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I'm starting to lean towards the idea that The Strike could last a lot longer than the optimists among us have been suggesting. "Could" is the operative word in that sentence.

It's difficult to predict these things because at various points, the companies that comprise the AMPTP have to caucus among themselves and their CEOs or reps all have to sign off on a new offer or a new strategy. Outsiders are not privy to those discussions. At any given point, the Producers have a reasonably good idea of what it would take to settle with the WGA — how close to our demands they'd have to come to get 51% of the membership to vote to take the deal and get back to work. That they don't just offer that is because at least one of the member studios in the multi-employer bargaining unit thinks a better deal (for them) is attainable at a cost-effective cost.

Of course, it could be more than one member corporation that doesn't want to make that kind of settlement offer. It could be all of them. But during the long strike of '88, rumors circulated — who knows if they were true? — that at a certain point, Paramount wanted to make a real settlement offer, whereas Disney vetoed it. Or was it the other way around? There were also rumors that some of the companies were squabbling over matters unrelated to our strike, and that these squabbles were getting in the way of them getting together on an offer that would end our strike.

The point is we don't know. When the WGA has a rift in its ranks, as we did in '85, it's a matter of public record. When they get to fighting in the AMPTP, it's a carefully-guarded secret.

So that's one reason it's tough to forecast how this thing will play out. The other biggie is that there are wildly-varying estimates of how much money is involved in certain deal points, especially the ones that relate to new technology and expanding markets. You could see this vividly with the latest offer, the one that got summarily rejected last week. The Producers say they're offering a $130 million increase. The WGA analysts say it's a rollback. How good is it really? You can't answer that easily and since you can't, you can't say at what point it makes financial sense for one side or the other to pack it in, rather than hold out.

The other day, the WGA put out a statement that included the following…

On Wednesday we presented a comprehensive economic justification for our proposals. Our entire package would cost this industry $151 million over three years. That's a little over a 3% increase in writer earnings each year, while company revenues are projected to grow at a rate of 10%. We are falling behind. For Sony, this entire deal would cost $1.68 million per year. For Disney $6.25 million. Paramount and CBS would each pay about $4.66 million, Warner about $11.2 million, Fox $6.04 million, and NBC/Universal $7.44 million. MGM would pay $320,000 and the entire universe of remaining companies would assume the remainder of about $8.3 million per year.

Observers look at that and say, "So what's the standoff here? The Producers say they're offering $130 million and the Writers want $151 million. They're only $21 million apart. That's about what this strike if supposedly costing Hollywood per day! Why can't the two sides split the difference and end this thing so we can get fresh Colbert Reports?" The problem is that even if both sides' numbers are honest — and they may not be — nobody really knows how much loot will eventually be involved. We're talking a three year contract here and no one can say precisely where the home video and Internet Streaming markets will be in three years. The dollar figures cited are guesstimates extrapolating from where those markets are today.

And to further throw uncertainty into the mix, the Producers aren't thinking about how much it would take to sign the WGA. They're thinking of that amount plus how much they'll then have to give the Directors Guild and the Screen Actors Guild and other unions that will demand and presumably get similar increases. (The precise multiplier is arguable because not every concession applies to every union…but for example, a movie has a lot more actors than it does writers. So conceding another dollar to writers might translate to four or five more bucks to actors.)

Beyond that, the Producers probably have two related concerns. One is that for the past 30 or so years, they've done a pretty good job of keeping the unions from making major gains. None of them expect a lot, which is why even the supposedly-militant WGA is (see above statement) willing to settle for a 3% increase in an industry that they project will grow at a rate of 10%. From the employers' POV, there's a certain value to not disrupting the momentum of not allowing unions to win demands. The 22-week Writers Strike of '88 could never, in and of itself, have been cost-effective from the Producers' standpoint. Some estimates say they lost $100 million for every million bucks they managed to deny us. But they also scared the hell out of all the unions in town. In the two decades since, no union or guild (including the WGA) has tried to gain much and most have eaten a few rollbacks, rather than get into another all-out war. That's worth something to the studios.

