...Or As A Friend Wrote, "Welcome to 2005."

I finally got rid of my home phone line. No one really called it anymore, or used it on this end, except for the back bedroom TiVo. Late at night. Secretly. Last night I'm sure he tried to make that call and got no dial tone. Poor little panicked TiVo! His tether to the outside world will soon be broken. Soon he won't know what's on television anymore -- which is good timing because there ain’t shit on anymore. Except for some singing show with three judges I refuse to watch, like a grumpy old barrister harrumphing at the devil-machine called the fountain pen. Quill in shaky hand.

Mostly, I like not having the 90-dollar bill I was paying for no reason aside from back-bedroom TiVo, and something called DSL. Here's some information I wish someone had thought to tell me a long time ago: cable Internet is so much fucking faster! (Thanks a lot, everybody!)

Now, here's the great thing about corporate vertical integration: it renders the service person's sad attempts to get you to stay on as a customer pretty silly.

SHEILA FROM AT&T: "And why are you getting rid of your home line, Mr. Falk?:

ME: "I'm just going to be using my cell phone and switching to a cable modem, you know, so..."

SHEILA FROM AT&T: "We value you as a loyal customer. What if I offered you-"

ME: "My cell phone is with AT&T Wireless. You'll still be getting my money, Sheila. Relax."

The thing that prompted the move is that I bought an iPhone. Look, I know I’m on strike and money is tight. But my phone's battery was dead, the software was going, it’ll help with productivity because now I’ll have my schedule with me everywhere and can access email remotely and... okay, I really really wanted one. But honestly, if I never type an SMS on the moronic T9 predictive text it'll be dap tom room. No real need to gush over the genius of the iPhone, but my gadget lust has been sated for a long time. The ghetto GPS is really neat. The YouTube interface looks amazing. And I don't find typing on the keyboard difficult at all -- and this is from a guy who has monster Cloverfield thumbs. But of course I can't stop playing with it. As a friend said, she's going to soon have to tattoo eyes onto my eyelids so it still looks like I'm actually looking at her and paying attention when I'm really checking sports scores or seeing what the weather is like right now in New York. (39 and raining.)

(Geek iPhone question: my Roadrunner cable outgoing server doesn't work when I'm out on other wifi’s or the AT&T network to send emails. What is a good one to use? Is there one I can use for both wifi and network emailing? Thanks.)

Speaking of giant behemoth corporations who pretend to have feelings only when they claim they've been hurt and are thus outraged, and sneaky shitbag unions totally undercutting our strike and only looking out for themselves (Seriously, Gil Cates would be fucking hung in the streets for pulling that shit in France – negotiating out of turn with a struck company)... I'm nevertheless cautiously optimistic about the DGA settling with the AMPTP. There's a lot that looks acceptable about the deal, and a lot that looks shitty. The AMPTP has played it very smart, because in light of the horrific lumps of coal they were offering before, this looks great! But I feel like everyone needs to step back see it ONLY in light of what we feel is fair to secure the future. Because they're controlling the lens under which this is all being viewed.

If we tweak some numbers upwards and end up closing soon, I'd be very relieved to get back to work, and everyone could claim victory. But I'm not sure there is even a lens anymore with which to look at this. The AMPTP waited, force majeured hundreds of writers and thousands of other employees, shut down an entire industry, smacked down a union (which fought and continues to fight bravely and fiercely), caused financial and emotional hardship to everyone, including the heads of their own studios and production wings, and then the best trick: they got a lot of the town to blame it on the "greedy writers." That, my friend, will be their legacy. The ability the super-rich now have to make blue collar folks side with them! "The Man" is now on their side, somehow! Bravo, evil geniuses. Bravo. Now please let me get back to work with a shred of dignity and a tiny percentage of my current residual payments.

After I Am Legend, Cloverfield, Britney, the strike, Bhutto, crazy weather, American Gladiators, and Facebook shutting down Scrabbulous and Bogglific, everything seems like a sign of the apocalypse to me these days. But tell me, if the end times are not indeed nigh, why did Amazon just sent me an email recommending I buy this: