www.James-Strocel.com

I have to say that my attempt at comment-whoring was a bit of a wash. Oh well. I guess that just means I shouldn’t be asking for money through this thing. When I attempt anything as selfish as essentially saying “shower me with your inter-tubes comments!” it’s probably a good thing that it doesn’t result in many replies. It’s also a good thing that almost all of my readers are my friends and family, meaning that I don’t have to pander to my audience.

Sure, it would be wonderful if I could sell advertising on this website and support myself with pithy witticisms about the 21st century, but that’s not what I have this blog for. After doing much research on the subject, I found that in order to make this blog profitable, I would have to make it about something like digital cameras, fill it up with photos, and clutter it to the gills with ads. I have my own ideas for such a project, but www.james-strocel.com is meant for something else.

I first started it up so I would have web server to play with. It allowed me to have the kind of professional development a “computer guy” needs. But, as some of you know, I like to call myself a writer, and this was a robust and public space with which to publish myself. All I knew about what I wanted to write was what I didn’t want to write. I didn’t want to have a not-so-secret diary of my private life, nor did I want to rant about my work and lose my job in a high-profile fashion (I have the terms of my work contracts that take care of that for me). As I continued to publish entries and attempt to keep a schedule, I noticed that my writing started to get sharper. The prose responded in the way my mind wanted it to. Not only that, I noticed that in history, primary documents are often used to piece together a more complete picture of a period in time. Perhaps long after I’m gone, some historian will have a better idea of what life was like at the turn of the 21st century. Who knows, they even might leave a comment.

Hello all! I just want to thank everyone who wished me a Happy 28th Birthday last Thursday. Thanks to the magic of Facebook, there were certainly a lot of well-wishers! For me there’s nothing better than just getting to hear from everybody, even if it’s just a “Happy Birthday” message. Having a lot of people in your life makes your world feel a that much larger.

My Fiancee also had a hand in making this the Best Birthday ever. Ever since we had been going out, she had been trying to turn my birthday from a time of sombre contemplation back into a day of presents and parties. Saturday morning she told me she had to pick up something from her school. She told me to sleep in, which I took as just a nice gesture. When she came back, she asked me to hurry out and help her carry in some marking. I looked in the trunk of her car to find…A Nintendo Wii. Of all the things necessary to make long-term relationships work, I never figured the ability to prank your spouse would be one of them. But that’s a subject for another post.

Since I received so many birthday greetings on-line, it got me to wondering. How many of my friends actually read this blog? It’s a selfish question, I know, but I may be in a position to get an answer. In the past 2 years I’ve had this blog up, it has received over 100,000 page views. I’m not entirely certain how much of that traffic isn’t spam bots looking to sell viagra phentermine casinos in the comments section. There are many things I can do with this blog if I had a better idea of who my audience is. So, where ever you’re reading this, be it Facebook, Livejournal, or the website itself, just leave a comment. It doesn’t have to be very long, I just want to know who is reading the blog so I can change it to make it more entertaining, or just update it more often I will know that I have flesh and blood readers. And if you do have any suggestions for me, that’s fine too. Thanks in advance to all who respond, and I will be answering you all personally.

In case you were wondering, my Wii Number is 7867 8307 8029 7090

So it looks like a Hollywood writer’s strike is upon us and I say it’s about time. The nature of distribution for intellectual property has completely changed in the past 20 years. If Hollywood wants a product that’s worth monetizing, writer compensation has to keep pace with these new revenue streams that open up. Management’s only option is to give writer’s a fair deal for their work. At least that’s what all the writer blogs I’ve been reading tell me.

To take a more objective view of the situation, the Writer’s Guild of America has really got good handle on the situation, despite the fact that they are in a strike situation. The writers are much more united on the issues than they were in 1988. The studios have proven themselves to be decidedly anti-consumer, be it through the lawsuits of their counterparts in the RIAA or the production of such opuses as “The Bratz Movie”. Since the strike is coming at mid-season, the writers could be able to dig in for the long haul. What sort of mindset got the studios to this point?

After a little digging, I found out that the studios are represented by a group called the AMPTP, which is essentially a bargaining concern paid to negotiate against writers, actors, or whatever. It would seem that it wouldn’t make sense for them to bargain for anything less than the maximum amount of money they could get from writers and their work. But still one has to wonder about the mindset of such organizations. I suppose the closest thing that I can think of would be a criminal defence lawyer, because it’s their job to find something, anything that will find their clients not guilty, or at least lighten their sentences. It is not their job to be right in the objective sense, but it is their job to be right enough to find common ground for negotiation. Their entire reason for existence is to fight for the studios money, but because they have no personal stake in it, they’ll have as few scruples as possible in performing the task. Because they aren’t fighting for their own money, that disconnect will keep them from trying to expand the benefits for all parties involved, preventing a win-win negotiating scenario.

Writing is one of those professions that everyone believes that they can do simply because they can speak English or any other human language. If there is money to be made from film or television, it’s only fair that writer’s negotiate for their fair share of the profits. The AMPTP may employ soviet-style tactics to get what they want, but proper information and comprehension of the situation will hopefully bring this strike to a quick and decisive end.

WGA website

AMPTP’s website