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Writers Strike Officially Over
CNN is reporting that the 100-day Hollywood writers walkout is now officially over. The new contract managed to snag two of the three major points the Writers Guild was looking for. The writers will now have "jurisdiction" for content created especially for new media (Internet, cell phones, etc) and will get paid for the reuse of content on new media when the studios get paid. "Leslie Moonves, chief executive officer of CBS Corp., told The Associated Press, 'At the end of the day, everybody won. It was a fair deal and one that the companies can live with, and it recognizes the large contribution that writers have made to the industry. [...] It's unclear how soon new episodes of scripted programs will start appearing, because production won't begin until scripts are completed, the AP reported. It will take at least four weeks for producers to get the first post-strike episodes of comedies back on the air; dramas will take six to eight weeks, the AP said.'"
And I'm just hoping that my favorite shows like Numb3rs and NCIS weren't affected.
I really don't care what happens as long as my shows keep coming and nobody gets hurt.
Thanks to scuttlemonkey for posting my submission.
Future generations will look back at this strike as "the year we almost lost Hollywood and no one really gave a crap."
So that means...we'll be getting more of the same crap as before the strike? Crap in, crap out.
Disclaimer: The opinions and actions of the US Gov't are in no way representative of those held by this author or its ci
Now I'll get to see the new episodes of Star Trek!
What? What do you mean "cancelled?"
OK Battlestar Galactica. No? How about Babylon...
Oh hell. Somebody please point to a nerd show I can watch tonight?
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
I'm still not going to rush back to my television set over this.
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what your country did to you
If the TV shows I watch were several months behind due to the strike, does this mean that the season will be shifted several months ahead and this summer won't be a graveyard of reruns like it usually is?
Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!
Good that we have writers so we don't have to deal with reruns anymore.
Now we can get back to rehashed stories with slapdash writing as usual.
Laughter is the Spackle of the Soul.
make it 'refuse'.
Is this "news for nerds"?
DNA in your Linux: DNALinux
I'm much more into watching movies in theaters and on DVD, rather then TV. Since we've gone so long without movie scripts being written, does that mean that pretty soon we'll see a sudden lapse in new releases? Obviously the lag time for movies is much longer then TV.
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28694/
I can get back to enjoying "The Daily Show" and the "Colbert Report", instead of those generic knock-offs, "A Daily Show" and the "Colbert Report".
Now I don't have to worry about them making a "LOST" meets Gilligan.
Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
Grats to the writers on getting what they feel they deserved and kudos to the studios and networks for solving this issue in a swift manner...Oh wait, they didn't. They drug it out and exposed us all to more "reality" television! At least we have some hope of seeing some quality shows return to tv, such as, Heroes, CSI, Family Guy, and my wifes' personal favorite Grey's Anatomy. I know Strike's are hard and messy and sometimes can be very ugly and violent. So I am honestly happy to see it end.
Seriously. How many people on Slashdot actually watch the garbage on television? Mostly, I'm playing with my kids, talking to my wife, reading or playing online - in that order...
There's a lot more to do away from the Idiot Box.
Im sorry, but its too late.
I took the plunge and got rid of 'pay-tv' once and for all right before this strike, and its amazing how little I actually miss it. And amazing how I was spending over $70/month for just regular ad-laced channels. Yes, paying to watch advertisements is not how I want to spend my money anymore. That INCLUDES the 'ads' that get thrown right into the shows, soap opera style(thats how they got their name after all).
The internet is now my primary tool of information sourcing and entertainment. The TV industry missed the boat, the same way the music industry did. The only thing that made it take as long as it did was the bandwidth difference between audio and video.
The TV is dead, long live TV!
I'm surprised no-one's mentioned Journeyman. It's got time-travel and babes, and time-traveling babes.
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
As a Canadian, I'm looking forward to violating the copyright on your writer's new material.
Hope the International Intellectual Property-hoser Alliance has taken into account any price changes due to this agreement in their industry 'loss' report. Wouldn't want them to miss squeezing any more profits out of Canada, eh?
Everyone talking about the strike is talking about the terms for Internet streaming/new media.
I'm curious as to why nobody's mentioning the writers' other big demand, for an increased royalty on DVD sales. Did they drop that demand as part of a compromise?
