I just got back from vacation, which of course allowed me plenty of time to think about the most trivial of things. I had anticipated a whole lot of blog entries upon my return, but then realized pretty much none of what I thought of could be fleshed out to become something longer than a couple of sentences, so I'll group them. OK, I'll group the few things that I can actually still remember.
     First off, I noticed something very interesting during my first day on the beach. It seems to be my experience that the amount of clothing you wear on the beach seems to increase with each year of age. I wanted to take pictures to illustrate my point, but I'm not exactly comfortable with taking pictures of strangers, especially for the purposes of posting them online, especially my first subject, which was a naked toddler. When the day started, he was running around in his diaper, loving life. The next thing I knew, I turned my head, and there he was in all his shiny glory. Immediately I looked away, feeling as if looking at someone else's naked little boy instantly put me in danger of being arrested. I tried to avoid looking at him as much as possible because, legal liabilities or not, I had no desire to see a little boy's tiny package. But, there he was, running all over the beach and enjoying his freedom. I was pretty successful in averting my gaze until they decided to leave. They walked right in front of us, and he threw up his hand and exclaimed, "HI!" "Hey, buddy," my husband calmly replied. Apparently, I get flustered by naked children, because I was still stammering after they had passed. We went back a couple of days later and, lo and behold, who should be there but Baby Godiva. Luckily, they didn't stick around long that day, but he was the perfect first example of my point. Everything between, say, 6 and 18 gets a little cloudy. It's just a sea of tiny swimsuits. Once the twenties come into view, you start to see signs of the mellowing - more guys in t-shirts and girls with shorts over their suits until they're ready to get in the water. Add a few more years, and you get the one-piece suit, followed soon by the skirted one-piece suit. Once a woman has passed that stage, you'll probably never see her in a suit again. That's when we move into the shorts and t-shirt phase, sometimes complete with hats.



In the final stage of my beach-wear evolution, I saw an older couple fully dressed and wrapped in a comforter on the sand. It was over 80 degrees out there. Of course, there are always exceptions. I saw a woman who was easily in her 50's walking around in a bikini. But, more often than not, I saw these rules played out again and again in our days by the ocean.

     I haven't had much experience with beach houses, but what I've experienced has taught me that beach houses are decorated unlike anything else on earth. For example, this was the upholstery on the sofa.

I couldn't help but wonder as I looked at the sofa and the surrounding furnishings...
...where do people find this stuff? I don't recall ever walking into a store and seeing beach-themed upholstery and shell lamps. I wondered if there were special stores just for beachy furnishings and accessories. A day or so later, I was flipping through the local guide and saw this.

SHELL LAMP OUTLET! There really is a haven just for these ocean-themed items! I've lived in a beach town most of my life and have never seen anything like this, so I wonder if this is the central headquarters for beach decor. No, seriously. Maybe this is where it all comes from. Regardless, I find it fascinating. When you go to the mountains, are the sofas upholstered in rocky prints? Are there leaf-filled lamps on the tables? That has not been the case in my experience. Beach vacations are definitely unique.

     Our final story actually begins a couple of weeks before vacation. Mike treated himself to a cream soda from 7-11 and won one under the cap. He went online, put in his code, and they sent him a coupon for his free 20 oz. bottle from any of the 7-Up products. There were several bottles pictured on the coupon, including Sunkist Grape and Sunkist Fruit Punch. When I saw the coupon, I immediately asked Mike about it. "Did you see this?" "Yeah." "Is that Grape Sunkist?" "It looks like it." "Where do you get Grape Sunkist?" "I have no idea." I was beyond intrigued. After all, Sunkist is the quintessential orange soda. I could only imagine what they would do with a flavor I really liked, like grape. Fast forward to last week (let's go back....to the future!) We're in the local K-Mart picking up things we didn't bring for the beach house, but ended up needing. As usual, Mike went to the soda aisle to see if they had cans of A&W cream soda (you just never know where you'll be able to get it, and it's so impossible to find around here that we've learned to get it whenever we can.) No luck on the cream soda, but when I came down the aisle to find out what the verdict was, my eyes were immediately drawn to the purple box with the Sunkist logo. I gasped as if I'd seen a vision of the virgin Mary in the middle of a waffle. "Mike, look!" I exclaimed. Our excitement was only beginning.

