...I'm talking writer's strike here folks. There are some who think that the end of the world is coming because of the strike currently being held by the Writer's Guild of America. These are the folks who churn out screenplays and television scripts for our entertainment purposes and the bottom line of the studios.

One major complaint by quite a few is why these writers need to strike in the first place because they're already raking in the dough. Um no, no they're not. They're lucky to be paying their mortgages and are living in cheaper places than Beverly Hills. There's a scant few that have reached significant money making heights and that's the result of a combination of a very lucky break and a single credit as the creator of a successful series. For every one of those, however, there are hundreds more that are just trying to make an honest living.

Look at Marc Cherry. For those who don't know who he is, he created 'Desperate Housewives'. Before that show took off for him he was borrowing money from his mother in order to survive. Television is a very hard business, and things weren't always hard for Mr. Cherry – he's also the creator of 'The Golden Girls'. For a show that was so successfully received, renewed, and syndicated he still needed to borrow money to survive 10 years later while trying to get something else on the air.

It's not an easy industry, but they make it seem so easy for us at home who are watching and who are about to suffer through a very short television season that is probably going to be filled with reruns and reality shows shortly. No surprise there – that's something that conventional media has been saying for weeks.

Many folks have come up with alternative plans – they'll read books, they'll use this as a time to curb their television habit (if it's not there then they won't miss it, right?), they'll spend more time with family or indulging in a hobby that they've either neglected or that they want to learn.

And then there's the true junkie (like me). We have alternative plans that don't involve turning off the television. We'll watch movies on demand, we'll turn on pay-per-view. For me? I'll rent more movies. I've got a queue that's been neglected for a few weeks and I could spend the time catching up with things that I've never seen before.

I've already figured out that the fact I've not watched Season 2 of 'Weeds' is a blessing in disguise. That will cover a couple of nights by itself. I've never watched 'The Sopranos', so it would be time to catch up on that. I've still got 'Grey's Anatomy' for the season that I could stream from ABC's website but I'm of two minds about that one because I think the writers should get residuals for the new delivery methods that are out there. And I know I'd feel a little guilty about the fact that they wouldn't be getting paid for the streaming of the season. And the other drawback is that I wouldn't be stitching while watching the computer - I'd have to crochet instead (oh darn, what a terrible curse that would be, boo hoo).

Oh yes, television junkie am I as I have said in blog entries of the past. I've already figured out what else I could watch when television goes dark and there isn't anything else to watch. I know overall I'd be watching less television because daytime television will die and eventually they'll run out of scripts for 'Days of Our Lives'. Granted the last time that there was a strike the daytime shows didn't suffer all that much because script writers anonymously kept on writing. One soap was already accused of that, and apparently that's not going to be the case this time around.

No one's crossing picket lines, except Ellen Degeneres and she's just being stupid. I doubt anyone's going try and get her for breach of contract when it's legal for her to be out there striking as a member of the Writer's Guild. But that's neither here nor there. The point is there are other things that one can do with this strike whether they are a television viewer or not...

...I've just been wondering when the regular press is going to pick up on it instead of focusing on the death of television.