Another one bites the dust

At least this time it wasn't a greedy corporation letting me go due to philosophical differences in company and Canadian policy. This time it was a greedy corporation letting me go so they could outsource my job to Pakistan where they're willing to work for significantly less than I am. How people on the far side of the planet are going to accurately cover NFL football and NHL hockey is beyond me. Which would you prefer? A crappy article written in poor English that costs 50 cents, or a piece written in better English by someone who actually knows the rules of the game they're covering for ten times that? If you're looking at the bottom line, like too many people are today, you pick the 50 cents option. The guys reading the articles may not be very impressed, but as long as 1% of them accidentally click on an ad while desperately trying to escape the page they stumbled upon though a Google search, the company that used to employ me will be happy. Yes I lost my job, and yes I probably could have been more to the point about it, but what's the fun in that?

I am pleased with the opportunity I had. I learned much and am glad to have professional writer as something I can now put on my CV. I'm more annoyed at the ridiculousness of farming out North American sports writing to Pakistan. Cricket I would understand, but not hockey and football (American style).

Anyway so I'm back on the hunt. I've got some sports writing prospects, but I think I'm going to take a stab at some fiction writing this winter. There are a number of sties that buy stories, once I polish a couple up I'll try to get some published, we'll see how that goes.

I have some good news, for me anyway, and Kate I suppose, I found a cheap gym so I'm back at it. Once my old membership ran out I didn't renew, it was 800 a year. But I discovered that the Concordia gym is only 60 a semester for students, so I went today and signed up. I definitely felt like I hadn't been in a while, the cardio mainly. I was surprised at how well the weights went for me. That part felt like I was picking up where I left off in July.

The two foster cats were spayed last week. One acted as though nothing had happened, the other, aptly named Princess, was obviously irritated for a couple of days. The Animal Rescue Network (ARN) employee that took her to the vet for us was not Princess' favourite. As the cat was walking up the stairs and I was getting the run down on how the surgery went, we moved over to watch her slow progress towards the bedroom. Princess saw me and stopped, gave me a little hiss, then she saw the ARN worker and a volley of hisses erupted from her, it was actually pretty funny. A couple days later Princess was back to her normal self.

They still make noise all night, but now instead of meowing and moaning it's the sound of Christmas ornaments breaking.

Not much else is new, gonna turn 34 in a couple of days, and football season starts in January. I think I'll be playing defence this season, mostly anyway. I still have to memorize the offence. I think I'll prefer defence. I think I react well, and there are lots of guys on the team that can catch, so I might be of better use on defence. We also got two new offensive players from another team, two of the best players in the league so there's less room on offence anyway lol.

So that's the crap that happened in the last couple weeks. One good thing about being fired is I can stay home for these 72 hour snow storms. The snow on my back deck is literally two and a half feet high.