Oh yeah. OH....YEAH!!!!!!! We were hoping for a six pack of bottles so we wouldn't have to buy three 12-packs of soda, but that's all that were available. But, luckily for us, these may just be the most delicious fruit sodas we've ever had the pleasure to consume. In fact, Sunkist Cherry Limeade has moved up my list as one of my favorite sodas ever. It's so amazingly cherry and good. The only tragedy is that I have no idea where I could get these around here if I wanted them. Yes, I said tragedy. Seriously, you have no idea how good these sodas are, and I don't even drink soda usually. That's evidenced by the fact that my resting pulse was 88 after consuming one yesterday. I'm really not used to all that sugar. It's so hard to restrain myself though.

     So, that's my vacation observations in a nutshell. If I remember something later, I'll create the sequel.

     I had to work with VHS last week. I very rarely deal with VHS anymore. I only pull them out when I'm looking for something buried in one of my beloved tapes. While few would argue the supremacy of DVDs, there are just some things about VHS that I will always love. Here are my top 5.

1. Unlimited Recordability
I can fill a VHS tape with movies and TV shows, keep it for 10 years, then decide I don't want any of those things anymore and record over the whole tape. If I want to record something that's two minutes long, I don't have to pull out a fresh tape just for that. I can find any tape that has two free minutes on it. If I go to make a dub and there's a hiccup in the process, I don't have to throw the whole tape away. I just rewind and start over. I love VHS for that. Plus, if someone gave you a promotional tape that you had no interest in, you could just put a piece of masking tape over that record-protection tab and use it for Thursday night's very special episode of The Cosby Show. That's much better than those useless AOL discs that serve no purpose. (Seriously. I wouldn't even recommend you use them to try AOL.)

2. Durability
It's hard to kill a VHS tape. If you crush the shell of the tape, it will probably still play. If it doesn't, most (if not all) VHS tapes are held together with screws. You can put the actual tape into a different shell if you need to. While it's not recommended, you can leave tapes in piles on the floor (just watch for that static electricity), stacked on shelves, shoved in boxes, or stashed under the bed. The actual tape is protected inside the shell. If you accidentally drop something on a DVD and it cracks, forget about it. That thing is done. The readable part of a disc is always exposed (even if it's to the inside of a case or disc album) and susceptible to dirt, dust, scratches, or other damage. If one part of a DVD gets damaged, the whole disc, and all the information contained on it, is no longer useful. If the tape inside a VHS cassette breaks, as is prone to happen after time, you can just splice it back together with something as simple as transparent tape. Forget about cockroaches, VHS tapes will survive the nuclear holocaust.

3. Capacity
I can make a two-hour tape hold six hours by using the SLP setting. There will be a slight degradation in quality, but nothing significant (keen-eyed videophiles may disagree, but they're probably not reading this, so I stand by my point.) I have used the SLP setting on my DVD recorder, and the video was so compressed it was practically unwatchable. Figuring out that I'm going to need 3-6 DVDs for every one VHS tape I own has slowed my enthusiasm for converting them.

4. They Always Come With a Case
Spools of DVDs may be convenient, but they're not exactly practical for storage. That's why they sell separate jewel cases. But, if I'm going to need the cases anyway, WHY DON'T THEY JUST SELL THE BLASTED DISCS WITH THE CASES? I hate when I have to make a copy of something for someone and I have to hand them a plain disc (which could be easily scratched and rendered unusable, see point #2) because I don't have any spare cases around.

5. You Can Always Pick Up Where You Left Off
You can start watching something, stop in the middle, take the tape out of the VCR so you can use it for something else, put the tape back in, and it's right where you left it. There may be few advantages to linear recording, but darn if that isn't one of them.

