Two milestones!

Within the last five weeks, two unexpected things happened in my online life.

I first got on YouTube in 2009; four years later, I started putting my own videos there...most of them turned out to be music videos (olay, me doing the music on most of them).

Nothing spectacular...nothing viral. For the next ten years, I was content with having 40-50 subscribers to my YouTube channel.

All this time, I'd wanted to digitize my VHS tapes...tons and tons of VHS tapes. And do it without tying up my TV set.

So...this past March, I sent in for a VHS-to-DVD converter in order to do the work at my computer. Then I started going through my VHS videocassettes to see which old TV shows I'd taped would be suitable to put on YouTube.

Well, late last month, after putting up six telecasts from the 1990s (one a rerun of a 1970s show), I received an email from YouTube saying I'd reached a hundred subscribers.

No, it's not a thousand...but I'm still very happy with a hundred.

In October 2019 (nine months after I joined Stage 32), I joined CJ Walley's outstanding screenwriting/TV writing platform, Script Revolution. (The philosophy was: "It really shouldn't hurt to get as many eyeballs on these scripts I've written as possible.")

At the time I joined up, I'd written four feature-length screenplays. I'm now up to 27 full-length scripts and a TV pilot.

I'm proud to follow 298 other Script Revolution writers...and I'm humbled to say that earlier this week, I gained my 200th follower.

Thank you so very much, YouTube subscribers and Script Revolution followers.

And I'm going to continue to try my best to come through for you.

Too close to call...well, I like to think so!

Screenwriting has kept me away from posting more blogs all this time.

Speaking of screenwriting...you can't really write a better script than the way this season's two NCAA Division 1 basketball tournaments have been turning out.

Okay...I'm cheating...I'm typing this during the third quarter of the North Carolina State-South Carolina women's basketball game. But I'm still going to go out on a limb and make predictions for how college hoops' final six games of 2023-24 will turn out.

Here goes: WOMEN: South Carolina over North Carolina State, Connecticut over Iowa (but I smell a Hawkeye victory tonight over the Huskies), then the Gamecocks staying unbeaten at the expense of the Huskies...whose 2015-16 team was the last D-1 squad, men's or women's, to get through unscathed.

MEN: Connecticut over Alabama, North Carolina State over Purdue...followed by the Huskies taking the Wolfpack down on 4-8-2024 for a second consecutive title (something not done in D-1 men's hoops since Florida doubled up in 2005-06 and 2006-07).

But what a season it's been...especially with Iowa's Caitlin Clark breaking records left and right and Purdue's Zach Edey picking up where he left off.

And we're at a point in the season where any of those eight teams could win it all.

Well...time for me to get back to the South Carolina-NC State game. But before I go...I can't help but ask:

Which teams do YOU think will win it all here in 2023-24?

Take a good, good look...

That's right...take a good, good look at these photos...photos of some of Big Media's biggest powers at the top.

Netflix founder Reed Hastings...

Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav...

Comcast CEO Brian Roberts...

Paramount Global CEO Bob Bakish...

Disney CEO Bob Iger...

Fox Corporation CEO Lachlan Murdoch...

Yes, I'm going to ruffle a bunch of feathers for saying this...but I'm going to say it:

If it weren't for (let's face it) corporate greed and for complacency at the top (in other words, the studios' tremendous reliance on movie franchises, movie remakes, and TV reboots), the Writers Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists wouldn't be out on strike. It's the first time since 1960 that both unions shut down.

Not all actors are wealthy. Matter of fact, the average California actor earned $27.73 per hour in 2022, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. And movie-TV performers aren't paid full-time year-'round. And, per a 7-17-2023 post on cnn.com on why the writers and performers are picketing, 12.7% of all SAG-AFTRA members make an annual salary of $26,470...the minimum amount that qualifies an entertainer for health insurance.

160,000 SAG-AFTRA members...11,000 people in the WGA.

I still think that there's more than enough money out there to satisfy all sides in the matter. How about you?