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
So, who got screwed the most in this one? I'm assuming the writers since the studios have deeper pocketses.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.
No more of this intellectually-insulting, amateurish garbage!
I for one welcome our intellectually-insulting, professional garbage producing overlords.
I was hoping the studios would be bull-headed enough to hold out until the Oscars, causing it to be cancelled. (just like the golden globes) NBC'd then be out millions in ad revenue. Or better, they'd try to hold them anyway with no jokes for the host to tell, and no actors to receive the awards since they won't cross the picket line outside. That would have convinced them to negotiate.
Unrelated to the writers strike, I got rid of my television and cable. I use the internet for news and watch movies with a digital projector. After a couple of months, I not only didn't miss it, but realized a big quality of life increase. More time with the kids, actually eating at the dinner table, etc.
I wonder how many people turned to other entertainment venues due to the strike. If there is NOTHING good on, I am sure some people cut back on their tv watching. Now that viewers have so many options (ie netflix, internet downloads, itunes tv, youtube, dvd kiosks, etc) this could not have come at a worse time. I am curious if this writers strike was the tipping point for a lot of people to ween themselves from their tvs. Not from shows all together, but the old standard of scheduling your life around when your show comes on and sitting through commercials.
Flexible bare-metal recovery for Linux/UNIX
Now I can ignore the new shows, rather than just ignoring the reruns.
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Kinda like the Hockey strike. We all found other things to do instead of watch tv or hockey. If it's going to take almost two more months before everything on the air is new again, by that time it will have been close to 6 months with very limited new material and then it will (probably) be summer rerun season. Am I going to go back to vegging on the couch for 3 hours every night when the shows come back on? I've severely cut back on my tv watching and I don't really miss it. I don't think I'm the only one. Sure, I've been hoping that they're going to bring back some shows (24 & numb3rs). But I doubt I'll go back to watching all the other stuff since I've already broken the habit.
Why should the writers get any of the profits? They get paid for a job...done. They're not taking the risk on a show that will flop like the networks do. It's just like owning a business. You take a high risk because you're responsible for your company succeeding, but you could also make more as the owner. The employees get paid for doing there work...and can go home to their families.
The writers and the networks get a big fat FAIL!
http://wwwfail.com/?url=slashdot.org%2Farticle.pl%3Fsid%3D08%2F02%2F13%2F1724211What is this "dating" of which you speak?
Ceci n'est pas un sig.
I'm really disappointed that this strike is over. I was hoping it would continue indefinitely, until the major TV networks were all out of business.
I guess it's because writers now get revenue for material that gets distributed online, and given how the battles around here rage about that stuff, it seems relevant.
Another monopoly holds its customers hostage.
Slashdot usually hates monopolies.
What about this time?
The labor monopoly held their customers hostage and got away with it.
To the people who think that the American People (TM) have used the writers strike to go forth and do without television, leading to a new utopia, I'd like to remind you all of the 1994 baseball player's strike and how nobody ever bought a stadium ticket again after that, causing the death of major league baseball.
While I really should be doing something better with my time, I'm glad to see this is over. I'd hate to find myself flipping through nothing but "reality" shows. I just hope that the language in the new contract is not specifically tied to any particular technologies by name so we have to do this every 10 years or so when technology changes. I'd like to see them get what they want regardless of how delivery technologies evolve and change into completely different and new things.
I was really hoping that the strike would last long enough and the networks would get desperate enough for reality TV to devolve into full on bloodsport. Shows like "The Moment of Truth" and the return of "American Gladiators" were a step in the right direction, but I was getting psyched up for chainsaw duels and auto racing with machine guns. Now that the writers are back it'll probably take another 20 years to sink that low.
I took the plunge and got rid of 'pay-tv' once and for all right before this strike,
Once you have your first child, suddenly, UNCLE TELEVISION will become your best friend.
This is my sig.
EOM
Now maybe they'll get started on Season 3, of course I still think they should bring Firefly back.... even though it won't be the same without Wash and Shepard...
Just like when baseball went on strike and everyone was claiming America's past time was dead.
I predict "The O.C. Hillbillies", "Gomer Pyle, SEAL", and "CIA:BO: Culinary Institution Arts: Bake-Off".