The other, connected consideration is this: Delivery of entertainment via Internet is a new frontier, a new place the industry seems to be relocating. There are undoubtedly those who dream of settling that territory without unions and labor getting a real foothold. The studios had to concede to principles like residuals and paying health benefits in the old venues and you can almost hear them saying, "Let's not make that mistake this time" or at least, "Let's not make it before we absolutely have to." That's one of the reasons all the other unions in town are lining up behind the WGA. They all sense that the business is being redefined and in their own ways, they'll all have to battle to not start over from scratch, fighting for the benefits they now take for granted.

All of this makes it very difficult to gauge how long it could be before the Producers decide they're losing too much. Could be tomorrow, could be April. I still don't think it'll be April because if they settle with us then, they'll be getting scripts just in time to face the possibility of a strike by the actors and maybe even the directors. That could throw the entire industry into chaos for all of '08 and do some irreparable structural damage to the biz, like putting theaters out of business for lack of product or causing major advertisers to largely abandon broadcast television.

Right now, a major date to keep in mind is February 24, 2008. That's the scheduled date for the Academy Awards. In order to have a relatively normal Oscarcast on that date, the strike would have to be darn close to over by the end of January. If it's still going strong the day of the Oscars, all the unions will boycott. Jon Stewart, the announced host, certainly wouldn't be up there in his tux and even if he would, can you imagine what that monologue would be like? I'm guessing twenty solid minutes of CEO-bashing, followed by no one of note presenting to a lot of recipients who couldn't be present to accept because they were outside with signs. The show would be a fiasco, sending word around the globe that the American film industry can't deliver product…can't even produce its annual tribute to itself.

If I were the AMPTP, I'd start pressuring the Academy to move the ceremony later in the year…maybe even into early April, which is when they used to have it. Like I said, I don't think the strike will last that long but if the Producers aren't prepared to settle by the end of '07, they're going to have to at least pretend they're willing to hang tough and hold out for several months beyond that. Delaying the Oscars, or at least trying to delay the Oscars, would be a convenient scare tactic. Let's see if they try it.

Say…just how do you make the perfect chocolate chip cookie?

I just corrected Wikipedia on this for the third time: I did not create or co-create the 1992 sitcom, Bob — the one that starred Bob Newhart as a comic book artist. The show was created, produced and largely written by Bill Steinkellner, Cheri Steinkellner and Phoef Sutton. I merely wrote one episode and, in an unofficial capacity, provided some "technical advice" about comic books and the comic book business.

Someone keeps changing it back to say I created the show. I'm a little sensitive about usurping the credits of others, even accidentally. So if it's you who's been posting that, please stop doing it. Bill, Cheri and Phoef are great folks, they did a fine job on that show and they deserve recognition for their work.

It's kind of a toss-up as to who had the worse week, P.R.-wise: Rudy Giuliani or Carson Daly. "America's Mayor" is being battered by one revelation after another about trysts and cheating on his wife and using city funds and facilities to chauffeur his lady friend about. The host of Last Call with Carson Daly is losing respect left and right for his decision to cross the WGA picket line and resume the taping of his show.

Not that he had a lot before that. It is worth recalling the history of that show, which used to be called Later. It was hosted by Bob Costas. It was hosted by Greg Kinnear. It was hosted by Cynthia Garrett. It was hosted by a pretty wide array of temporary guest hosts who were auditioning for the permanent gig. What NBC came to decide was that it almost didn't matter who hosted it. The ratings were a rather predictable function of two factors: How "promotable" the lead guest was, and the size of the lead-in from Conan O'Brien's program. Of the two, the latter has probably been the more important. The host? Not that big a deal.

