Do you hear the sound of crickets? Day three of the writers strike.

Seven shows have stopped production already, including DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES. Without scripts they have nothing to shoot. All the late night shows started showing reruns on Monday. The two sides as of today are not speaking. Folks, we might be in for a long ass strike. I'm not going to get into the whole blow by blow but this is getting ugly. I am hearing from other execs that the studios are already letting assistants and junior executives go, and suspending talent deals. In eight weeks they can legally fire/terminate whoever they want and not have to pay out people contracts.

Many actors have joined the picket lines. They know when their contract is up they will be dealing with the same issues. The studio's rep is trying to paint the writers as greedy saying the avg. writer makes 200k a year. However, for every Paul Haggis who makes 2-4 million for the Bond sequel there are hundreds of writers who barely make guild minium every year. Here are some of the salaries of the studio heads. Disney's Bob Iger: $42.4 Million in ‘06. Fox's Chernin: $42.5 million in ‘06 and CBS's Moonves: $28 million in ‘06. Yes, this is with stock options and bonuses but these are people who are saying paying writers four more cents for DVD residuals is too much.

The office is so quiet. We left work early yesterday. I spoke to one senior agent who told me her phone rang only once. Yikes. I'm sitting here eating some chips and drinking Coke. I know I shouldn't but I eat when I'm nervous, cranky, stressed, romantically challenged, tired, worried, and bored so I have been eating non-stop since I returned from Toronto. The hold on my gym membership is finally up next week, that will help. I don't want a water taxi or gondola in Venice to tip over because I stepped into it. That would be bad.