"Original" products will be out in 2011.
The only thing new in this world is the history that you don't know.[Harry Truman]
...anyone involved in Reality TV would go on strike. Permanently, and forever. It's hard to imagine anything more anti-geek than Reality TV.
Welcome back writers. Congrats on your win. We need you, more than ever.
I really didn't miss it, only two or three shows that I used to regularly watch were affected, and really it was just fictional television. There wasn't much besides news, educational tv, and daily show / colbert report before the strike. And during the strike there was just about the same. I was looking forward to see the industry die and possibly something new and good take its place. The rest of the television watching population is mostly into their reality tv anyways, so I'm guessing they adapted as well.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
Why is this thread full of "I don't care" posts? Can't you ignore the thread? Or is it because TV has shortened my attention span that I can ignore things I don't care about?
I wanted more unscripted reality television... Damn it. Go back on strike writers.
\
In the grand scheme of things, getting an article that is 185 days old vs 182 days old isn't that big of a deal to me.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
...the season finale of season 2? There was a writers strike ending then too. And because they were rushed to get a final episode written out on the air, they pushed out "Shades of Grey". It was a clip-show hackjob, and generally considered one of the worst TNG episodes ever made.
Don't expect your favorite shows to suddenly suck less, at least not right away. There is always a J-curve with these sort of things.
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
One thing I don't see mentioned in the comments is the fact that during the strike many writers were fired, and many shows were cancelled. 24 has decided not to air this season and will continue next season.
It may be a win for some people, but for others they are now out of a job. I don't have a pony in this race, but the strength of the writer's guild is in serious question. One Presidential candidate after another crossed the picket line in favor of publicity. They did not protect the jobs of those who they sought to protect. Actor/Writers crossed the picket line for fear of losing their jobs. And most importantly - many high value shows seemed to be airing new episodes in the middle of the strike.
I'm all for TV coming back, but make no mistake - this strike did not end well for the union. It seems that every labor union in the last several years that has gone on strike (save the port workers who affect the global economy when on strike) has yielded either poor results (eventual acceptance of offers barely different than what was available pre-strike) and in a loss of jobs for unionized workers.
I hate to turn this into a political thing, but the strength of unionized labor vs. corporate dollars has shifted dramatically in favor of corporate dollars.
I can understand why people want to see fiction they like. Everyone knows it's fiction, and sometimes fiction can explore issues in a way that would be difficult for a documentary.
However, I got tired of seeing fiction that tried to make me believe things that could not be true due to the laws of physics, or due to other aspects of reality. So, now I only watch or read non-fiction. Defending myself from the deceptions and errors of fiction takes brain processing time, and I'd rather use my brainpower to work on something else besides the ideas of a writer who had little interest in reality when he was in school.
It bothers me that comedians can't operate without writers, that they present their jokes as their own, but the jokes are actually written by someone else.
Far worse, however, is the media writing that George W. Bush said something when he was obviously only reading something someone else wrote. In class you get disciplined if you present someone else's work as your own. If you are president of the United States, that is considered acceptable.
Gee, because that's how they choose to be compensated? Or are you just bashing them out of sheer ignorance?
I would imagine that by negotiating for a percentage of the profits they ARE taking a risk on whether the show flops or not. This is likely the reason they were pissed at the studios, who wanted to cut them out of the loop entirely when a show went to TV or was somehow charged for on the Internet. Why bother pinning your reputation on the success of a show if you're going to get screwed either way (either by a bomb, or by the studio?)
Looks like the "big fat FAIL" is deserved more by you.
Actually, we could all do with a lot less of UNCLE TELEVISION, especially kids.
It's too often today that people use the television (and video games and the computer) as a surrogate babysitter instead of actually taking the time to do stuff with them. There is no reason anyone's child needs dozens or hundreds of channels of entertainment. All it does is contribute to our short attention span 24-hour entertainment culture.
I took the plunge and canceled my satellite service a little over a year ago. Since then, I have kept up with exactly two shows: Mythbusters and Lost. I have so much more time now to do things that are infinitely more interesting, and I'd never go back to watching television from the time I got home until the time I go to bed. The sad thing is that until I got rid of the satellite service, I thought I would just die without it, precisely because I was raised with the television on almost every waking hour I was at home.