Mr. Daly, who does a nice enough job in the post, was chosen for a couple of reasons, one being that NBC felt they had to pick someone. Another was the hope — which has been generally realized — that his age and MTV background would draw in, if not a larger audience then at least a younger audience. The most important thing though was that NBC was hoping to use the slot to groom a new NBC star — someone who might be of value to them in earlier day parts. If Daly suffers in any way for his picket-line crossing, it will probably be in that area…but perhaps that was already a lost cause. It's been a long time since I heard his name mentioned as a possible replacement for O'Brien when he takes over The Tonight Show. Or for anything else.

It's easy to get angry at Daly…or at Ellen DeGeneres, who is also doing her talk show, sans writers. The decision to go back could be opportunism or it could be a genuine concern for the future of the show, the incomes of the staff, etc. The assumption out there seems to be that Daly was told, in effect, "Go back and do your show or you're fired." NBC can't afford to punish Conan O'Brien for staying out, and Jay Leno is leaving anyway…but they could put a gun to Carson Daly's head. If they indeed did that, it was probably just pique. The network's late night numbers are in the sub-basement, Conan O'Brien's show is delivering low lead-ins…and new episodes of Last Call probably won't do markedly better than reruns.

Obviously, as a loyal WGAer, I'd have preferred that Ellen and Carson not go back. Obviously too, we can't fully assess the pressures and reasons that both chose to risk damage to their images and the wrath of certain friends. I find it a little difficult to get too outraged over the choices they made, especially since I don't know much about the "why" of those choices. In any case, I don't think it does much to change the dynamic of the strike. The networks are still without too many of their money-making programs. They wouldn't be any more eager to settle thing if they didn't have new episodes of Ellen and Last Call.

Mr. Leno is presently getting some bad press because, though David Letterman and Conan O'Brien have announced they will continue to pay their staffs during the strike, Jay has not. Since he's soon to vacate his show — and since, unlike Letterman, he isn't sole owner of his show — he's in a little different situation. More significantly, Leno has been locked in his own negotiation for some time. I never thought NBC could have done much to change the "Who will replace Johnny?" scenario. I think there was really only one way that whole thing could have played out, which was the way it did. But now they're into a train wreck — Leno being ousted when his popularity is still high — that didn't have to happen. Last I heard, talks to keep Leno with NBC in some capacity (or at least, off Fox) were getting hot 'n' heavy.

Which makes me curious why, as noted here earlier, NBC is rerunning ancient Leno Tonight Shows, episodes that Jay himself has said many times he never wanted to have seen again. Does that mean the haggling is over? That NBC is now presuming Leno is going to be competition? Or is this just some sneaky way to pressure him to come back to work and/or sign a new NBC deal? I have no idea…but there's something going on there and it ain't just about the strike. Maybe when all the dust clears, NBC is going to need a new host for one of its three late night shows. I have a hunch Rudy Giuliani may be available.

Ben Wallace-Wells has an article up over at Rolling Stone entitled "How America Lost the War on Drugs." Its subtitle is a pretty good summary: "After Thirty-Five Years and $500 Billion, Drugs Are as Cheap and Plentiful as Ever: An Anatomy of a Failure." Looks like another one of those cases where no one will dispute that the problem isn't being solved but it's easier to keep staying the course and wasting $$$ than to admit that.

Michael Kinsley on the proposals currently being floated for flatter, fairer or simpler tax codes. Let me know if you ever see anyone propose any change whatsoever to the tax structure of this country that doesn't roughly translate to "Lower (or better still, eliminate) what my chosen group pays, no matter how much you have to raise them on anyone else."

As a member of several Academies and Guilds, I get a lot of invites to screenings, free DVDs and copies of screenplays. All are intended to maybe, someone hopes, cause me to vote for the film or TV show in question in whatever awards competitions I vote in. The DVDs often come packaged in elaborate, attention-getting packages designed by someone who either doesn't know or doesn't care that the main appeal of DVDs is that they fit neatly on your shelves. I get a lot of screenplays, too.

