I thought it was hysterical. Not nearly horrible enough to be the worst song in the world. My mom on an accordion would beat this song easily in a contest of bad songs.

There's only one reason that unions exist in Hollywood: to make the work palatable enough that someone will (1) perform the jobs, and (2) have a chance at making a living at it.

It's easy to say that there are lots of wannabe writers waiting for the chance to step in. That's true of any union during any strike in Hollywood. Those wannabes are going to last just long enough to discover that if most of the LA production companies have their way they're never going to be able to make a living.

No unions in LA would mean a constant churn of newbies getting into the business long enough to learn that they can't afford to stay in it once they start raising families and planning for retirement.

The film and television industries are very difficult to survive in. Breaking in isn't always that difficult; it's staying in over the long term that proves to be the real challenge. Not only is it tough to keep getting the work, it's tough to do the work. A 12 hour workday in Hollywood is a short day.

If you'd like to know how hard the business can be on rank-and-file workers, the IATSE (the union that covers the various production crafts, ie. camerapeople, grips, electricians, art department, sound, editors, etc.) has statistics that say that the average IATSE retiree collects, on average, 14 pension checks upon retirement. Those are monthly checks. Hopefully the writers do better.

A lot of television stations claim that they are broadcasting their news in HD, but in reality they are only capturing the in-studio footage with the talent in HD. I haven't seen any stations in my area (SF Bay Area) that shoot real HD on location, unless they're using small cheap HD cameras like the Sony Z1. At least one local station broadcasts location news footage shot on what looks like low-end DVCAM intermixed with 1080i studio material. It's a really awful combination.

Only one station is broadcasting in 16x9. Several stations advertise news in HD but only broadcast a 4x3 HD signal. Go figure.

I'm skeptical that news should be shot in HD. News footage is notoriously awful to look at if for no other reason than that the overriding concern is to capture live images as quickly as possible, with little or no concern for aesthetic qualities. We've become used to that in standard def, but in high def badly shot footage is terribly jarring and unpleasant to watch. Many stations are shooting their field footage with very cheap cameras, so the HD feel goes away as soon as the newscast cuts to a shot outside the studio.