"Any day above ground is a good day." - Chris

This blog post was supposed to be a light-hearted one.

I was going to talk about our party on Friday night, and how Ian spend most of the evening wearing our newly christened "stupid helmet" (a 1980s style Jofa) because he invented the dumbest word ever while trying to get someone's attention - "Whippety-Whip".

It was supposed to be about the hockey game I went to on Saturday night, where a fellow reporter there, commenting on an ugly player in a fight, said "It's always dangerous to fight an ugly guy because they've got nothing to lose."

Instead though, this blog is about how, late Saturday night, me, Chris, and Jenna almost died.

Seriously.

At midnight, after I got home from work and the rest of the crew got home from losing their cash at the casino, the three of us decided to go to Boston Pizza. So we drove along, and then, out of absolutely nowhere (and going over 100 km/h) some fucker in a 1984 Lincoln Town Car rear ended us, crushing Chris's car into a cube, with me in the backseat. We all got out with minimal injuries, although my ribs feel like they're broken - emergency room says they aren't though.

Then, to add insult to injury, the bastard who hit us took off. Thankfully, the cops found his car abandoned 3 minutes up the road. His insurance info - address, name - is written on the police report, and it was all I could do not to go over to his house and pound the living shit out of him. Instead though, I was in the hospital getting checked out - and thanks to our wonderful health care system we were all there til 5 a.m.

Chris' car is, unfortunately, a total write-off, which fucking sucks because I loved that car. So did everybody. But when the car's trunk is in the backseat, there's not much that can be done to fix it. My glasses got busted too - a fireman found them, along with my hat, 50 feet behind the car. I have no idea how they got there.

Everyone I talked to - firemen, paramedics, cops, tow truck drivers - were all shocked that the three of us walked away from the accident. Absolutely shocked. If you could see chris' car, you'd probably think somebody died in there. That's what a paramedic, who no doubt has seen her fair share of accidents, said to me as I sat in an ambulance.

So that was my weekend. Now, I'll sit and hold my ribs. And whine. And hope that Chris gets a lot of money for his car, and hope that we all get enough cash for our sufferin', and that I get my $1000 for my glasses relatively quickly.

Oh, and if R. Donnelly gets hauled off to jail for hit and run, and fucked in the ass with a broken broomstick while he's there, that'd be OK too.

Fuck him.

Today, my blog-reading friends, is Mike's birthday.

Now, you probably haven't seen Mike mentioned on here quite as often as in the past, and the reason for that is simple: He was kidnapped by a band of crazy hillbillies and taken deep into the forest, where he was tortured and covered with ladybugs.

OK, maybe that didn't happen. Truth is, Mike's not mentioned here much because he doesn't post on his site anymore, and since he's lived in Alberta for the last while, we haven't had the chance to go on any Sifton Avenue-esque adventures, which truly is a shame. Anyway, he is alive and, unfortunately, still kicking - even if he's doing it way the fuck in the middle of Southern Alberta where no one can find him amid farmer's fields and, soon enough, metres and metres of snow!

On the plus side, we don't care too much. Well, maybe a little bit - after all, I can't steal street signs on my own.

On my birthday, back in April, Mike's present to me was, among other things, him hurting his leg playing soccer (A truly fantastic gift!). Now, on his birthday, I have a throat infection and have felt shitty for the past week. So happy birthday, jerk. I guess we're even now.

:: On the Clock ::

I had some spare time on my hands tonight, lots of it in fact, courtesy of my lack of a social life between monday and thursday, and I realized something: My life is ruled by the clock.

I've worked a few jobs in my day - chinese food busboy, auto parts delivery driver, labourer for landscape companies, but in no other job have I been such a slave to time as the job I've got now. Sure, there were deadlines at other jobs, but not like this. I have to have all my stories written by Monday at 5 p.m. for our Wednesday paper, and Thursday at 5 for Saturday's. There are a billion other deadlines that I won't bore you with, but those are the main ones. I'm constantly checking to see what time it is, constantly reworking schedules to make sure it all gets done on time, etc etc...

Sure, that's not unlike many jobs, but none that I've ever had before. And this on-the-clock existence has made time absolutely fly by - almost to the point of being ridiculous. Having such strict deadlines, my week has basically been cut into three parts - there's Monday to Wednesday, Wednesday afternoon to Friday morning, and then the weekend. And when things are cut down into smaller pieces, it seems like they go by quicker. Much quicker. For example, I cannot believe that I've worked at my "new" job for 5 full months now. It's baffling to think about.

When I was in Peace River, things were the same way. With deadlines here and there, and being so focused on them, time went by at a fairly quick clip, which was fine at the time, because I had an ultimate goal to get a new job in a certain time frame, so the faster the better.

Now though, I have a problem. I'm in a job that I'll have for a fairly long time - for the next handful of years I have no place I'm trying to get to, no "end result" that will occur after X amount of hours, days and months. Basically, having time fly isn't a benefit. Instead, I'm worried that i'll just wake up one day and realize that I'm like 35-years-old. That's not a bad thing, neccesarily - nothing wrong with being 35, I'm just saying that time seems to be going too quick for my liking. I need to find a way to make it feel like things are moving at a normal pace, not a lightning quick one filled with press deadlines and clock watching.

There's a guy I work with, a freelance photographer, who is on the same deadlines I am, but who doesn't care at all what time it is, aside from getting work done by 5 oclock, of course. If he has to work late one night, he doesn't care that he'll get home at 8 instead of 6. Just doesn't bother him. Meanwhile, I'm still racing out the door at 5 p.m. and I'm angry if I get home at 5:40 instead of 5:35. I don't know what I'd do with those 5 minutes, but I don't like losing them. My goal is to be 10 minutes late for something and not give a damn.

I don't know why I'm in a big damn hurry all the time - it's not like there's anything in particular waiting for me when the clock runs out.