Ouch. I cut my finger with a power saw and had to go to the emergency room. I missed two weeks work. I'd taken the first week off to do home improvements, and cut my finger two hours in.

For two weeks, my life was an endless series of repeating 4-hour cycles. Feel pain, take pill, wait 30 minutes, stare into space for 60-90 minutes, realize I've been staring into space for 60-90 minutes, start to feel pain, wait in pain until I can take more pills, then repeat.

For the first two days I was on percosets and life wasn't so bad. Two percosets knock me out and I was able to get some sleep. After that, they had me on vicodin. I hate vicodin. It upsets my stomach after I take it, it doesn't do much for my pain, and I can't get any sleep. So I call and complain, asking for more percosets. Their solution? More vicodin, at twice the dose. Unfortunately, that's no improvement -- given the limits, if I take any more than I had been, I'll have one or more 4-hour cycles where I can't take any. I start cutting the pills in half and taking them on a 2-hour cycle, trying to overlap doses to avoid the stomach upset, and get around the fact that the vicodin wears off an hour before I can take next dose on a 4-hour cycle.

So when I go back to get the stitches out, I again complain about the vicodin. So they put me on oxycontin instead. Great, now I'm on Rush Limbaugh drugs. Oxycontin doesn't just upset my stomach, it makes me vomit after taking it. If I can't keep it down, I have to wait twelve hours before I can take more. I've had to swallow a load of bile while driving to work more than once. I've puked on myself in the shower, and decoated my office at work. Worse, oxycontin is no more effective than the Vicodin was, but at least it's on a 12-hour dose so I can try to sleep. I have enough oxycontin for another couple of days, then hopefully I can get by on naproxen. I don't think I'll miss the oxycontin.

Every one of these pain killers has severe alcohol interaction warnings. I haven't had a drink in over two weeks. I'm going to a concert tonight, so I think I'm going to find out if alcohol can substitute for oxycontin. Given that I'm going to see Chuck Brown and George Clinton on Friday, and I'll be out of oxycontin by then, I hope so.

MSNBC - Settlers compare Gaza pullout to Holocaust: Uproar over campaign, which includes wearing of orange stars:The comparison dominated public debate Tuesday. Images of a Gaza woman wearing the star on her lapel ran on the front page of one Israeli newspaper, and Israeli radio shows discussed the settler campaign nonstop.

“This is a very troubling comparison,” Shevah Weiss, a Holocaust survivor and former parliament speaker, told Israel’s Army Radio.

"The Nazis put Jews “into gas chambers, killing them, crushing their bones, spreading the remains in great piles all over Europe,” he said. “What is going on here?”

Some people suffer from a lack of perspective. Government relocation of settlements built in defiance of UN Security Council resolutions is not the same as forced extermination. Those who imply that it is both disregard history and disserve the future. They may feel that they are being done an injustice, but they are not being led to the showers. I look at the pictures of the children wearing their orange stars, and it frightens me that they may grow up believing that political eviction is the same as genocide.

Zamboni explodes; fire destroys arena: "A Duluth hockey arena was destroyed and at least two people suffered minor injuries Sunday night after a Zamboni ice-resurfacing machine exploded during a broomball game, starting a major fire and sending players and spectators fleeing."

When Zambonis Attack! I've heard of arenas burning before, but I've never heard of an exploding Zamboni before now. No mention on the Zamboni web site...

Cannibal's Victim 'Tasted Like Lamb': "A Mexican accused of killing, cooking and eating his companion acknowledged having committed the crime and said the victim “tasted like lamb.”

“If they’d let me, I would have eaten it all,” said Gumaro de Dios Arias, following a court appearance in Playa de Carmen, about 36 miles south of the Caribbean resort of Cancun.

Hey, I thought everything unfamiliar tasted like chicken. Who knew Mexicans taste like lamb?

At Miss Cass Pageant, Disabled Contestants Bask in the Spotlight: "Each year, the pageant's audience is effusively supportive, though the crowd can't help but giggle as the contestants, ages 21 to 75, sing off-key or struggle through halting knock-knock jokes. The interview portion is simple. One contestant last year was asked, 'What is your favorite color?' She responded, 'chicken,' and everyone laughed."

The picture says almost as much as the article.

It's not easy being green for homeowner: "The police made Mata move the truck because of an ordinance that bans trucks from being parked in residential areas. But there's no ordinance that restricts what color people can paint their houses, city administrator Larry McCasland says. 'It's crazy, isn't it?' McCasland says, laughing."

This is my type of guy. They say his truck is ugly and they make him move it, so he paints his house fluorescent green. "Well, I thought if they said, 'The truck's an eyesore,' I'd give them a real eyesore."

Roger, 933 is clear for landing: "Not too many people know Craig Miers, of Windham, N.H., but he became an instant hero here Tuesday afternoon. Miers, 25, did what most pilots hope they never have to do: make an emergency landing in a bustling commercial area at lunchtime.

'He told me he got it over an intersection and dove it under some power lines,' Miers' father, Stephen Miers, of New Hampshire, said in a telephone interview. The 'intersection' turned out to be the northbound lane of Indiana 933, just a few feet from a Howard Johnson Inn's entrance and directly across the street from the Heaven & Earth shop, where a sign out front urges visitors to 'come in be inspired.'"

You hope you never have to do this. You hope that if you ever do, you manage to pull it off this well. The pilot clipped a wing, and cut a power line. Safe landing on a busy street at lunchtime. Damn.

Four-foot python found in box with returned DVD!: "Two weeks ago, employees at a Samsung facility in Secaucus opened a box with a returned DVD player in it - only to find a four-foot-long python inside as well.

They were sure that a disgruntled customer had sent it back, so they notified the police as well as animal control. But as the mystery uncoiled, they realized they had jumped to conclusions.

This is the story of Paco.

This is the story of how a three-year-old snake journeyed alone, 1,078 miles from Jefferson City, Mo., almost to New York City - a trip that took him less than a week to complete. "

This isn't exactly the same as the story of the UPS guy who shipped himself home to Texas -- this is the story of a snake that shipped itself to New Jersey.

Vt. gov. wants nude statue out of Statehouse: "Gov. James Douglas is doing some tidying up in his office and one thing he thinks can go is a table lamp that sometimes makes him red-faced.

"The lamp, installed on his desk recently as part of a Statehouse restoration project, is a replica of a famous 19th century nude statue that cost $2,500 and is plugged into an overhead chandelier."

What is it with republicans and nudity? He asks how he'd explain it to a third-grader. Why should you have to? Considering that the original "became an icon of the abolitionist movement," why wouldn't you want to?

Va. man ordered to pay damages for motel mess: "Chamberlain was charged May 10 after he coated every object in a Motel 6 room in the Town of Chenango with petroleum jelly, Broome County sheriff's deputies said."

Why? They didn't ask, and he didn't tell.

For doting parents, gold-plated umbilical cords: "Forget desktop photographs of your children. Doting South Korean parents can preserve their child’s umbilical cord in acrylic resin to make a personal seal or even have it gold plated.

"In this Confucian society where family values are highly prized, suppliers also offer services for parents to have traditional Korean calligraphy brushes made from their child’s hair."

They do a reasonable job at explaining what, but hardly even attempt why.