BONUS: I just love them. VHS tapes have character. I love the weight when I hold them in my hand. I love the clicky, springy sound of the reels if you bounce them in and out with your fingers, I love the sound a VCR makes when you first put the tape in, I love the way they sit on shelves like library books and the large, labeled spines that make it easy for me to know exactly what's on the tape, I love their shiny black exteriors, and I love all of the seemingly mundane things that the limitations of linear recording forced me to keep on tape that are now some of my favorite things in my VHS collection. I may backup my tapes, but I can't see ever getting rid of them completely. Each cassette serves as a tiny time capsule, and I love each and every one.

     People may complain about all the advertising Coke has done during these Olympics, but let me tell you something - it works. I was only 5, but I can tell you that Beatrice was one of the main sponsors of the 1984 Olympic coverage. I don't have the faintest idea what they did (do? Is Beatrice still around?), I just remember that I'd see the name once in a while in places like restaurant bathrooms (maybe they made those giant toilet paper roll dispensers?) and think, "Beatrice. From the Olympics." To this day, it's one of the few memories I still retain from watching my first real Olympics.
     I have been spared the onslaught of advertising this year, however, because it is my first Olympics with TiVo and, let me say, it's everything I dreamed it would be. I fell in love with the Olympics during the 1984 summer games. It was a double whammy for me because not only were they the first games I was aware of, they were in our home country that year - Los Angeles if you recall - so the hype was even bigger. It was a huge event. We visited my grandparents during that time, and the Olympics were on all evening. That was when I learned how special the Olympics were. I still love the Olympics, especially the summer games. They're the only events that the whole world cares about simultaneously. My attention span waned a bit around 1992, but came back big time in 1996 thanks to a gorgeous specimen of a male gymnast named Kip Simons. Though his dashing good looks brought me to the sport of men's gymnastics, I actually stuck around because of the fabulous athletes on the team that year. I got really into it, watching all the meets on ESPN and NBC Sports in the years following. Once most of those guys retired, I waned again. In fact, I recall little of the 2000 and 2004 games. After all, by then I was an adult, and spending all night in front of the TV for two weeks or staying up late to watch those last few hours of coverage was really impractical. Still, when the games were over, I always felt like I'd missed out on something. Then, something wonderful happened. TiVo be thy name.
    Thanks to my beloved TiVo, I have recorded almost every minute of NBC's coverage. I've learned that I enjoy watching beach volleyball, and that water polo can't hold my attention. I haven't been subjected to heart-wrenching back stories of determined athletes, and I don't have to watch gymnasts make the same mistake 20 times from multiple angles. I've been able to skip the coverage of events that didn't interest me (I admire the road racers, but I can only watch them pedal for so long) to get to what I wanted to see, even when they were all sandwiched together. I watched the USA vs. China basketball game in double time, nicely bridging the difference between watching a sport I have never enjoyed and anticlimactically reading the results on the internet. The seemingly endless commercial breaks? Wonderfully, they are no longer an issue. Fear not, Coke and John McCain. I've noticed all of your spots and your advertising messages are duly noted. In fact, I may buy a Coke or two just to prove that TV advertising and TiVo can harmoniously coexist. I have watched hours upon hours of footage that would have been nearly impossible to watch in their entirety, allowing me to have a well-rounded, satisfying Olympic experience that I only imagined. And it's only Day 5!
     My only sobering thought is that had TiVo existed 12 years ago, I wouldn't have those VHS tapes of Kip Simons. Ahhh....Kip.

     My mother pointed out to me that I hadn't updated my blog in 8 months. I'm aware of that, and I apologize. The cold, hard truth is that this is a light-hearted blog and I haven't been the most light-hearted person this year. I chose to stay silent rather than blog about annoyances and rants all the time. There are enough blogs like that.
    I've been wanting to get back to the blog, but I wanted to wait until I felt like I could update with some sort of consistency. So, I'm going to bite the bullet and start updating again. I must have some weird memory I haven't shared with you all yet...

     I'm on a bit of a Fioricet buzz as a write this. Something tells me that I shouldn't blog when I'm on pain medication, but I've decided to live dangerously.
     A certain thoughtful brother-in-law gave me a fabulous set of old commercials as a Christmas gift. Yeah, I know it's only the 21st...oh wait...the 22nd, but the postal service pretty much destroyed the packaging, which gave me an excuse to pull an Uncle Melvin and decide I should go ahead and open it (yes, I know only about three of my closest family members will understand what that means, but I'm making the reference anyway.) So anyway, I retreated to bed and watched disc two of the set, and now I've developed a need for the weirdest thing. For reasons I can't explain, I must have a vintage Flintstones vitamin bottle.
    The fact that I just wrote "for reasons I can't explain" leads me to believe that maybe I should have gone with my gut and not tried to blog about this, but I just have to get this out. For those of us who have spent most of our lives in the plastic container/child-proof top era, it's easy to forget that once upon a time, everything came in glass bottles. I remember that a little because I remember being so relieved when certain products started being sold in plastic so I didn't have to be so anxious when I handled them. But, for the most part, it's been all plastic all the time. As for Flintstones Vitamins, I can never recall a time when they were in glass. I can only picture them in those white plastic cylinders. Tonight, however, my eyes were opened. I saw the commercial where Fred and Barney were peddling their wares to the children of the early 70's, and I saw the most adorable little glass bottles I ever could have imagined. They made the vitamins look so inviting. I can't explain it, but something told me I had to have it. For curiosity's sake, I checked eBay. If you can believe it, there wasn't a single vintage bottle of vitamins. I didn't expect any that were full of vitamins, but surely there are more people like my grandma who keep every glass bottle they run across. The fact that my eBay search came up empty almost seemed to cement my need for this bottle. Now it's not just a desire, it's a mission.
     Only time will tell if my fascination with this bottle continues, or if I wake up in the morning with a pop-culture addict's version of a "what was I thinking" hangover. For now, though, I must settle for pictures. Maybe one day, Fred and Barney. Maybe one day...
    