The strike must continue

The Writers Guild of America began its current strike on Tuesday, 5-2-2023...after a three-year contract with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers ended. Weeks of negotiations fell through because the AMPTP failed to come up with a pact that would satisfy the 11,500 WGA members. WGA leaders sought to gain increased compensation for TV-and-movie writers, guaranteed duration of employment for writers who get gigs in the industry, better residuals, and (of course!) the assurance that human writers wouldn't get replaced by artificial intelligence. Streaming has become a major factor since the previous WGA strike. Because of streaming, residuals for writers have become less frequent...and smaller, too. We've now got minirooms (with only a few writers instead of the usual seven or more), shorter seasons for TV series, and no rerun residuals for countless series. The money's there to give WGA writers what they want. Writers would've gained an extra $429 million per year had AMPTP leaders come through for the folks who cook up scripts. Instead, AMPTP bigwigs offered an annual increase of $86 million. Some people have questioned the WGA's decision to shut it down. One of them's even on the creatives' platform I joined in January 2019. If you've questioned the first writers' shutdown since 2007-08, think about this: Shows like "This Is Us" and "Abbott Elementary" wouldn't have come on the air if somebody hadn't thought them up...and movies such as "Avatar" and "Tar" came about because someone wrote a script. And why shouldn't writers be compensated decently for what they come up with? They've got bills to pay, too.

It's been such a long, long time...

57.5 years, to be exact.

It's been that long since I began wearing glasses. (Back then, the fall of 1965, when my constant squinting led to the decision to get me into my first pair of glasses.)

Well...thanks to two cataract surgeries (3-6-2023 and 3-27-2023), subsequent followups, and two bottles of Pred-Brom, I now see 20/20 for distance. Don't need glasses for driving anymore.

Okay...I still need reading glasses when I'm looking at books, newspapers, magazines, and computer screens.

Still, that's good enough for me.

Brumm Eye Center and Miracle Hills Surgery Center, thank you so very much!

Vive la difference!

Great to see some different teams than the usual ones win regionals in this season's NCAA Division 1 men's and women's basketball tournaments.

No Number One seeds left at the moment in the NCAA D-1 men's tourney (Alabama, Purdue, Houston, and defending champion Kansas all went down before the regional finals)...and two remaining in the NCAA D-1 women's tourney (Virginia Tech and last season's champ, still-unbeaten South Carolina).

The Hokies and Gamecocks spearhead a women's D-1 Final Four that includes a Louisiana State team that hadn't won a regional final since 2008...and an Iowa squad making just its second trip to the women's D-1 Final Four. (The first happened in 1993.)

Now...how about the D-1 men's side? Three teams in the men's D-1 Final Four for the first time ever!

Two of those first-time teams (Florida Atlantic and San Diego State) taste it up tomorrow...when Miami (FL) takes on one of its old rival from its Big East days, Connecticut. That's right...a University of Connecticut basketball team made the Final Four after all.

Dan Hurley's...not Geno Auriemma's. So...2022-23 is the first season the Huskies' men's team got to a Final Four since 2014 and the first campaign where the Huskies' women's squad got left out of a Final Four since 2007. And, here in 2022-23, not a single Number One seed among the men's D-1 regional semifinalists...a first. All right...I'm going to try some predictions about the last team standing in each D-1 NCAA tourney this season. WOMEN: Louisiana State over Virginia Tech, South Carolina over Iowa...and then on Sunday, an all-SEC final in which Dawn Staley's Gamecocks make it back-to-back titles.

MEN: Florida Atlantic over San Diego State, Connecticut over Miami (FL)...with Hurley's squad cutting down the nets late Monday night for its first title since 2011.

The watchdogs chalk it all up to the transfer portal...something that's redistributed the talent in both women's and men's Division 1 hoops. (You know what I say? Right on for the portal!)

I'm going to be watching...hope you'll be watching, too.

Tomorrow's the day!

This could've taken place in January 2017...except the need to replace the transmission on the car I had at the time (a 2006 Ford Taurus SEL that I bought in June 2007) came first.

Instead, it's going to happen tomorrow at 9:15 AM at the Miracle Hills Surgery Center (11819 Miracle Hills Dr., Suite 201, Omaha, NE 68154).

The mission: To remove the cataract from my left eye.

Quite a few things during the intervening six years and two months delayed the surgery...from the need to continue building a retirement fund to 2020's successful enrollment in Medicare to my having to buy a replacement car in April 2021 to retiring from my factory job in October 2022. But now, I'm ready for Dr. Matthew Brumm to come after that cataract.

A followup will ensue this coming Tuesday at 8:30 AM at Brumm Eye Center's north office (6751 N. 72nd St., Building 2, Suite 105, Omaha, NE 68122).

After all this...who knows? All I want is to see better...so that I can, among other things, drive at night again.

Now...it's your turn. Have you faced cataract surgery (or surgeries) in the past? What was it like? How'd you fare?

Thanks for reading "Boston's Blog!"