Today, I received a "first." Warner Bros. Pictures sent me — and I guess, most members of the Writers Guild — a USB flash drive containing PDFs of four current movies — The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, The Brave One, The Bucket List and Michael Clayton. They take up 893,952 bytes on a flash drive that holds 58.8 MB and is imprinted with the names of the four movies on one side and a WB logo on the other.

At first, I was leery of plugging the thing into my computer. After all, I'm on strike against this company. What if it's some instrument of revenge with a lethal virus that will turn my hard disk into guava jelly? Maybe there's a hidden program on there that will, without my knowledge, post a message on my blog that the latest AMPTP offer is a windfall and we'd be lamebrains to not grab it and scurry back to work.

These are both valid worries but I decided to live dangerously. I plugged the thing in and even read one of the scripts on it. I may read the others before I wipe the drive and use it to back up my work.

If you've sent me an e-mail lately, be advised: The e-mail end of my Road Runner High Speed Internet Connection seems to have encountered some diabolical invention of the Acme Company that slows it to about the pace of a banana slug on valium. I'm just now receiving some messages sent to me last night and I got one that its sender swears was dispatched on Tuesday.

Hey, here's something about e-mail that sometimes bothers me. When I was in New York, I sent some e-mail via a rent-by-the-hour computer in the Business Center in the lobby of the Hotel Pennsylvania. I didn't notice that the clock on the computer was set wrong and as a result, all those e-mails arrived at their destinations bearing time stamps a day or two before the correct date. They therefore didn't show up at the top of some folks' inboxes, and a couple of recipients didn't notice they had new mail from me. Why do e-mail readers work like that? Shouldn't the time stamp they display on a message be the time/date it was received? Or actually sent?

I get a lot of e-mails that are dated for the year 2000 because the sender didn't have the date set on their computer at all. I have a friend who keeps turning the clock back on her computer because she doesn't want a certain piece of "time trial" software to expire. As a result, every e-mail I get from her is dated before the one before. It's like she's pulling a Billy Pilgrim, coming unstuck in time.

Don't bother explaining this to me. It's not going to change and a good reason for it won't make my e-mail files any neater. I'm just venting.

Any optimism out there that the WGA/AMPTP strike would be over shortly seems to have been dashed with the latest news out of the negotiations. The Producers have offered what they call a generous deal and what the WGA analysts call a crummy deal full of rollbacks. Seems to me I remember us being in pretty much this same position once or twice before…or maybe in every single one of our past strikes. A negotiator we employed in one called these "Trojan Horse offers" and explained them roughly as follows: You offer to buy someone's old car — it's worth maybe $2000 — for $5000. The person is so eager to get five grand for the jalopy that they don't read the fine print in the offer which says that they rebate you $1000 for every tire on the car that you decide, at your sole discretion, is in need of replacement.

If they grab your offer, great. You then demand four thousand back for the four tires, plus maybe another thousand for the spare in the trunk. If they do catch on and refuse, you can at least go around and say, "I'm not cheap! I made him a $5000 offer for a car worth less than half that." In the midst of an ugly strike, with public relations at least as important as the actual offers, that might not be a bad chess move. Plus, there's always the chance that the strike leaders are getting weary and either might not realize how lousy the offer is or might seize on the opportunity to end the war and look, at least briefly, like heroes.

Of course, I'm assuming here that the WGA analysis of the offer is correct. It probably is but wouldn't it be nice if we had a neutral third party to assess such things? Like say, the press? During past strikes, I thought it would be great if Variety or Hollywood Reporter or the L.A. Times engaged an attorney with some solid math skills not to take sides but merely to fact-check and explain the various offers and proposals, and to cleave through the spin from all factions. Out here in the cheap seats, most of us don't have the data to make those assessments, nor do we even get the precise language being proposed. I'm thinking about that now because we're likely to now get a sales campaign from the AMPTP that will try to tell the rank-and-file of the WGA that we have a great, lucrative offer but that our leaders are too dumb and/or battle-crazed to realize that.

