Second Life avatars are striking, too. Kiwini Oe alerted us to their presence.

Nikki Finke’s got some hot news about a naughty, naughty showrunner, but banned any speculation by commenters. He was ratted out by an assistant which is a strategy that could so easily backfire.

And Finke’s site will host video shorts by bold-faced names such as Paul Haggis, Rod Lurie, William H. Macy and Sean Penn and many more.

ABC is set to run some webisodes of Lost. Was the network saving these for the “deleted scenes” feature of the DVD?

Alex Epstein is looking for someone to work for free.

Barbara Hall runs a TV quotes quiz.

Ken Levine lacerates more holiday films.

Some woman in Minneapolis finds the silver lining of the strike cloud.

Nora Ephron posts about cooking, but she’s sure been quiet about the strike. A commenter smacks her for talking trash about Mom.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Fan Day! Get over to Universal by 11 and then dash to NBC Burbank to meet that friend of labor, John Edwards.

Lost showrunner crosses the picket lines to tinker with the 8 episodes already shot.

A husband of a WGA member blogs about the strike. Labor action heats up.

Jennifer Steinhauer shows readers what’s behind the curtain, as the strike goes on.

WGAE has a blog, Strike Notes, which is great, but why are writers so dull when writing about not writing?

Walk the Virtual Picket Line. So, where’s the Second Life line?

Scrubs will take a little break, and then, maybe things will be better. Or not.

Will anyone miss Bionic Woman? One suggestion: recycle Smallville scripts–no one will notice.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

CNN is launching a virtual news bureau on Second Life. Reuters uses a real journalist/avatar on the site, but CNN is extending its i-Report concept by asking Second Life residents to contribute news, photos and videos. CNN-branded kiosks will be scattered throughout the community, so avatars will never be far away from their news fix. And user generated content may be supplemented with advice from CNN personalities such as Larry King, who looks like an avatar in meatspace.

Do avatars report fake news? Isn’t an avatar already user-generated? Isn’t Second Life kinda over?

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Tom Cruise and Ben Stiller ARE The Hardy Boys, er, Men. Cruise and Stiller will star in a comedy based on the mystery series. Stiller will produce, Shawn Levy will direct and get this:

Cruise and Stiller have been friends for years–an alliance that grew out of Cruise’s admiration for Stiller’s penchant for doing Cruise impersonations.

“I love it when you do me.” Does that sound as Brokeback to you as it does to us?

Red Envelope, the production arm of Netflix, will produce a doc. about ancient but game Tony Bennett, EP’ed by Clint Eastwood, who’ll also show up in the film. Netflix plans a theatrical release, a tv airing, and a live event for the film. Why?

“Tony Bennett has been at the enter of the culture for more than 60 years,” said Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos. “There are not that many people on the planet who can talk about Duke Ellington, Martin Luther King Jr. and John F. Kennedy in the first person.”

In fact, no one can talk about them in the first person, because (a) one can only refer to oneself in the first person and (b) they’re dead.

CBS hired former NBC drama excec. Chris Castalloas to oversee reality programming. Sounds nonsensical, but he’d worked with Glen Maynard, exec. vp of alternative programing before, and Hollywood is all about who you know.

Second Life creator Philip Rosedale tells all. Five gigabytes of code!

Sony has acquired all media rights for Afterworld, a futuristic animated episodic drama. Right now it’s on Bud.TV, but soon it will be a game, a tv series, a web series, a cell phone series and a breakfast treat.

Goldwyn will distribute Goya’s Ghosts, Milos Forman’s
film about the Spanish artist. Natalie Portman stars as his muse.

ShoWest honors Bruce Joel Rubin as screenwriter of the year next month in Las Vegas. Rubin won an Oscar for Ghost.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Arianna Huffington or rather her avatar (who can tell them apart?) is interviewed in Second Life, where she advises would-be adulters to experiment in the virtual world, before ditching the spouse. She loves the idea of Second Life.

Second Life Bureau chief Adam Reuters, aka Adam Pasick, talks to her at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Huffington dodges the Hillary or Obama? question, saying it’s an eternity between now and November 2008. She follows by saying that Senator Clinton has

a problem of inauthenticity.

An avatar is claiming a real person isn’t authentic? Arianna Huffington’s avatar?

If anyone should know inauthentic, it’s Huffington’s avatar.

She must really hate Hillary Clinton. And her avatar.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.