     Lately, the entertainment headlines are reminding me why it took less than two years in the industry to make me abandon my dream of working in television. Most of the people who work in entertainment take themselves way too seriously and are completely out of touch with anything resembling reality.
    I've been observing the strike and reading all the support there is out there for the writers. I understand it. The writers are the clear underdogs in the fight. Studios have plenty of money to go around and yet they're holding out on these lowly scribes who are just trying to make a living. It's seems almost too easy. There's a reason for that. The writers make a lot of good points, I will admit. However, and I'm going to duck flying produce as I say this, I think people are being too hard on the studios. How can I say such a thing? Well, people are getting angry at the studios for only caring about themselves. Duh. That's kind of what we expect them to do. Writers are doing the exact same thing, only they're treated more sympathetically because they're not the symbol of greed and power. Now you're asking how I can be so insensitive when writers are just going in there to fight for what's rightfully theirs...I know, I know. Case in point, when Carson Daly, a non-WGA member whose late night program is barely a blip on the radar screen, said that after weeks of supporting his writers he was going back to his show to preserve the jobs of his non-writing staff, he was completely lambasted for it. At the beginning of the strike, Ellen Degeneres made the same decision and was also treated like a pariah. The writers bully anyone who dares to try to keep working in the industry while they are on strike. After all, where would the industry be without writers. Yeah, I get it. I also have to wonder where the industry would be without...oh...cameramen, lighting directors...people who actually get the printed words on film. The truth is, it's easier to make TV without writers than it is to make them without studio technicians. Let's not forget that striking writers are still earning residuals on their previous work while all of this is going on. The "evil" networks even kept non-writing staffers on the payroll for many weeks, even though they weren't getting any work out of them, and then were treated like the portrait of evil when they decided it wasn't in their best interest to continue doing that anymore. Hello, it's the entertainment BUSINESS. Why do we expect them to be anything more than the corporate, bottom-line watchers that they are. Granted, the studios have been hypocritical on some of the issues. As one writer famously pointed out, they claim internet broadcasting is promotion that does nothing for them financially, then sue YouTube for millions in damages over their programs being broadcast without their consent. If what the studios say is true, then shouldn't they be thrilled at all the "free promotion"? Studios claim that they make nothing from the internet and writers believe they make a small fortune. The truth lies somewhere in the middle and it amazes me that no one's been able to figure out the truth and present it with facts. Meanwhile, the writers try to paint this picture that they're only asking for a few crumbs that fall to the floor from the studios' banquet, but in reality some of their demands are really out there. I'm not sure where the idea of forcing writers that are currently under the jurisdiction of other unions to be under the authority of the WGA falls into their "we're just trying to make a decent living for our families" sob story. I keep reading on these industry sites how "the public is with the writers", and I wonder how true that is. Are we talking the New York and LA "public" or the public in general - the people who work every day to build their employers' companies for a modest paycheck, hoping to unwind to a little TV at night only to find nothing but reruns because the writers believe that they aren't getting enough every time someone makes money off of their work. That's what most of America deals with every day.
    Similarly, I read today about freelancers in New York complaining about benefits. That in and of itself confused me. I've never heard of freelancers getting benefits. Apparently, Viacom utilizes the help of freelancers on a full-time basis and offers them some benefits in return for their steady work. Now they've cut those benefits, so the "permalancers", as they call themselves, walked out and took to the streets to protest their unfair treatment. "This company that doesn't officially employ us has cut our benefits!" they could have chanted. A blog even had the nerve to refer to them as slaves. When I freelance, and this is pretty much true for every freelancer I know of, it is known that you are a contractor. You pay your own taxes, you are responsible for your own retirement savings, and you take care of your own insurance needs. There are also advantages to being a freelancer over an employee. You can say, "I don't want to work here anymore" and leave. Since you are not officially employed, there's not much they can say to you about that. You are officially your own boss and you can choose to sell your services to someone else. That seems to directly contradict that whole "slave" mentality this underappreciative group seems to have. If you want retirement savings, then save your money. Put it in an IRA or other savings plan like every other freelancer in the country has to do. In fact, that's the responsible choice for anyone who isn't officially employed by a company. As a freelancer, you are responsible for your own well-being. That's the way it works. I don't care if the years you've spent working there makes you feel like you're more of an employee than a freelancer - if that's what you are officially, then that's what you are and you need to be aware of what that entails. You may be used to the benefits Viacom has given you, but they are in no way required to give them to you. By the way, is there any way we can get "Roots" played on the big screen in Times Square, where the walkout is going on, to put the suffering of these Viacom "slaves" into perspective?
    I feel the most appropriate way to end this is the way I started this: Most of the people who work in entertainment take themselves way too seriously and are completely out of touch with anything resembling reality. It's entertainment, people. You make entertainment. Maybe it's time you all chilled out and got a little perspective.

     Hi-o! I don't know why, I just felt like giving a McMahon-style greeting to all this Thanksgiving Eve. I found this on YouTube. I know it's a bit choppy, but I thought that most of the people that visit the blog would enjoy it. Have a fun Thanksgiving, everyone!

