Old FURIOUS nads! by The One True b!X

So, I know that for years NORAD has tracked Santa on Christmas Eve. But does anyone know if, come the End Times, they will track Jesus, too?

It bewilders me that anyone could believe that “the moguls are determined to write off not just the rest of this TV season (including the Back 9 of scripted series), but also pilot season and the 2008/2009 schedule as well” is anything other than a falsehood spit out by the studios in an attempt to scare and intimidate people. I’d defy anyone to demonstrate how writing off pilot season and the entirety of next season pencils out for the studios in any way that their shareholders would be willing to stomach.

“She felt that some people nibble at time as far as they can get from the end nearest to the present,” writes Milorad Pavic in The Inner Side of the Wind, “but that there are also those who, like the gypsy moth, flit in and gnaw at time in the middle, leaving a hole.”

Late last night I added to my wishlist yet another H. L. Mencken reprint, this time Treatise on the Gods (you can see some of it via Google Book Search). What follows is from the book’s opening, which explains why.

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Just spent the last thirty minutes or so deleting profile information, avatars, signatures, and thread subscriptions from various boards and forums related to the fandom which was been central to the past three years of my life. And disabling a fair number of websites, both fandom-related and otherwise. Oddly enough, yesterday was the five-year anniversary of the launch of Portland Communique, which then ended three years later. Much like the internal fight over ending Communique, which had raged for months, I’ve spent at least half of the past year ignoring the fact that my fandom activity was in the way. So much in the way that I couldn’t even see around it to figure out what it was blocking. I still can’t, but at some point soon, for better or for worse, I will.

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The AMPTP is touting a survey (conducted way back in the beginning of December) which it says shows much less public support for the writers strike than indicated by the Gallup survey (conducted more recently, just late last week). The problem is that Gallup is in the business of public opinion surveys, while TNS, the source of the results preferred by the AMPTP, is in the business of market research. That’s a different beast altogether and not really comparable in any direct way to the business of public opinion surveys.

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At tonight’s meeting, the WGA announced there will be no waivers granted to the Golden Globes or the Oscars. In other news: “Starting in January, the WGA will commence STRIKETV.com, where clips of video material will be put up and advertiser support sought.” Meanwhile, in even more news: “Dozens of striking film and TV writers are negotiating with venture capitalists to set up companies that would bypass the Hollywood studio system and reach consumers with video entertainment on the Web.”

They’ve published an ad that de facto cops to anti-competitive collusion. They’ve released a statement that Nikki Finke properly says “recycles [the] same old shit”. Just who is the AMPTP? A writer took a look and called some of the group’s members other than the major media conglomerates. “The ones I spoke to all told me they have not once been contacted by the Alliance or Nick Counter since all this began,” they report. “I guess we’re not the only ones the AMPTP refuses to talk to.”

Nikki Finke notes that the AMPTP is about to publish an ad which in essence admits that they are engaging in anti-competitive collusion. In the comments over there, one WGA Ed nails it: “Anyone else find it kind of odd they felt they had to do this? After weeks of claiming our membership was falling apart, they need to publicly announce they aren’t? Who are they trying to convince and what’s the point?” Meanwhile, the latest comparison graphic touting the irrelevant figure of the “average” writer salary manages to use the phrase “more than an Family Doctor” — demonstrating that the AMPTP right now not only is without writers, but copy editors as well.