I was going to write here that I don't understand why the numbers have to be so complex and arguable but I guess that's the whole point. In past negotiations, we often hit a point where the Producers were saying, "This proposal of ours would pay writers at least $200 million a year" and our side was saying, "No, it wouldn't." In those situations, I don't know why the Producers don't just say, "Okay, we'll guarantee that number. If it turns out to be any less than $200 million, we'll donate the difference to the WGA Health and Pension Funds." Wonder why they don't do that.

Anyway, I have men coming any minute now to begin ripping out walls in my dining room and kitchen where that leaky upstairs toilet did its damage. So I'll just answer this question from Christopher Jones and then attempt to take the day…

I'm curious how the rules are set up for what writers can't do during the strike. Could a screenwriter be working on a screenplay for a film as long as it wasn't commissioned by a studio or some other entity covered by the strike, as long as (s)he didn't take any steps toward selling or promoting that script until after the strike was settled? I guess I'm trying to understand where the boundaries are as to what work is covered by the terms of the strike and what isn't.

The official rule is that we don't write anything that might contribute to the production of motion pictures or television by a struck company, during or even after the strike. That means that if you're a staff writer or story editor on Ugly Betty, you don't even sit at home working on Ugly Betty ideas and scripts to submit after the strike. The Producers have to settle with us and then you'll get back to it.

Now, in truth, a lot of writers seize on the opportunity to work on "spec" scripts, usually for movies, that will be shopped around after the strike, and no one has ever even suggested that this be viewed as scab work. I doubt anyone ever will fault a WGA member who does that but it's not the letter of the law.

I have a piece coming up over at The New Republic (I'll link when it's up) about scabbing. One point I may not be able to shoehorn into the article is that non-WGA members who dream of writing screenplays sometimes think (wrongly) when we strike, "This could be my golden opportunity!" They suddenly deluge agents and producers with scripts…and I'm not sure anyone has ever even come close to selling one of them. The stark reality of the situation is that it costs a lot of money to make movies. Studios don't like to gamble tens of millions of dollars to make a movie these days until they've gone through a few dozen drafts by several of the top, most trusted screenwriters. They're not inclined to risk that kind of loot on a script written wholly by one guy who couldn't sell anything until 10,000 more experienced writers became unavailable.

But actually, the strike is even worse news for the wanna-bes…because after it's over, there are all these spec scripts suddenly being shopped about that the successful guys wrote during the strike. So the odds of a gas station attendant selling his spec script are even worse…not that they were ever better than one-in-a-zillion before. It's just that the competition is even more formidable then.

The doorbell just rang, the construction guys are here and I gotta go.

In an interview from 1970, Groucho Marx discusses various topics with Roger Ebert, including the movie, Skidoo.

From within the WGA/AMPTP negotiations, I am hearing…absolutely nothing. As tempting as it might be to try to spin that as a good sign, it could just as easily be a bad sign. Or a sign that even the folks inside aren't sure where things are heading. I just know that the negotiators have a lot of uncommon ground to get across and that bargaining with the AMPTP, because it represents such a bureaucracy of different (and sometimes, warring) corporations can be agonizingly slow. So let's leave it at that.

I haven't answered e-mails here in quite a while so let's run through a couple, starting with this one from Nevin Liber…

With the strike going on, I was thinking of getting some TV show DVDs of stuff I've missed over the last few years. Should I put that off, and wait until you guys get a better deal?

I can't speak for writers who have a lot more of their work coming out that way than I do, but I would think it wouldn't make much difference. First off, any DVD increase we receive is going to be tiny. Secondly, it will probably not apply to DVD sets issued before the new contract. Lastly, I doubt any movement in that direction would make enough of a difference in sales to be noticed. If it did — if it actually caused sales to dip — the Producers would probably seize on that to argue that the market was crashing and that they had to slash our compensation, not increase it. So while the thought is appreciated, I don't think it matters.