I know a few people like me who don't have cable or satellite service, and their kids are consistently smarter than their average couch potato peers. They don't call it the "idiot box" for nothing.
I don't think that television is inherently evil. But I do think that people who plop their kids down in front of it and give them instant access to everything they want for hours at a time are doing them a grave disservice.
Actually, they are taking a risk. Writers make their investment in time and opportunity costs up front. If the show flops (read: never airs in its entirety), they will never collect any residual income on those unaired episodes. No reruns, no royalties. No DVD release, no royalties. They're still out the time and effort required to write the original scripts, even if they were paid, because they could have spent the same time writing another series with more chance of success.
Now it means I'll see fewer re-runs of shows that actually used to be GOOD! Oh well, at least there's always the news.
Money.
You do by products that are advertised right? this will cause those prices to rise.
Think about that next time someone says "How much an actor makes doesn't effect you."
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
According to Variety and other sources, most popular TV shows that are returning won't broadcast until March 13th or thereabouts.
Which gives us another month to ignore the Tube and level up for WoW's latest expansion set!
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
"Dark Horizons shares a TV Guide blog that shows a chart/schedule since the end to the three-month-old Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike is imminent. The networks have quietly begun outlining plans to salvage what's left of the current television (TV) season. Keep in mind that the following information remains extremely tentative and is subject to change (and probably will). Check the Web page often to see the up-to-date information." From my site.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Does this mean the writers are all posting on Slashdot again?
[signature]
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
It's hard to imagine anything more anti-geek than Reality TV.
Geeks may not like watching reality TV, but for decades we've appreciated stories *about* reality TV. Isn't reality TV a staple of that futuristic dystopia that arouses a weird combination of gut-dropping dread and insatiable curiosity in the geek heart? We can't let it stop now! Between America's abandonment of the idea of "prisoner rights" and our proliferation of "reality" shows, we're *this* close to getting a live-action Running Man!
"Jurisdiction in reality and animation
The WGA's membership of approximately 12,000 writers (more than 7,000 in WGAW and more than 4,000 in WGAE) primarily work on live-action, script-driven movies and television programs.[31]
Exactly if and how the WGA's Minimum Basic Agreement (MBA) should apply to other TV and film categories such as reality television and animation has been inconsistent over the years and is an area of much dispute.
The WGA had been pushing for jurisdiction of reality and animation, but have recently dropped these issues as the WGA and AMPTP have entered into informal negotiations."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007%E2%80%932008_Writers_Guild_of_America_strike#Jurisdiction_in_reality_and_animation
> Just an interesting story, from beginning to end. When was the last time you had a guarantee like that from a network show?
Death Note?
Oh. You mean a US network show. I don't watch programs in English any more.
What do writers want? Justic! When do they want it? Nowe! Most people would be surprised at the conditions many writers are forced to labor under. And it isn't a new problem. During the "Golden Age" of TV, many writers came home at night with a hacking cough and blackened hands. On the upside, their forearms were massive.
I'm lucky I guess. I grew up overseas and didn't really have a chance to watch most of the sci-fi that was on in the 90s. So right now I'm catching up on Star Trek DS-9 (season 5 at the moment). Next I plan on watching Babylon 5. All this for the first time. A few years ago I spent about two years watching all the seasons of Stargate that I missed. Netflix is really all I need at this point. I would highly recommend it to most people by the way. If possible you should go to your nearest "Time-o-mat" and jump back to the early nineties. Give your previous self a PSP or something to distract yourself from watching all those good shows. Easy as pie, now you have loads of good content to entertain yourself with.
Sadly, I fear currently this strategy will not serve you well in 10 year's time as today's content mill is a bit worn down. It appears that all the old content templates have been overused and now all seem to simply resemble each other. The side-effect being a large number of shows which are mostly indistinguishable (CSI, CSI Miami, CSI New York, CSI Cabo-Spring Break, etc...). I would recommend to your future self some good gems in the mix however, largely in the comedy genre.
Oh wait, that costs extra...
-- I am the NRA, enough said...
