NDBT

Yay! It’s Friday! Went and did weight lifting and pilates yesterday. Today my back is a bit sore, so I’m going to go home and watch a movie and read my book. Tomorrow I’m off to the gym, Willowbank, and the Antarctic center, I think.

I’ve taken care of a few minor errands. It looks like I’ll probably be ok financially for the rest of my time here in NZ, although I’d like to know how much tax back I can expect and how many activities I’m going to need to pay for on my travels (Stray Bus’ online system is having issues). Plus, I’ve found some cheap deals on flights between SF and Boston before New Years, so that’s a good thing, although I’ll probably need to book that soonish.

Ummm…. that’s about it… 3 weeks to go at my job. My mom has cute new kittens. Okay! On to interesting stuff! First up, all things WGA-related; Awww… check out Eddie Izzard getting all Norma Rae, 7 ways to shut down production on a tv show. Hahahaha….,

WGA petition Here’s what I wrote (signature 773); Dear studios, do you know why the music industry is in trouble? Because they fought the advent of new media and refused to give the average American what they wanted. This pissed off the average person, who went out and got napster, kazaa and limewire and did so because they felt justified in taking illegal action. They felt that the large music conglomerations were being greedy and refusing to meet the American consumer halfway. You are still at the point where Americans are willing to pay or sit through advertising for tv over the internet. But if you refuse to negotiate with the writers and drag this strike out, you will find yourself in the same position. Once Americans can no longer get their Lost and their Office, they will be pissed off and you will lose them as customers. They won’t come back to your networks once this is over. Your best option, if you don’t want to shoot yourself in the foot as the recording industry has done, is to bring this strike to a quick and equitable resolution.

I like how lots of people have been signing, “I believe writers are entitled to a fair share of a show’s profits. Also, please bring back the daily show.”

Holy crap. In like 2 hours since I signed, it’s up to more than 3,000 signatures.

From the United Hollywood blog; “The Huffington Post‘s collection of strike articles continues to grow at a staggering rate. They have many reports from the lines and some great analysis of why we’re right and Nick Counter is a horrifying chupacabra (I’m paraphrasing).”

TV will be fine without writers.

Seriously time to solve the strike. Has a link in the article to another piece on the moguls being okay with a strike and writing off this tv season. Whoops.

Carlton Cuse wins best picket sign. (I recommend checking out the rest of the Scribe Vibe blog I got this from. Like this post here.)

I found a link to the video of the writers explaining their position (it can also be found on the United Hollywood blog), although it seems to be old, as the DVD residuals increase was taken off the table before negotiations ended.

And I liked this from Defamer “Giving the thousands of writers who will descend upon the Fox lot for tomorrow’s mass picket a little extra motivation, News Corp. president Peter Chernin claims that his network will save more money from unpaid deals, story, and pilot costs than it stands to lose during a strike. It remains to be seen whether or not Chernin will follow through on a threat to further taunt the WGA by playing a loop of American Idol’s theme music at deafening volumes during tomorrow’s gathering.”

But WHERE will I get my NEWS?!?! 

And in non-WGA news; Oil spill reaches Angel Island

 Christmas songs (yeah – I’m one of those people this year. I’ve already listened to the SFGC version of Veni, veni Emmanuel like 30 times. But I missed Christmas last year, and in other countries, there’s nothing to postpone the Xmas season after Guy Fawkes).