Let’s just hope it’s not an oncoming train.

Although at this point, I consider the two sides sitting in the same room, staring hatefully across the table at each other for eight hours to be a giant step in the right direction.

If they actually to get this shit settled, it’ll be a Christmas miracle.

From G4′s Attack of the Show, a Bionic Woman parody far more entertaining than the actual show:

The Subaru bit just killed me. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to drive to work…in my Subaru.

Hat tip: After Ellen.

So the Writer’s Guild division of the Gay Mafia is putting together an LGBT picket, which sounds like ever so much fun.

I’ve decided I’m totally going over there, because I might actually be able to get hot/funny writer lesbians to go out with me.

You see, while in normal times, my weekly salary would not pay many an employed writer’s dry-cleaning bill, I now have the distinct advantage that I am still actually receiving a paycheck…for the next few weeks.

So I plan to take advantage of this advantage while I can, and hopefully draw to a close the dreadfully long period of singledom I’ve been suffering through for…longer than I care to try to calculate.

Striking single lesbians, your knight in shining armor* has arrived!

* – Note: Shining armor may be made of tin foil rather than actual armor as I’m really not making enough money to rent a suit of armor.

Wearing a mouthguard is weird.

I had to order one because I’ve been super-stressed what with the strike and all, and have been grinding my teeth when I sleep, leading to some fairly irritating jaw pain.

I’d done this before when I was unemployed, and my dentist had suggested $1500 worth of contraptions to prevent recurrence, but I got my current job shortly after that suggestion, and the grinding subsided.

Doing some research, I discovered that for most people, the $1500 kit is severe overkill, and the $15 boil-and-bite mouthguards you can pick up for sports tend to do well enough.

I’m trying it tonight for the first time, and the instructions suggested leaving it in my mouth for a while to get used to it.

It’s a really bizarre feeling, but I think the fact that I’m utterly exhausted should help with trying to get to sleep, since I’ve been ready to pass out all damn day.

Anyway, off to give this a shot. I guess if I can’t sleep, I’m covered if I want to go out and participate in a boxing match or tackle football game instead.

You ever have one of those moments where something stupid occurs, and you get disproportionately angry about how stupid it is? You realize you’re overreacting a bit, but it’s just SO flamingly stupid, you get a bit worked up about it?

I went to a free screening of American Gangster with a friend in the camera union, and they had security making everyone empty their pockets.

Now since this was at the Academy, I sort of understand them wanting to make sure there are no recording devices coming in. A little over the top, but I can see where they’re coming from on that.

What made NO fucking sense was their demand that I take my pocketknife and multi-tool (which, yes, I always carry on me because they have come in awfully handy on many occasions) back to my car.

If I had paid twelve bucks to walk into any theater in the country, there wouldn’t have been an issue. What was even sillier was they made a guy with a swiss army knife smaller than my pinky on his keyring take THAT back to his car.

I sarcastically told the security guard when I returned, “Gee, I didn’t realize we were getting on a plane, otherwise I would have left that in the car.” He did not see the humor in that statement.

I’m still really pissed off about that, mostly because there was zero notice posted about the policy that would have given me time during the 45 minutes my friend and I were waiting in line for them to open the doors to put the stuff in my car.

But I mean, really. What the fuck was I going to do with a knife and a multi-tool in front of a theater full of people that they were so very concerned about? Scream, “This movie sucks!” and then stab the person sitting next to me?

I don’t know, what do you guys think? How pissed off would you have been? I mean, assuming you were the type of person who constantly carries implements of stabbiness with you.

If you can read this, Leopard has been successfully installed on my computer.

I’ll be spending my saturday night enjoying all the hilariously pointless translucence I can handle, because I am the most easily amused person on earth.

Shiny!

Five of my friends got laid off today.

Four days into the strike, not a “your last day is Friday,” not a “you have until the end of the day”, a letter from the conglomerate stating “your employment is terminated effective immediately.” Turn in your badge and your keys this minute, and don’t let the door hit you in the ass on your way out.

My friends knew it was coming, since they all worked in the writers’ office. The logic was simple enough. But nobody thought it’d come quite so soon or so obnoxiously harshly.

I still have a job for now. Working directly for my boss’s production company rather than for a multinational conglomerate has its advantages, but if the strike goes long enough, I’m out on the street too.

Small solace for me, but no solace for my friends let go the exact second the conglomerate figured out who they could can.

This is going to get so very much worse before it gets better.

Update: Ed Bernero from Criminal Minds sent a CM fansite a long but fairly clear explanation of the writers’ side of the argument.

I’m linking here because it’s got the best real-world analogy of residuals I’ve come across, comparing the payments to a contractor who gets half the money for remodeling your kitchen upfront, while getting paid for the rest as the work gets completed.

My god, it is so much easier to drag my ass to the gym when it’s at least a little light out.

This is getting ridiculously ugly very quickly. When even Variety is this pessimistic this early in the ballgame, we’re all fucked.

Someone at the WGA made the extremely smart move of making a fairly simple video explaining their entirely rational demands on the internet residuals, which you should watch if you’ve found my explanations of the issues lacking.

The problem is that the studios feel compelled to try and cling to every penny they can, even as they issue statements to Wall Street trumpeting the potential gold mine in internet content delivery.

It’s the ultimate nightmare for people who work in Production: Both sides are utterly convinced they’re right, and they’re both digging in deep.

My worst fear during the run-up to this week was a six month strike, but as details trickle out about how horribly the talks broke down on Sunday, it sounds like there’s a distinct possibility that it might last even longer than that.

Meanwhile, the first of my friends (or at least those friends not amongst the picketers) are probably going to get laid off at the end of this week, if not earlier.

This just sucks.

Update: Deadline Hollywood posted a picture of almost our whole writing staff (there’s a couple people I don’t see, but I think some are blocked by the signs of the people in front), plus a couple of SAG friends of the staff who are out picketing with them, from the picket line at Fox yesterday.

Strike day 1 came and went. Some pictures of the group picketing the lot this morning are up on LAist, but our writers were on the afternoon shift, so none of my friends are pictured there.

However, this afternoon I found out another friend I used to work with got hit by a car and badly injured while she was riding her motorcycle yesterday. She’s going to live, but only because she was wearing her helmet.

She’s still in the ICU, and after a very long time in surgery yesterday, it looks like she’s going to be okay, or at least as okay as you can be after having one of your hands crushed into a million pieces and having your femur break so badly it breaks the skin, among her many, many injuries.

As much whining as I do about my stupid foot and all the horseshit it’s given me after I tripped on a stupid fucking rock, it’s nothing compared to the utter hell my friend is about to go through.

It also gives me perspective about my worries about unemployment: If I lose my job, I can get another one. My friend might never be able to get back a lot of what she lost yesterday.

Cross your fingers for her. She’s a good kid, and I wouldn’t wish the pain and frustration she’s about to go through on my worst enemy.