We've become quite dependent on others for our entertainment/creative fix. But culture, stories, entertainment, and art are things you and I can create without needing permission from anyone else, or big financial backing. The portrait you paint or the sculpture you sculpt might not be displayed in the Museum of Modern Art, but who cares? The rush of creating it with your own hands is better than paying $20 to view the crap MoMA considers art, or $70/mo. for cable to see the tripe the 'experts' consider entertainment.
During the Writer's Strike, after depleting Netflix and playing every game I had into the ground, I took up writing. Nothing much, just vignettes. Maybe some of them will grow into stories. If not, no biggie.
But the act of writing them is a lot more fun than watching formulaic sitcoms interlaced with scores of commercials and impregnated with endless product placements.
I hope many others got the chance to discover their muse during this hiatus, and that they keep running with it. The country would be a more excellent and interesting place to live for it.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Reality shows are almost entirely non-union
yeah, sure, go ahead and blame GM's financial troubles on paying $30/hour salaries to their workers rather than the gigantic compensation they pay their executives.
When GM Vice Chairman Lutz said that "executive salaries are like professional athelete salaries" http://www.businessweek.com/autos/autobeat/archives/2006/01/gm_execs_no_pay.html/ he thought that was a good thing!
How Long before the rest of Season 3 can be made?
There is only 1 left with more planed after that.
Also I want to see the upcome spin off set in a womans prison.
"c) and will get paid for the reuse of content on new media when the studios get paid."
Hollywood is notorious for it's bad dealings, with movies that lose money through questionable accounting practices, even after being top grossing movies for many weeks. This is more for TV than movies, but I gotta wonder what steps the contract takes to prevent the writers from getting screwed in a similar manner.
From unitedhollywood.blogspot.com: "There were also concerns raised about the 17 and 24 day windows of free content reuse on the internet"
----- 17 days is a long time in Net Years.
The argument has been made that the big bucks are in the return over the long haul. I find more than ever that much of the content being made today is topical, feeding-frenzy driven, and may not be of much interest to the masses after a week. It will be interesting to see how many TV episodes are up for *exactly* 17 days.
Dang I hadn't noticed any degradation in quality in fact I think things got better :-) ! I mean how ahrd can it be to write for 'Dirty Jobs'?
Si vis pacem, para bellum! For evil to succeed good men need only do nothing!
Now if only we could get the American Idol contestants to go on strike, TV may become watchable again.
Great cant wait for fox's animation domination sundays, simpsons, american dad, family guy and all the good lowly, trashy comedy! And lets not forget good old southpark, really bring the a*8hole out of you, nice :)
Just to counter the usual gaggle of smug tv-bashing posts, I will say that not only am I watching more television than ever, I'm paying for more as well. The last ten years has been a golden era of quality American television, from The Sopranos to Dexter to South Park to Rome to Lost to Veronica Mars. The Wire, in particular, is one of my favourite pieces of art ever, and should receive a Pulitzer Prize after this season. I don't think there's been an era of popular culture where there has been so much quality work available for so cheap.
Also, as a sports fan, watching big games in HD on a big screen is an unreal experience, and now almost all of the big events all televised this way.
For $30 a month, I think this is a great deal, and I've also been going out of my way to buy DVD sets for the shows I want to support. I could spend my life hunting down torrents of various shows, but it seems like a huge waste of time to save a few dollars.
Ok, who gives a fuck? Anyone? Ok, one hand in the back there. Thank you, sir - you may sit down.
Finally! I can stop working out and having meaningful family time and get back the couch and oh so mind numbingly mediocre sitcoms! Aaaah, feel the sedentary life flowing back to me now!
I'm not pro-union. Nor am I anti-union. I like seeing an even playing field. With that said about my prejudices, I think anyone could see that their demands were perfectly reasonable.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
New episodes will air April 10th, and the season will end March 27th. Better than nothing.
http://www.officetally.com/new-information-about-season-4
The problem stems (drumroll please) from copywrite law. To make it quick and simple the "creator" owns the copywrite on his work. He could license it to the studios, but the deal is that he allows the studio to copywrite it in their name. He is not an employee creating a "work for hire". That way the studios don't have to go back to the creator every time they want to do a script change, create a spin-off, etc. In return the creator gets royalties (called residuals in the trade) for the use of their work.
