Down at the bottom of this page is a new link. Between the Comments Bar and the Diaryland banner. It’s an elegant, understated request for you to donate money to fight cancer.

Why?

Simple. Cancer sucks. Cancer sucks like a green, glowing-eyed Paris Hilton.

Cancer took the father of my friend, Grand Master Flash Joey B.

Cancer took my friend Gene, weeks before he was to become the first person to retire from the company for which I work. Just weeks after cancer took his wife from him.

Cancer’s a dick like that.

Throw a couple bucks to the American Cancer Society and help show cancer who’s boss. ‘Nuff said. I promise I won’t continue to make a big deal out of this. At least not until the week of the Relay.

I wanted to use the cool Relay for Life logo on this page, and cleverly link it to my donation page. But the American Cancer Society has all these rules about how you can’t use it on a site that supports politicians, or contains overtly religious or profane material…well, Jesus Christ, you can see how my hands are fucking tied over here.

The insurance adjustor finally looked at my car, 8 days after the accident. All my calling, coaxing, and complaining didn’t get him there one hour earlier. He filled out his report at 12:50pm. I know this because I called at 3pm to ask if he had been there. Yes, after all the calls I made and all the questions I asked, 2 hours after the adjustor left, still no one had called me. I swear, if I wasn’t proactive about this, nothing would ever get done.

The grand total of damages? $1,800.

They asked me if I wanted them to get started with the repairs.

“Um, yeah! How long will that take?”

“Give us a week to order the parts, and about 4 more days to fix it.”

Great. I know that $1,800 doesn’t buy 4 days worth of work, but whatever. Just get it done.

It seems that my initial estimate of 3 weeks of being without a car is coming true.

Happy Birthday, Cheryl and Ryan.

Ryan’s coming into town this weekend. I haven’t seen him since the wedding. Good times are ahead.

Hanging out with Ryan is always interesting because there is something special about Ryan. Ryan has an amazing voice. It’s a radio announcer’s voice; unnaturally deep and clear. It’s always funny to see people react to it the first time they hear him. He can’t even order in a restaurant without the waitress calling over all her waitress buddies and begging, “Say something!” He’s had complete strangers invite him to join their rock bands because of it. He’s had offers of commercial work. It’s his blessing and his curse. Because Ryan hates the attention. He rarely talks in public because of it. It’s strange to see someone with such a gift be so reluctant to use it. But it does make it that much more fun when we trick him into talking.

Of course, in private, we’re all used to it. Around friends, he loosens up. It’s good to see him relaxed and happy. But when we go out, he’s always on guard. Weird.