     The older I get, the dumber other adults get.
     When we were walking the strip in Las Vegas this past April, I took pictures of every remnant of old Vegas I could find, and there wasn't much. Thank goodness for digital because I think I took the equivalent of a roll of film just of the newly imploded Stardust, the bottom half of the sign still standing there like some sort of cemetery marker. Signs seem to be some of the last things to go, as next door to the former Stardust was an empty lot with the skeleton of a sign out front - the former Westward Ho which was demolished in late 2006. I even photographed a towering, deteriorating sign for El Rancho, a hotel demolished way back in 2000. After snapping away at the sites for Stardust and Westward Ho, we crossed the street to the Frontier. My dad said something to the effect of, "I bet this one's days are numbered." We had no idea how right he was.
    What was a fully-functioning hotel and casino just seven months ago is today a pile of debris. They imploded it just hours ago. In its place will be yet another obscenely extravagant hotel for people with more money than sense. In reference to the new hotel, the Associated Press quoted owner Yitzhak Tshuva as saying, in a way that couldn't possibly be seen as flaunting his greed and materialism in the face of God, "I think that there should be no price tag for a place with such enormous potential." I'm normally no prude, but we're not talking about a community center or hospital or research facility here, we're talking about a casino - a virtual palace of debauchery. Is that the enormous potential of which he speaks? Now people can get drunk, lose insane amounts of money, and wallow in complete hedonism in a much more expensive building than they did before? Put me on the waiting list! It says that Tshuva gave hugs as the hotel came down. Yeah, eradicating a piece of modern history warms the cockles of my heart too.
     I guess it shouldn't be all that surprising that a town built on indulgence loses more of its past with each generation. It is somewhat ironic that the attitudes that built the glitzy, eye-popping hotels 40-some years ago are the same ones that are calling for those buildings to be rendered obsolete and replaced with something glitzier and more eye-popping. In 40 years, should God withhold his judgment that long, our children will be calling for multi-billion dollar spectacles to built in place of outdated eyesores like the Venetian, the Bellagio and, yes, even The Plaza Hotel that will be built in the spot where the Frontier stood a mere 24 hours ago. I guess I should expect nothing less from a town that lives by the unofficial mottoes "Live in the moment" and "If it feels good do it", yet it probably surprises you to hear that every time another piece of Vegas history topples, my heart breaks a little.
     When I was a kid, too young to even remember the year, my dad went to Las Vegas. One of the things he brought back was a souvenir pictorial - essentially a bunch of post cards attached to each other and folded up in an accordion style. As a kid whose trips had never gotten more exotic than seeing the bright lights of Dairy Queen on Rt. 460 between home and Grandma's, I was mesmerized that such a place could actually exist. I looked at the postcards often and wondered what it must be like to see a place like that in real life. Over 20 years later, when I finally got the chance to see it for myself, most of the hotels that mesmerized me as a kid -  hotels like The Sands and The Dunes - were long gone. Even some of the hotels that remained, like The Riviera, which were once flagships on the strip, had been reverted to also-rans, so hidden among the bigger, more bankable hotels that I sometimes had to look at my pictures to realize I'd even seen them. That's why I was so happy when I'd get to sneak a peek at something that resembled the Vegas of those postcards - the larger than life marquees advertising cheap buffets and B-list (if you're lucky) entertainment, skyscraping signs lit up by individual tiny bulbs and not high-tech LED, architectural details that had managed to escape remodeling and remained to hold testament to that hotel's golden age. I'd find some sort of satisfaction in a seeing where a newer sign facade or banner had fallen off, revealing a rusty sign from some long-since forgotten hotel. It was like the proverbial tell-tale heart, not letting the "onward and upward" Vegas developers forget the history they were trying to erase with their latest pet projects. They almost seemed to be coming back from the dead to warn these trendy new attractions that they were once the trendy new attractions too, and someday their fates would be the same.
     Spectacular implosions may make Las Vegas one of the most high profile cities when it comes to tearing down the old to build the new, but they're certainly not alone. Many east coast beach towns are experiencing the same fate. I see it every year in my town - another quaint motor inn from the 60's comes down so a behemoth, view-blocking hotel can replace it. Homes built for the baby boom are unceremoniously bulldozed to make way for town plazas and condos, more pieces of another era completely gone. Unfortunately, these projects also mean converting the affordable to the upscale. One $200,000 dollar home is replaced with condos going for $450,000+ a piece. A $79 a night motel is replaced by a $300 a night hotel. Post-war bungalows are flattened to make space for high-end boutiques. This is another reason I find today's decision-makers dumber and dumber. By replacing everything with "bigger and better" (i.e. more expensive), they are contributing to making life harder. People will have to work longer hours at more jobs to be able to afford anything. How does it improve life when you have to save up for a year to be able to afford any type of vacation that doesn't involve an air mattress on your parents' floor? Nowadays, parents practically have to sacrifice the experience of their children's childhoods just to be able to afford a roof over their heads. Our generation is criticized for owning homes that have been obnoxiously dubbed "McMansions", but it's hard to avoid them when the smaller homes that our parents and grandparents successfully raised families in are being razed and the only thing being built in their places are these excessive houses. For whatever reason, we keep insisting on erasing our past so that we can improve upon it. Does anyone stop to think that maybe the past doesn't need our improving? Maybe it's fine the way it is.
    I would not suggest that every old building be saved. That's not only unrealistic and impractical, but just as ignorant as tearing down every old building. I would encourage people to break out of the mentality that old is bad simply because it's old. We shoot dirty looks at people who throw away an aluminum can instead of recycling, but we think nothing of turning a usable building into a pile of debris because it can be replaced with something that looks more modern. We also need to stop being so near-sighted when it comes to history. I wish so badly I could find the article, but I read not too long ago about internet groups that are trying to chronicle the endangered species that is the enclosed shopping mall, a big piece of late '70's-early'90's American culture. When a member of some large preservation group was asked if they might ever look into saving some of these malls, the woman pretty much sniffed at the idea that they would be interested in preserving a [shudder] mall! These same groups rally to save things like single-family residences, buildings that were only significant to a handful of people, simply because of their age and the fact that they are some of the last remaining edifices of their time. Yet the idea that something like a shopping mall, which in some places were social centers of the community, could be of historical significance in 50 years is so absurd?
     Buildings that the greatest generation built with their own hands have stood for years as monuments to optimism and the desire for the American dream. They are quickly becoming no more than memories, making way for new buildings that stand as monuments for gluttony and trendiness. I hate to think it, but maybe that is the new American dream. I wonder how Canada is this time of year...

