57 channels and nothing on

No photo from me today. Scroll back down and look at the (belated...) dogs if you need one.

Today's title is courtesy of Bruce Springsteen, of course. If he'd written the song today he'd probably have to bump up the number by a couple of hundred, but it still works.

I could go on about the dilution of television and the seemingly impossible task of finding anything worth watching nowadays, but that's a post for another time. I'm thinking more about the writers' strike at the moment.

Yes, I've been following the strike news. As a big recorder of late night talk shows (I watch them in the morning when I'm getting ready for work. Less depressing than watching the news), I'm one of the consumers who was affected almost immediately by the strike. I'm also a fan of a couple of dramas, and in a month or so that avenue of entertainment will be disappearing too.

I'm most decidedly not a fan of the so-called reality programs, so I'm expecting that if the strike continues I'll be spending a fair amount of time with my DVD collection. Or hey -- maybe even a BOOK or two.

Novel concept, that.

I'm a bit iffy on unions for the most part, I'll admit. My only experience as a unionised employee wasn't a happy one (it was a case of a union offering most of its protection to full-time workers in an industry where 90% of the work force was part-time. And no, I'm not mentioning the job or the union), and I can remember my father (a teacher) going out on strike and the difficulties and hard feelings that continued from all sides even after things were resolved.

And before anyone comes on and informs me of all the good that collective bargaining has done for workers in the past &c &c &c let me just say that I know. I'm not trying to speak against unions or say that they aren't important. I'm just saying that my own personal experience with unions hasn't been great.

Having said that, I'm with the writers on this one.

Entertainment writing -- or writing of any kind, come to it -- is a pretty precarious business. There aren't many guarantees out there, and those residuals are pretty darned important when you don't know for sure if the next job will even come along. It stands to reason that the writers would be concerned about making sure that they get something out of the deal when their work is reprocessed or reformatted for new media.

And for those who reply that there's no saying what, if any, money will come out of computer downloads and things like that... well, are people supposed to wait and try to negotiated deals after it's been found that new media is a freaking goldmine?

Yeah, that makes sense.

Even if it turns out that there isn't much money out there, the structure still needs to be set in place.

As is usual in heated negotiations I don't find that either side is completely innocent in their dealings, mind. There have been things coming out from both parties that have me rolling my eyes, frankly, and I think they need to be taken figuratively by the ear and dragged back to the table.

No dessert for any of you until you eat your broccoli.

Get back to negotiating, stop wasting the time of the hundreds of tradespeople caught in the middle, be realistic about the fact that without the words there's nothing for the high-priced actors to emote to, and give us back our stories already.

Sheesh, people.

And I'm so looking forward to a repeat of all of this when the SAG has its turn next year...