I don't like any English Muffins except the Thomas's brand.

If you take the Amtrak train down to the Comic-Con International in San Diego, the nearest stop is the one on Kettner, not the one in Old Town. Basically, you want to go to the end of the line. So sorry.

Brian Carroll writes…

Just wanted to let you know that parking at San Diego isn't much of a problem anymore now that there's these huge lots behind the baseball stadium. They only charge like $5 or $6 a day. True, you have to move your car at night, but two years ago I stayed at the W Hotel and moved my car to a lot near there every night and ended up spending just $10 a day in all. Much cheaper than the $26 or more a day at some of the hotel lots.

Good to know. And I wanted to also mention that a number of people I know in L.A. have discovered the joy of approaching Comic-Con as a day trip by train. They catch the Pacific Surfliner down at Union Station or wherever, and it's about a 2.5 hour trip each way. You can get off at the Amtrak Station in Old Town, at the main station in San Diego, which is a brief walk or cab ride to the convention center. For real fun and a slight sense of danger, get one of those kids with the pedal cabs to drive you to and fro. Matter of fact, I've been thinking of seeing if the con will let me bring one in to chauffeur me around the exhibit hall.

Wednesday morning at 9 AM Pacific Standard Time, many of my friends will being dialing and mousing like crazy as hotel reservations open up for this year's Comic-Con International, July 24-28. It's like a big, frustrating game of Musical Chairs since there will be a lot more people wanting rooms than there will be rooms. I hear that for a number of reasons — mainly more hotels opening up and the existing ones having fewer competing conventions — the situation will be much easier beginning in '09. That will be small comfort to those who will spend much of this Wednesday morn trying and failing to secure lodging for this year.

Do not write me and ask if I can help. I cannot help except to tell you that even after the initial ration of hotel rooms is gone, there will be more added. A year or two ago, I was given a long explanation of how the entire process works but there's no way I can replicate it here. Suffice it to say that just because they run out of rooms on Wednesday at 9:03 doesn't mean they won't have rooms available in a few weeks or a few months.

Also, the convention's hotel booking agency only has access to some percentage of the rooms at some hotels in San Diego. You may still be able to find something on your own, especially if you look some distance away from the Convention Center. Last year, a few friends of mine found shelter at a hotel about 10-15 minutes from all the action. Even taking a cab to and from the con each day, it was cheaper than what they would have had to pay to be nearby. Others have reported on successfully using the city's trolley service to commute from outlying motels, and a friend of mine likes to stay in San Clemente and use Amtrak to get to the convention each day. (Parking spaces at the convention are about as easy to find as copies of Groo that Sergio hasn't autographed.)

Yes, I know the convention is "too big," whatever that means. It's probably one of those valid complaints that there's no point in making because it's not going to get any smaller and, as a chum of mine points out, if they made it any smaller, they'd probably eliminate the parts of it that we love. For good or ill, the convention is the size it is and with that comes the problems of lodging and parking and crowds. Take solace in the fact that membership is now limited — in fact, it will sell out well before the convention dates — so the beast can grow no larger. If you accept its size instead of fighting it and moaning and wishing we were back to 3000 attendees at the old El Cortez, you can have a very good time down there. I certainly do.

Then again, I already have my hotel room.

Mad Magazine uses Pulitzer Prize winning political cartoonists to teach George W. Bush about Global Warming. Take a look.

This is about the Writers Strike, of course. What I'm hearing is that a lot of the obstacles are out of the way and our leaders feel they have made substantial progress. But there is no deal yet and there are still some thorny negotiations ahead to get the terms committed to paper and to get the bugs out.

I hope this doesn't sound arrogrant or nagging but I really think we have to keep the cork in the champagne until there's a firm deal. We've come so far, it would be brain-dead stupid to blow it now. This strike has been about many things but what it's mainly been about is that the AMPTP felt they could force a bad deal on the WGA and then, by extension and precedent, on the Directors Guild, the Screen Actors Guild and other unions, as well. It's been about us saying no to that, resisting that kind of tactic and taking a stand that they did not believe we would take. This is no time to make them think the strike is weakening and that we're so eager to sprint back to work that they can force some bad terms into the endgame.