        I was playing video games last night around 11:30. I usually watch The Tonight Show on Monday nights, but I knew it was a rerun, so I just kept doing what I was doing. To me, that is the main weakness of the latest writer's strike.
     There are lots of little details to the strike, most of which turn my brain to pudding, but the gist is that television and film writers want a piece of the pie when their creations are rebroadcast over the internet and all sorts of other digital avenues that are developing as we speak. As for which side has the strongest case, well, let's just say there are plenty of valid points and greed to go around. The nuances of the strike aren't really the point of this little article.
     Because the movie studios have plenty of stockpiled scripts, the immediate effects will be felt more strongly in the television industry. Late-night programming was brought to a stand-still almost immediately. The last time the writers had a strike of this magnitude was 1988. Nearly a decade later, they've decided that this is still the best way to resolve their differences. The irony is, the main reason for this strike is the same issue that makes me wonder if it will backfire for the Writers Guild of America. The internet wasn't a threat to television in 1988.  In fact, I dare say there are more alternatives to television than ever before. In the short run, that may seem like a good thing for the writers - in theory, people will stop watching more quickly, and the quicker people stop watching television the quicker the studios will do whatever it takes to get the shows, and subsequently the viewers, back. The problem is, we may not care anymore when, in fact, those shows do come back. The popularity of digital video recorders shows that our current culture is making television fit its schedule instead of the old-style way of appointment viewing. No new programs on the TiVo means more time for other things. Aside from that, the current season has done little more than tie up last season's cliffhangers or set-up the premises of the new shows. There's a reason seasons end with cliffhangers - to keep people interested over the hiatus. If the strike drags on as long or longer than the 1988 strike (22 weeks), we'll be asked to return to shows, characters, and/or storylines we barely got familiar with. Hollywood is like an angry spouse that walks out on its family, then returns months later expecting everything to be the way it was before. That's not the way life works.
     In today's world, there is a lot of competition for our time and attention. Television is not the go-to source for entertainment it once was. Even those of us who love TV don't watch it the same way we did nine years ago. That leads me to the aforementioned digital video recorders. I would guess that there are many people with a TiVo backlog that can get them through the first week or two of the strike. There's also video on demand. In 1988, viewers didn't have complete seasons of TV shows at their fingertips. If we want to watch TV and the networks will just be showing reruns anyway, we might as well watch the DVDs with bonus content and no commercials. Though cable was very present in 1988, it didn't pose nearly the same threat it does today. Cable will also see a lot of its original programming on indefinite hiatus, but without the competition from first-run network programs, the reruns may find new life. Let's not forget the channels that pretty much survive on the replaying of beloved shows that people may enjoy getting reacquainted with. The sheer ratio of cable channels to network channels suggests that if the networks get mired in reruns, television-hungry viewers will be able to find something to watch that they haven't seen before, or a sentimental favorite they haven't seen in years.
     Younger viewers will probably just tune out altogether. In a world where every college student with a webcam views himself as a "filmmaker", the web is chock full of free content. Granted, a lot of it is mediocre at best, but there are a few diamonds hiding in the rough, and they'll have plenty of time to find them. I'll even go so far as to suggest that the networks could start filling time with viewer-submitted content. With current home video equipment producing footage equivalent to broadcast standards of the not-so-distant past, that's a very real possibility. There will also be plenty who'll just use the time to get better acquainted with their computers and video game consoles. Why not schedule an all-night session of Halo 3? There's nothing good on TV anyway.
     Older viewers may also opt to tune out, but those that don't will pose a different threat to the WGA. You see, the networks have another tool at their disposal that wasn't around in 1988 - reality TV. Sure, there were news programs and true life stories back then, but today there are also endless competition shows that consistently top the ratings, and that's with first-run scripted shows vying for the same viewers.  In the beginning, many people will watch the shows because they're there, but then they'll get hooked in. That's the way these things go.
     As viewers stay tuned in, and the networks continue to survive without the help of a single television writer, the bargaining power of the WGA gets weakened. I won't suggest that scripted television is obsolete or even that the major networks can survive long term without it, but the strike may prove just how well the networks can get along without writers when necessary, something that may be more damaging to the WGA in the long run than the actual issues for which they're striking.

