OK, it's about a week before Christmas as I sit and write this and if you're anything like me (and I'm sorry if you are), you've put your Christmas shopping off until now. Well, no reason to panic like the day you found out that Right Said Fred was breaking up, I'm here to help. So here are ten excellent gift suggestions for the entertainment lover on your list. Picking up any of these items is sure to make the lucky receiver forget all about the time that you sold his furniture to pay for a Nintendo Wii.

1. Seinfeld DVDs. Simply put, the Seinfeld DVDs are the best TV-on-DVDs out there, with tons of extras that give unprecedented insight into the greatest sitcom of all time. If your gift recipient hasn't hopped on board with any of the discs, go with the recently released and mammoth Complete Series set. If they have, no big deal: Get 'em the final season, which plays much better now than at the time, when the show was being unfairly compared to itself. Trust me, a comparatively weak season of Seinfeld -- especially with the extras -- still rocks. "The Burning," "The Merv Griffin Show," "The Betrayal," and "The Maid" are classics.



2. Bruce Springsteen's Magic. When I heard that Springsteen was doing another album with the E Street Band, I hoped that it would be better than The Rising, which was OK, but felt a little forced (unlike Devils and Dust and Seeger Sessions, which are much more powerful). I'm pleased to report that Springsteen is not only on top of his game here, but the album flat out rocks with a confidence and looseness that is reminiscent of The River. In a fair world, about six songs here would be hit singles, and the album certainly would be up for the Grammy for album of the year instead of Herbie Hancock and Vince Gill. Grammy voters, do you have to keep sinking to new lows?



3. Satellite radio. I'll let you decide here between Sirius and XM, a choice that will likely be moot in the new year as the companies look to merge in 2008. I'd go with Sirius because of the E Street Band channel (see above for my bias), and better music choices overall -- the Super Shuffle station is the only place you can hear "Funky Cold Medina" followed by "I Love A Rainy Night," and The Vault, Spectrum, Totally '70s, and Classic Rewind stations all play great music with no commercials. But if your gift recipient is a baseball fan, go with XM, as XM has exclusive rights to broadcast every baseball game. That's every game.



4. Satellite TV. Have a big Wisconsin Badger fan on your list? What about a Michigan State fan? Doesn't matter, as satellite TV is the place to see Big Ten college basketball. While I side more with Charter than the Big Ten Network on their distribution dispute, life's too short to wait for the two to battle it out. Get the dish and enjoy the games now. I recommend DirecTV over Dish Network since Dish Network doesn't carry My Madison TV, and My Madison TV is nothing short of tremendous.



5. Lost Season Three DVDs. As season three started, Lost was a victim of its own success, as declining ratings and the loss of novelty led some to pronounce the show creatively dead. Those people were wrong, as these DVDs clearly show. Lost really does play better on DVD than on network, especially since ABC broke up season three into two chunks with months in between -- something I don't have a problem with except that ABC took the break in the wrong place in the narrative. Big chunks at a time is the way to watch Lost, as you can choose the pace at which mysteries unfold. Great stuff.



6. Saturday Night Live: The Complete Second Season DVDs. Yeah, I know there's a lot of DVDs on this list, but with the writers' strike, you're going to need them. As great as the first season was, season two is probably the best in SNL's history, as the departure of Chevy Chase really opened things up for Belushi and Aykroyd. Oh, and some guy named Bill Murray joined the cast. This is where The Coneheads and the historic hosting gigs by Steve Martin started. Plus you get the disastrous Mardi Gras special that hasn't been seen since 1977 because drunken revelers and production problems derailed the show. Classic television.



7. Blade Runner on DVD. There's about 800 versions of this DVD coming out on December 18, and to be honest, I haven't seen any of them. But if you're a film geek that salivates over being able to compare five different versions of the same movie with hours and hours of commentaries, documentaries, and behind-the-scenes stuff, this promises to be the DVD release of the year.



