I have been using this one liner c function that I call my_now() to
get the number of seconds since some fixed point in the past. I find
it more convenient than built-in now()
and if I want abstime I do abstime(my_now()). Thing is everytime I
do a major version upgrade I had to recompile this and it's a pain in
the neck. I feel there must be something
built-in with pg to get the same thing since I can get abstime from it
like that.