Your first paragraph pretty much sums up what this was all about. The writers guild was coerced into striking by the studios. They didn't want to and worked without contract for months, but the studios refused to negotiate. So they felt a need to flex their muscles and went out on strike.
The studios felt they were saddled with dead weight in the form of long-term development deals that were going no where. Sure you get a good show or two out of them, but there were too many for the product that was being produced. There were some that were three years into their deals and had no product yet. All of those deals have "act of god" or "force majeur" clauses in them and most were 90-days (from what i was told by the Universal Studios folks).
After 90-days those deals were killed, the people had all been laid off earlier and now, amazingly, 10-days later the strike is settled. The WGA was a puppet used to smack down the small production companies.
The tiny concessions given to the writers have been estimated to amount to about $3,000 per year for a constantly working writer of average pay. And even in those concessions there are loopholes for the studios - like they get to wait a month after releasing a show for the web before they have to pay anything to the writer. Look for lots of "pay for it on iTunes or get it free after a month" deals from now on. So basically the writers sold out tens of thousands of actual hard-working people (grips, food workers, etc.) for hollow concession to feed their damaged egos.
now back to your regularly scheduled program!!
Really, we'll be back to the stupid usual reality shows gimicks, politically correct talk shows, over-paid writer sequels, and recreation of a classic JJAbroms style movies.
I admit, the last 2 months, I've likely seen the best live-recorded shows ever--I mean Leno, O'Brien, A Daily Show, and Bill Maher have been the most entertaining in ages. They took risks and it was good. Now with their writers back, it's likely back to go ho-hum, just enough for ratings.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
I won't have to not watch Bruno Vs. Carrie-Ann.
I can not watch quality shows.
"Teach a man to build a fire, and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life."
Now GWB's writers can focus on writing McCain's lines.
I thought Comedy was harder than Drama. Oh wait, I'm being told that only applies to good Comedy.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
I didn't notice a change in tv ... didn't even know they were gone.
tell me again why i care?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Slashdot has no improvement in editing to look forward to.
> Typo's and grammatical errors in the summaries? ASCII porn?
Who is Typo? One of the editors?
Who would you pay more, the writer for an emmy-winning show, or the writer for a complete flop? If the answer isn't obvious, you might want to ask your local Politburo for help. How do you know which writers are working on new emmy-winning shows and which are working on complete flops? If you can tell in advance, why would you pay anyone to work on a flop? If you can't tell in advance, how do you know how much to pay them? One hit show is no guarantee of another. One of my favorite writers, David Shore, won an emmy for "House," but completely flopped on his next project. You would have seriously overpaid him for the flop and seriously underpaid him for "House."
I have an idea, we can wait to see how successful the show is, then pay the writers more for more successful shows. But how can we measure how successful a show is? I know, by the profits. We can pay writers more for shows that make more profit. I bet that would encourage them to write better. If only there were some mathematical formula we could use to codify that in a contract...
Slashdotters who judge writers but don't care enough about writing to learn "there" homophones get a big fat FAIL!
This space intentionally left blank.
Wow, you are right: ABC News: No Joke, Leno Can't Write Own Punchlines [Story HTML Title]
How can they keep a career comedian from joking?
Suppose he said something and people laughed. Could he claim that he didn't mean it as a joke?
Also, it should be said that, with few exceptions, Jay Leno has not been funny for at least a decade. I'm not the only one who thinks that: "Leno's long-standing dominance of the ratings must rank as one of the world's inexplicable cultural tragedies."
Maybe people want to see comedy on TV so badly that they are willing to pretend what the comedians say is funny.
Every time there's a story about the writer's strike on Slashdot, all I see are comments along the lines of, "who cares?", "doesn't matter", "good!"
Come on! Are you all really that deluded? Yes, the internet has reduced the need for traditional TV, but we're a long way from leaving it behind. Billions of people watch TV every day. Most of you watch it at least a few times per week. Even if you download shows rather than viewing them on your TV, you're still going to be affected by the writer's strike, and you're still going to miss out on future episodes of your favourite series.
I just think it's childish that so many of you are pretending that you're above television. Like you've evolved, and you can't wait to see it gone. Don't forget that a lack of writers affects more than just the dime-a-dozen US sitcoms. Almost every show has been affected in some way by this strike.
