So Smash flew in to interview at the paper a couple of weeks ago. I pick her up at the Palm Springs International Airport, and as we're driving out she tells me, "Here's the thing: I've got an offer at the Las Vegas Review-Journal."

"Aw crap," I think. A big reason she's out here is to be closer to her family, which is undergoing exodus en masse to Vegas. But she loved the paper, loved the staff and management - 'saw a lot of the reasons I decided to take this job.

It turned out to be a real Bush/Kerry race: Day-to-day, you never knew who was gonna win. In this case the God's Country East paper was the Kerry to Vegas' Bush. At first I thought there was no way Smash was taking our offer, but after a while you found yourself thinking, "Holy shit - we've got a real shot to win this thing after all!"

Management, of course, loved her far more than me and kept asking, "So what's the latest with Smash?" I kept giving it 50/50, telling them Smash was more impressed by our paper but the fam's out in Vegas and that's a big pull. The mentor-type who played a big role in my recruitment even insisted that she call him, so he could give the grand pitch and really lock her in. Smash, leaning towards Vegas, knew better than to call - she knew he would convince her to take the job on the spot, without a doubt.

So anyways, she drops the news on management yesterday, and I hear they didn't let her off the hook easy - they were very, very disappointed. Smash calls me afterwards, distraught, sounding like she just broke things off with her long-term boyfriend. "What have I done? Tell me I'm not a terrible person."

And then? Then? The straw that broke the camel's back on this impossible decision of hers, she tells me? My disdain for Crash's Best Picture award. That's what did it - that's what it came down to. Unbelievable.

Today the mentor asks me for Smash's email, so he can tell her it was a pleasure, that he understands the role family plays in these things, and that he's still there to be a mentor in her career whenever she wants.

Translation: "I just want her to be happy."

This really was the moral equivalent of breaking up with the long-term boyfriend. Smash is consumed by guilt, plagued with regret. Today she emails me: "I'm going to hurl myself down a sand dune of despair."

That's right - you just lost the best thing you ever had Smash! Vegas might be flashier, hotter, sexier - but you'll miss the tender, caring, unconditional love of God's Country East - you mark my words, she-devil!

I should really put down the Maker's. I have a feeling if I don't produce some copy tomorrow I'm gonna wind up like Maury in Goodfellas. "They got Danish there?" I'm more paranoid than Vito Spatafore at the Blue Oyster.