NEED MORE SHINY HAPPY PEOPLE!

I've become familiar enough with my work routines that it now takes me no more than 4 hours to finish everything. During a 12 hour shift, that means I have 8 hours to do "other things". I recently subscribed to the Calgary Herald, a city newspaper offered by the same people who bring you the National Post. So, I usually spend the first couple of hours of a shift reading through it. Yet, I have found this routine to be more and more taxing. News just doesn't develop that fast, so it's usually the same stories with slight modifications from the previous day. Plus, it's usually the more depressing stories that are highlighted and written about by at least 6 different people. Like the 12 year old girl who allegedly murdered her parents and brother with her 23 year old boyfriend. Or the different bombings of people and places (which ends up killing people). Or the standoffs. Or the "oil crisis". If I was strictly an information gathering machine, it would be okay. But to think about the impact on peoples' lives that these "stories" have is just depressing. Why would anyone want to gather and collect this type of information? So, I find that I'm just going straight to the puzzle page to work on the words scrambles and word searches. I've become very good at the "can you spot 12 differences in these 2 pictures?" activity. I'm not smart enough for crosswords.

But, in the mire of so much sadness in the world, we have music and muppetry to pick us up!