J. Hoekstran writes to ask…

Someday, they'll settle this strike. What will it mean to the resumption of new programming? How soon would scripts be finished? How soon would they be on the air?

Simple answer: It will vary. There are shows that stopped production with scripts in the pipeline that just need a little tweaking before they can be filmed or taped. There are others that will have to start from scratch. There are many that even when they have scripts will need much time to restart the production process. A sitcom can usually go from a finished script to the first day of its rehearsal in well under a week. A CSI-type show needs to scout locations, cast additional actors, etc. In some cases, they may have laid off personnel and need to lay them back on. Some shows may try to get a running start on airing new episodes, getting several banked and then doing a big re-premiere.

I would imagine that Leno, Letterman, The Daily Show and programs like that could resume taping rather swiftly. In fact, one indicator that the strike may be about to break would be if those shows' networks start making a serious effort to line up their guests. Another might be if NBC shifted to more recent reruns of The Tonight Show. In case you haven't noticed, they're running old Jay Leno shows from when Branford Marsalis was his bandleader, Helen Kushnick was the producer and Jay's hair was mostly one color. It's an interesting reminder of how clunky that show was shortly after he took it over but it's almost like fragging your own troops. The ratings aren't grand. Makes you think someone at the network was thinking, "Hey, maybe we can embarrass Leno into coming back and doing new shows."

The upcoming Christmas holidays present some problems, of course. If they settle the strike today, writers will be writing tomorrow. If they settle it December 24, it may be a while before those keyboards are working to capacity. Traditionally, there's not a lot of Show Business in this town between around 12/21 and the first Monday after New Year's. Some producers love to give a writer an assignment just before Xmas…then the producer goes off on a holiday and expects to see a first draft upon his or her return. So like I said, it will vary.

Lastly for now, Scoutmaster Bob (that's how he signed his e-mail) wants to know…

Are people really emotional about this strike? Or is it just business?

I'd say both things are happening, Scoutmaster, and it's sometimes hard to tell which ballpark you're playing in. People can get emotional about their livelihoods, their work, their family's health insurance, etc. You have here a strike that's reportedly costing someone — it's hard to figure out exactly who — around $20 million a day. That's got to be destroying someone's life, someone's career, someone's business, etc. So emotion, whether it's anger or frustration or sadness, is not unlikely. Most CEOs and corporate types are good at not getting lathered up over business disputes…and at its core, that's all this is: A business dispute. Nothing that happens is likely to cause Peter Chernin to miss a house payment or lose his dental plan so maybe to him it's really just business without all the personal concerns. Then again, the strike has cost them a lot of money and killed a lot of someone's pet project and in a corporate environment, that does not occur without a fair portion of blaming, yelling and firing.

I'm not sure I can give you much more of an answer than this. Yes, some people are definitely emotional and with good reason. (In my own personal experience, the ones who get most upset are usually neither Management nor Strikers. They're the ancillary people — development execs, studio crew, etc. — whose lives are disrupted but who don't see that they stand to gain directly no matter how the strike turns out.) Still, it's possible to accept a certain amount of the disruption as part of the business. Entertainment is a roller coaster industry that even with no strikes looming goes up and down a lot. That's why it pays so well, especially on the "up" parts. We all expect a certain amount of instability…and this strike certainly came as no surprise to anyone who was paying attention. I think a lot of folks on both sides are mad at themselves for not being better prepared for it.

And that's all we have time for now. If I hear anything about the talks, I'll report it here but I have the sense I'm not going to hear anything.

On Tuesday, I was interviewed on camera for one of those little "special feature" interviews that comes on a DVD — in this case, it's an upcoming release of the 1966 Batman movie starring Adam West, Burt Ward, Cesar Romero, Burgess Meredith and Frank Gorshin but not (sigh) Julie Newmar, who was replaced in the Catwoman role by Lee Meriwether. The film's been available on DVD for some time but this is a more deluxe packaging with extra bells and whistles. I don't know when it's coming out…and to head off the obvious question, I don't think this means anything in terms of the Batman TV show being released on DVD. As far as I know, Warner Home Video and Fox Home Video are still quarrelling over which of them has the right to issue that one. Perhaps if this new DVD of the movie does exceptionally well or even exceptionally poorly, it will shake up the dynamics of that dispute.

Anyhow, I explained to the camera how it wasn't the same with Ms. Meriwether — lovely though she was and is — in the cat suit; how I kept waiting for Batman to rip off her mask and shout, "You! You're not the woman who played Stupefyin' Jones! What have you done with the real Catwoman?"

Mostly, I talked about…

1. How creepy it was that Cesar Romero hadn't shaved off his mustache to play The Joker so they put the clown white makeup right over it. On my 17" Zenith at home, it was no big deal but on the big screen at the Picwood Theater, it looked awful.
2. How the funniest thing in the movie was, as you can see in the above photo, The Joker and The Penguin wearing masks. Yeah, you'd never recognize them with those masks on.
3. How I liked the Batman TV show until about the time I saw the movie. I thought it crossed the line of silliness, instead of teetering on self-parody. It was also a different experience for me to hear an audience laughing out loud at (not with) the Caped Crusaders. It was partly that and partly that the show was turning into a parody of a parody that caused me — and most of America — to lose interest in it. My friends lost interest when Ms. Newmar stopped being Catwoman…though the consensus was that Yvonne Craig in a Batgirl suit was a pretty good consolation prize. Still, when the series was cancelled, none of us cared one bit.

And I forgot to mention that three of the four actors who played the villains appeared two years later in Skidoo. Can't imagine how that escaped my mind.

The Stagehands' Strike that closed down Broadway, that is. According to this article, an agreement has been reached and most shows will reopen tomorrow (Thursday) night.

I was going to write that everyone must be happy about this but maybe not. There were 8-9 shows that were under a separate contract and able to remain open when everything else was closed. One assumes they did at least a little extra business because of this and will no longer enjoy that advantage. So I'll just say that almost everyone must be happy about this.

When I've been looking for a program that can do something I need, I've found it helpful to ask here. What I need at the moment is a Notes program that will let me enter notes into a database either on my desktop or my BlackBerry Curve and then to sync the databases on the two devices. I can sync Microsoft Outook between the devices and have my Contacts, Calendar and Task List on both but I don't seem to be able to use the Notes feature of Outlook. Anyone have any ideas?

Over at Comic Book Resources, author Chris Knowles has been ringmastering a debate or discussion or some sort of inquiry as to whether the Superman pose on the cover of Action Comics #1 (seen above right) was derived, copied or inspired by the painting of Hercules, "Heracles and the Hydra," painted in the year 1475 by Antonio Del Pollaiolo. See here and here for such discussions. Several folks, including Chris, have asked me to weigh in so I'll weigh in…

Of course not.

There. I've weighed in. Really, I think this one is three notches below Ridiculous on the Absurdity Scale. The overwhelming number of those who've voted in the site's online poll agree. As of this moment, 952 votes have been cast and 750 feel as I do, that the poses are way too different to indicate any connection and that there's no "there" there. Of the rest, 149 think it's an "homage," which I guess means that it was inspired but not copied, and only 53 think it was copied. I don't know what those 53 are looking at. I'm sure Joe Shuster was inspired by all kinds of heroic figures he'd glimpsed but so is every artist who draws anything. I'd hate to think how many drawings have been done that were copied from the cover of Action #1. I'll bet more artists in history have imitated Shuster's composition than Del Pollaiolo's.