisable, in my opinion.

With him averaging $74,000 per game, though, I’m going to expect diving and wall-climbing catches a little more frequently.

I went to go see Employee of the Month this past weekend and immediately following it, I went to apply at Sam’s Club.

Dane Cook plays a total slacker who has everyone do his own work. See why I always love him? Dax Shepard is really funny as the Employee of the Month winner for the past 17 months and the fastet checker in the southwest region. And Jessica Simpson plays a stupid whore. Or maybe not, but that’s all I can think of her as, so that’ll have to do.

If you know anything about Dane Cook, I’m sure the first thing that comes to your mind is the fact that he can be, you know, COMPLETELY OVER THE TOP at times. But the thing that makes me laugh the most about him? He tells stories the same way I tell stories. Seriously. I mean, my hombres and I could easily hang out with him and it would just be like nothing’s any different. He’s just my kind of people.
Aside from the fact that Dane Cook can do no wrong in my shiny blue eyes, the movie was still really funny. Pedro from Napoleon Dynamite is in it and hialrious. So are Andy Dick and Harland Williams. And the XXL security guard named Semi, who I wanted to hug after the movie was over.

I wish I could have made perfectly clear at the box office that my $4.00 (it was a super secret matinee) was to all be applied towards Dane Cook and absolutely none of it should be give to Jessica or Joe Simpson and their greedy, grimy, untalented paws. But I digress.

It’s a really funny movie, especially if you’ve ever worked in retail (hello, K-Mart shoe department employee here!) or even more especially if you like Dane Cook. Because did I mention he is my favorite?