I, for one, am not too afraid (like the rest of you) to say that I'm glad they've reached an agreement.
I can watch A . . ., er I mean The Daily show again without feeling guilty!
An Invisible Entity of Vast Power whose existence must be taken on faith alone: Liberal Media
Now, where's my bread?
Sounds like financial planning to me :-)
Random numbers == how long you expect to live, what the tax rates will be 20+ years from now, what inflation is going to be for the next N years, what your expected rate of return will be, etc.
But the formulas are accurate!
Subscribers can see articles in the future? So what? Everyone gets to see them in the future.
...and Tim Kring (that's the creator of the show) admitted it and pledged to fix it. Which he did, if you watched the end of the second season.
Of course, the dialog is still ridiculous, but it always has been...it wouldn't quite be Heroes without an occasional West-ism.
Captcha: Testicles
Hmm...it sucked what again?
You all have Oo.o and Firefox, so get World Wind.
Series 30 begins in Spring.
Cheers.
Yet Socrates himself is particularly missed.
A lovely little thinker but a bugger when he's pissed.
This is a broad subject. In general, I find it interesting that the auto manufacturers with the best MPG ratings are those in countries with no petroleum industry, and/or weak industry lobbyists.
Is it really that interesting?
It seems obvious that countries with no petroleum industry will have a weak petroleum lobby. Furthermore, people in countries with no petroleum industry pay more for petroleum and will favor manufacturers with better MPG ratings.
Recently, Americans have had a combination of cheap gas and extra spending money for cars, so they were focused on everything but MPG. Things are swinging the other way now, so you will see MPG go up.
Sigh.... Just kidding.
50 years from now we will find out that Stephen Colbert negotiated an end to the strike but did not want to take any credit for it just like his dad did.
Today's vices may be tomorrow's virtues.
I would rip your little piece-of-shit moronic "no fucking clue" body to pieces.
Unions are the only thing we non-rich have. Get a fucking clue.
Instead of making life shittier for Americans, why don't you ponder the fucking concept of making life less shitty for people in other countries, too? You fucking Reagan trickle-down piece of shit. Learn some God damn American history and see what unions have done for the people here.
Is the concept of high taxes for imports from non-union countries too fucking crazy a concept for your narrow little fucking brain to handle?
Or, let me guess, you just think what your daddy thinks.
You fucking tool.
Wow all this hobo jumbo over a Writers Guild Strike because they weren't getting enough money to make these TV shows? And still theres no word on when my favorite show Bionic Woman Returns on Cable TV again well I have Sateilite so I can watch it whenever I want to. I have also DVR!.But still 6-8 weeks before we see new Episodes?.Thats Ridiculous!
Calm down.
I actually agree with your angry rant. Americans are often seriously ignorant when it comes to the history of their own country. Once you look at the quality of life in this country before and after unions, there's no way you can say the things these people say.
It's like they're cannibals.
You can also notice how the quality of life in this country has been steadily dropping since the Reagan-Union-Busting years. It's so weird that Republicans honor Reagan. It's like they're in some kind of bubble.
Welcome to Costco, I love you.
We watch way too much TV.
less shows = less watchy? = more time doing productive work?
(probably not, but sounds right)
Please use [ informative / summarizing ] SUBJECT LINES
Flame me here
.... you will remember your idiotic tirade about human rights been nothing but mental masturbations.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Then you will watch only good TV.
I buy a weekly listing, find the programs that are worth my time and record them. I may not watch them all, but when I feel like watching I know I have quality stuff on disk.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I'm pretty sure Rodney King now knows his rights are nothing but mental masturbations.
Who said hobbies had to cost money? You obviously have a computer, why not get into programming? Don't blame cost as the reason you have nothing to do but watch TV. Stop paying for TV, use that money for all those hobbies you can't afford to get into.
Do you guys get Doctor Who? Or Torchwood?
Someone should have told the Superfriends and Legion of Doom that. Every episode has some amazing technology that is never used again. In this case, a time machine (and others I am sure I am forgetting as well). Really, this is one of the worst of the worst. And really, if you have this technology ... you stealing gold why exactly?
Atlas Shrugged : Thematic Story