How to Survive the Writers Guild Strike Without Watching Re-Runs or Reality TV

When you have two groups of adult men and women with over-inflated egos and bank accounts, like the TV Writers and Producers, fighting like pre-schoolers in a sand box without adult supervision one thing's for sure - nothing is going to bet accomplished. So be prepared for a long strike - especially since there are unions involved as well.

Whether you support the Writers Guild or the producers is not the issue here. What really matters to the average American is how to fill the void the strike is creating, especially if you have small children or grandchildren who won't understand the concept of a strike and what both sides feel the have at stake.

Unless you want to waste time watching even more hastily thrown together reality shows, "specials", re-run after re-run, and anything else the producers can scrounge up, you better have a plan. Even if the strike is settled next week, it will still be weeks or even months before the scheduled shows get back into production and on the air.

If you're addicted to TV like most Americans are or if TV is the babysitter for your children run down to Wal-Mart now and stock up on cheap DVDs now. Wal-Mart almost always has a big sale bin of DVDs usually priced about $5 each.

A recent visit to the video sale bin at my local Wal-Mart turned up lots of relatively recent adult and kid movies, classic films, collections of old TV sitcoms and a variety of cartoons selling for $5 each. I purchased about a dozen of them including a few South Park and Sponge Bob collections and a couple of recent movies I haven't seen. They even had a collection of 100 vintage cartoons from Warner Brothers. At $5 each, that's about what it costs to rent them from Blockbuster - it's a steal - why rent when you can own for the same price.