I may not be able to make it to the picket lines tomorrow but I'll try, and I'll definitely be out on Tuesday. We need to do that and we need to do what we can to not allow the "industry buzz" to be that we're ready to settle for anything our reps have achieved so far. I can't tell you the number of times I've either gotten screwed or almost gotten screwed with something that snuck into a deal at the last minute. One time, I had to write a script over a three-day weekend and we made the deal (verbally) on Friday night and I started writing. Saturday morning, the producer messengered a deal memo over to my agent firming up the terms…and my agent called me and said, "Stop writing."

They'd thrown in some terms that hadn't been discussed. They'd also made some subtle, unpleasant adjustments to the wording of deal points which had been discussed. It was suddenly a much worse deal.

What they were counting on, of course, is that I was too far into it to say no. I'd already spent 12 or 15 hours writing, they knew. I'd already cancelled other plans for the next few days, maybe even turned down other work, they figured. I'd already spent the money I'd be getting, they hoped. And most of all, I was already emotionally committed to the project. This is where we're sometimes quite vulnerable. We love what we do (or most of what we do) and it's tough to put on those brakes, difficult to say no at that stage.

But my agent insisted. In fact, he was livid. "Bait and switch," he called it and just on principle alone, he felt we had to make a stand.

I had to stop writing. He had to make it clear to them that we (he and I) were quite prepared to not do this project if the deal wasn't right. The thing was still due Tuesday morning but instead of writing it the rest of the day that Saturday, I did other things. Had dinner with some friends. Went to see the Groundlings, a local comedy troupe. It was kind of unsettling, I'll admit. Someone asked me what I was working on and I had to say, "Well, I might be writing a pilot script this weekend…"

When I got home, there was a message on my answering machine from my agent: "Okay, they just messengered me a revised deal memo and it's the deal we discussed with no loopholes. Go ahead and write." I had to work twice as fast but at least I got the contract I was supposed to get.

This happens all the time. All the time. It can happen in the new WGA contract if they think we're too eager to get back to work and are already burning the picket signs and planning how to spend those imminent paychecks.

You got a warm, happy feeling when you heard a deal was looming and the strike was almost over. You don't want to rekindle that awful "How long is this damn strike going to last?" feeling again but you may have to. Because we need to make it clear that this has all been about saying no to a bad offer. And if they think we won't, we'll get one. Still.

Once again, I won't be watching.

Jeremy Steiner just wrote to remind me that on December 20, I posted the following on this site…

Folks keep asking me how long I think the strike is going to last. The other night over dinner with some writers, I made what everyone seemed to think was a strong case: All logic-based indicators would, I think, point to the AMPTP trying to make a deal on or around February 1 and not, as some have suggested, keeping the WGA out until next June or so.

If the reports are correct — and I'm still not willing to presume for sure that they are, or that a last second complication won't arise — then history will show that they made a deal on or around February 1.

Brad Ferguson writes in to say…

Thanks for the AM America clip. I just wanted to mention that it wasn't a local show, but Good Morning America's immediate predecessor on the ABC network. In New York (where I'm from), AM America replaced a terrific local show, AM New York, which was co-hosted by Sandy Baron and John Bartholomew Tucker.

I remember that Stephanie Edwards was considered a scandal to the jaybirds because she was living with her boyfriend at the time. ABC thought it made the show more hip, though. BTW, Edwards' co-host was a guy named Bill Beutel, who'd done the network news for ABC back in the early 1960s, but he'd become much better known as the co-anchor (with Roger Grimsby) of New York's Eyewitness News. Beutel played straight man to Grimsby's soused curmudgeon. AM America lasted less than a year.

Correction noted. And I don't know what Stephanie Edwards is doing these days but there was a time when you couldn't turn on local TV in Los Angeles without seeing her on something. If she wasn't hosting the show you were watching, she was doing commercials for the Lucky supermarket chain. She used to co-host (with Bob Eubanks) the annual Rose Parade for KTLA here but for reasons variously reported as friction with Eubanks and/or the station's desire to have someone younger, she stopped getting up so early on New Year's Day. She was usually pretty good at whatever she did and if she's not working somewhere now, it's either by choice or quite a surprise. Anyway, thanks, Brad.