I know life's a bummer baby, but that's got nothing to do with me

"I used to be with it, but then they changed what 'it' was. Now, what I'm with isn't it, and what's 'it' seems weird and scary to me."
-Abe Simpson

Billy was drunk. He had spent the last hour in the bar of the Hotel Marriott in Harrisburg, while a few of his colleagues were recognized by the Society of Professional Journalists upstairs.

The only reason Billy was there was because he had won second place in the far shittier Keystone Awards for a front page design that he didn't even do. But the people who were responsible had moved on to France or TV Guide. And Billy had been working that night so he got a free dinner and plaque.

"Journalism awards are like assholes, they hand them out to everybody," he found himself telling the husband of another award winner. He had presumably snuck out to the bar to watch the Preakness Stakes, which would be going off in about a half hour.

"As long as none of the local horses pull a Barbaro, I'll be happy," Billy said.

"Did your paper do a lot a of stories on Barbaro last year?" the husband asked.

"I would guess about 500," Billy said. He instantly realized this averaged out to more than one per day. He also realized it was an accurate estimate.


The Preakness went off, horses ran really fast and none broke their legs. Billy went upstairs to the reception. His plan was to pound as many gin and tonics as possible during the 45-minute open bar.

After the open bar, Billy followed a few of his coworkers to their assigned table, marked not with the name of their newspaper, but the soulsucking corporate entity that owns it.

He settled in for a banquet of shitty prime rib and shitty wine and found himself sitting next to O'Neill, the crusty night editor.

This was not an ideal position. O'Neill was prone to rambling, incoherent monologues about "where the bodies are buried in Connecticut politics." So Billy decided to go on the offensive.

"Hey O'Neill, when are you going to start a blog?" he said. "Surely you could enlighten some of the young folk on how the world really works."

"Fuck that bullshit," he replied. "It's a sad world we live in when some dweeb on the Internet has as much say as a venerable institution like the Washington Post."

Billy laughed. "The Washington Post? That shit hasn't been relevant since Woodward and Bernstein. I don't see any newspaper reporters calling Bush on his bullshit. It's the bloggers who do that now. Ever heard of The Daily Kos? PrisonPlanet.com? It's a brave new world. New rules, bitch. Adapt or get the hell out of the way."

This seemed to put O'Neill off, he mumbled something about people living in their mother's basements and moved to another table.

Success! Billy thought. He turned back to the rest of his table, who were divided into two camps. His younger coworkers were stifling laughter while those over 30 were aghast. Shocker.