8. Paul McCartney stuff. Call me a lover of old fart music, but Paul McCartney has two of the most interesting music releases of the year with his stellar Memory Almost Full album and his DVD video collection The McCartney Years. Forget the silly single "Dance Tonight," Memory Almost Full rocks remarkably hard for music made by a 65-year-old, and The McCartney Years is a fascinating journey through McCartney's solo career, along with audio commentaries by the man himself. And yes, you get the "Say Say Say" video with it. But come on, Paul, where's the complete Rockshow on DVD?
9. An iTunes gift card. I still have a hard time letting go of CDs -- I love packaging -- but my iTunes library is up to about two days' worth of tracks. The best way to try new stuff before committing to an entire album purchase, which your gift recipient can do anyway on iTunes if they're not one of those package-loving ninnies like me.



10. My Music: The Best of the Urban Theater CD. Great local music from a great local show to benefit a great local music charity. Get it at Channel 3000 or The University Book Store.

Happy holidays everyone and here's hoping this year sees your very own Festivus miracle!

The glimmer of hope has come and gone. No, I'm not talking about that glimmer of hope surrounding the often-rumored Strange Brew sequel. I'm talking about the glimmer of hope surrounding the writers' strike.

A rumored agreement that was supposedly imminent a couple of days ago has washed up, in tatters like the primetime schedules of the major networks.

Now like most people I've talked to, I side with the writers. The amounts that producers are offering the writers for streaming their scripted episodes on-line is ridiculous -- about $250 per year compared to $20,000 per a single broadcast rerun. The figures are more out of whack when you consider not only the enormous business of streaming episodes on-line that promises to get exponentially bigger in the very near future, but also the fact that reruns for many shows are slowly becoming a thing of the past as networks figure that people have enough opportunities to catch first-run episodes, either by DVRing them or -- wait for it -- accessing them on-line. So the writers are rather stupidly being told that they can't participate in the new frontier of digital media even while the old frontier of broadcast television is changing in a way that limits their ability to make money. All this while every single network executive has been quoted somewhere as saying that profits from streaming episodes on-line are going to be enormous. So I don't blame the writers at all for wanting a piece of the action that everybody seems to agree on will be there whether it's an Uptown Saturday Night or a Sunday Bloody Sunday.

But of course as a fan of television I am supposed to hate the writers' strike. And because I am a child of television and not a day goes by that I don't worship at the altar of the big box, I do fear that the writers' strike is doing irreparable damage to TV, both qualitatively -- as smart scripted programming is being replaced by banal writer-less programs -- and quantitatively -- as casual viewers check out as good programming options dry up.

But I'm actually sort of a closet fan of the writers' strike, because I'm guessing it will allow me more time for other pursuits. No, I don't mean reading or spending time with the family -- who do you think I am, Charles Ingalls? No, I mean that the writers' strike will let me catch up on the dozens of TV-on-DVD purchases I've made over the years that I've never watched. As much as not having new episodes of The Office or 24 kills me, I'm quickly comforted by the thought that I can finally break into those The Wire, Rescue Me, or even Desperate Housewives season sets that are lining my shelves. Yes, TV is what will get me through these weeks or even months without TV. Thank you, TV, for being there for me when TV let me down. I can always count on you, TV.

And actually, as networks have announced their strike schedules, not all is lost. (Except Lost, which will be back who knows when.) Sure, ABC, FOX, and NBC have nothing -- a revival of American Gladiators? Are you kidding me? Why not a revival of Misifts of Science, NBC? But as always, CBS looks to have the smartest schedule as looks to be the place to be for viewers looking for new programming in the new year. Not only will CBS have a full slate of The New Adventures of Old Christine, which is probably the best traditional sitcom on the air these days, but they will have new episodes of the cult hit Jericho, as well as another all-star edition of the grandaddy of the current reality TV boom, Survivor. And, better yet, they will have another edition of my favorite guilty pleasure (hey, I don't even know how guilty I feel about it anymore, I love it, damnit, and I don't care who knows) Big Brother. Wait, CBS, with all of this programming, what about my plan to watch all ten of my Simpsons boxed sets? Man . . .

So come on, producers, give the writers what they deserve. And pronto. But writers, take your time writing new episodes of Cane and Shark. Don't take away my hope of a Big Brother-filled winter.