My grocery store is going on strike.  What will I eat?

Sarah Michelle Gellar is still working on turning American McGee’s Alice into a movie. I’ve been waiting for that damned movie for eight years. Can somebody please call somebody and make it happen? Can I blame this one the writers’ strike? The game’s trailer still makes me smile:

Via BoingBoing.

Now that the writers’ strike has forced the Daily Show off the air, what’s the average Joe viewing public to watch? Worry not, the Daily Show’s writing staff has put together Not the Daily Show to tide you over:

I really like President John Jay Viacom Jr. III. I hope when the strike is over, he makes it back to the real Daily Show.

Via United Hollywood.

One enterprising newspaper writer looked up what television programmers ultimately had to air during previous writers strikes. During the 153-day long 1960 strike the networks resorted to the following:

L.A.’s seven broadcast channels were loaded up with old movies. About a month before the strike ended, KTLA was reduced to prime-time “Wrecks Galore on Destruction Derby,” and on one desperate evening, two channels ran simultaneous previews of the Ice Capades.

Sounds bad? It gets worse:

And yet strike-time prime time was also chockablock with travelogues, like a journey to Shakespeare’s London, and an adventure documentary by Charles Darwin’s great-grandson. Channel 4 aired “Startime,” a remarkable hourlong “anthology” series that mixed documentaries, dramas and comedy. It aired an episode during the strike with Richard Nixon, John F. Kennedy and Adlai Stevenson telling Americans why they should vote.

I want to see the Nixon, Kennedy, Stevenson thing! My favorite threat, which didn’t come to reality, was from Saved by the Bell favorite Brandon Tartikoff:

During the 1988 strike, NBC’s Brandon Tartikoff threatened to bring out scripts for old short-lived or never-seen shows and just recast them and reshoot them.

While I’m not a big fan of strikebreaking in this instance, this could actually be a really fun idea. Remember all those critically acclaimed shows that just didn’t quite get off the ground?  We can give them another chance with a new cast! Freaks and Geeks mark 2, MTV’s Downtown version B, Wonderfalls: the Next Generation… I can’t wait to see who they cast as Daria. Let’s just hope the casting directors don’t go out on strike before this all comes together. (PS. are the casting directors in a union?)

There’s writing scabs! I thought that it would be difficult to pull off scab labor considering how shows are normally produced, but apparently soap operas can be written at home by non-union writers without a dramatic decline in quality. That speaks highly of soap operas.

I admit it, I just like using the word “scabs.”

If you, like me, were wondering what the actual, specific issues motivating the Writers’ strike were, this video gives a pretty good run-down of the numbers involved, the basic history of where those numbers came from and why they’re important today:

Of course, this is all done from the perspective of the writers; I’d be curious to see an argument from the studios defending their stand.

Via DanielKells.

CBS TELEVISION CITY: Big glasses, big heart

Genesee gate. Drew Carey sent us out ten pizzas today. As one writer put it, “The man gave up half his lunch for us!”

You see, the writers aren’t totally on strike, they still have time to whip up a joke once in a while.

From United Hollywood, a collective blog tracking the WGA strike.

CNN:

“There is no problem with Beyonce,” he said. “But the (cafeteria) food is poisoned.”

 Via trp.

A lone writer monitors the strike from her wintery ice fortress far atop the North Pole.  Or Los Angeles.

RumorsDaily is turning into all WGA-strike, all the time.

A one-off video from Ze Frank on the WGA Strike. It’s like The Show, but with better lighting.

Via Waxy.

The Writers Guild has announced where they’ll be picketing tomorrow in LA and New York. I wish I was still in LA, I love protests.

The Writers Guild is officially walking out at 12:01am this Monday.

Say goodbye to new writing for television and film in the near future. The LA Times was kind enough to put together a quick chart detailing whether each television series has any episodes on backlog to survive at least some time without writers. Don’t worry, Cavemen isn’t going anywhere (due to the strike).
Read more »

$4 drop fee plus $0.25 per 1/6th mile. This rate is comparatively high (see New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago). In fact the initial drop fee will be higher in DC than any other major urban area in the country. Metroblogging takes a look at the new rates and finds that most trips will be more expensive for passengers.

I’m not sure the protests are going to win much support among the general ridership with rates like these.

Due to today’s 24 hour strike, there were a lot fewer cabs lined up in front of Union Station than usual this morning, but there were still a few scabs out there:

Previous strike coverage.

The DC taxis are going on strike tomorrow over the upcoming transition from zones to meters. Here’s the leaflet they’re distributing to get all the cabbies on board:

click to big-ify

They list a few grievances:

1. “Meters are the first step to a cut in the number of licenses to 3,000 (limitations)”
2. “Medallions”
3. “Installing a point system which has already been passed but not implemented by the DC Taxicab Commission… When a cab driver commits a violation he/she will get a suspension until you have accumulated enough points to revoke your license.”
4. “For those who don’t know, the new drop will be $2.75 or $3.00 at most, not $6.50.”

Issue 1 is fair enough, they want more cabs on the road and so do I. We agree. I don’t know why meters have to lead to fewer cabs, though. That’s a mystery. Issue 2 seems to be referencing a New York style licensing system; I don’t understand the issue here. Issue 3 implies that cabbies will have their licenses taken away if they’re bad drivers. Good. Who’s against this? Also, why is this at all related to meters? Issue 4 is misleading. While the minimum charge will change from $6.50 to some as yet to be determined lower number, no cab is going to ever drive zero feet and receive the bare minimum fare.  And if they do drive someone zero feet, they should be glad to have been paid any amount of money for their service.  As they drive the minimum fare will tick up according to distance, which seems reasonable.

I still don’t understand the strong taxi driver resistance.

Leaflet via DC City Desk.

After yesterday’s announcement that DC would be switching it’s taxi system away from the baffling and fraud encouraging zone system to the moderately less fraud encouraging traditional meter system, the local cab drivers are threatening a day-long strike on Halloween.

Spooky.