    In shopping for a reunion dress last week, I was forced to come face to face with a reality about myself. I want to be Laura Petrie.
     This is not new information for me. It's something I've always thought in the recesses of my mind, but I've never admitted it to myself, at least not out loud. I've always thought of Laura as the perfect housewife (not that I like admitting that I'm a housewife. I'm a freelancer who tends to the house between jobs, which just happens to be most of the time.)  She was cute, sexy, witty, supportive, and every bit Rob's intellectual equal. Not only that, she had an adorable wardrobe. Her clothes were always attractive, but they were also practical for whatever she was doing. I've often dreamed of having her wardrobe. I don't mean an updated version of her wardrobe. I want the authentic, 1960's, Laura Petrie collection. It's always something that has resided in my fantasy world, but it's never seeped its way into reality. However, something happened last Friday that made me confront this truth head on.
     I was perusing the racks at Macy's and saw a dress that took my breath away. It was a classic, silk chiffon cocktail dress -  like something out of my Laura Petrie fantasies. If I didn't know better, I'd swear the dress actually called my name. But I got one look at the price tag - $160 - and I was gone. I couldn't mess around with a dress that costly. Still, as I kept walking around looking for dresses better suited to my budget, I kept hearing, "Oh, just put it on. You'll always wonder what you would have looked like in it." I knew it was true. I can remember specific dresses I fell in love with 10 or even 15 years ago, sometimes better than dresses I've actually owned. Quickly, before I could talk myself out of it, I grabbed the dress and headed into the fitting room. I put it on, zipped it up, and looked at myself in the mirror. I couldn't stop smiling. I was Laura Petrie, and I loved it. It wasn't about what people would think if they saw me in it - for once I didn't care about that. It wasn't even about the way it looked on me so much, even though I liked it. It was about the way I felt when I put it on. It felt good to wear something that suited my personality so much as opposed to trying to find something with hints of my personality in the midst of whatever fashion is being mass produced that season. I've never before had the experience of putting on something that looks like I could have imagined it into being. I couldn't even resist whispering the words, "I love this dress", as if the feeling were so strong that I couldn't contain it in my head any longer and it overflowed to my lips. After some lingering in front of the mirror, I realized I had to move on, so the dress went back to the hanger and I went back out into the store.
     If you're waiting for the moment where I decide to do something for myself and buy the dress anyway, I hate to disappoint you. As much happiness as I felt wearing it, I know that the happiness would have been greatly diminished by the knowledge that I'd paid $160 for the privilege. But, I've been on eBay every day watching for it, hoping someone will wear it once, decide to sell it, and pass the savings on to me. The dream isn't over. I may just have that little silk chiffon number yet. Then I'll throw a dinner party to celebrate. Of course we'll invite Buddy and Sally. Tell Buddy that Pickles can come too.