After a two-day break to consider proposals, the Writers Guild and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers are returning to negotiations, trying to avert a strike that would wipe out the world as we know it. The WGA's agreement with the studios expired at 12:01 a.m. Sunday, but talks have continued amid a media blackout.

For those of you just joining us, here's a quick FAQ on the potential strike:

What's it about?
 Money. Don't be stupid.

Isn't everything about money in Hollywood?
 No, sometimes it's about sex. Okay, that's about money, too. The writers want an additional cut of DVD sales, and want the studios to stop pretending that reality television and animation just appears out of nowhere without writers. The studios love keeping all of the money for themselves, so that they can move closer to the beach and away from the writers, who generally fear the ocean.

I'm just visiting from Nebraska and spending the day at Universal Studios. How do I tell the writers and the producers apart?
 When a writer asks you to park his car, he gets embarrassed about it, probably makes a joke that he should be parking your car, taps his watch to show that he's only letting you park his car because he's in a huge hurry, and then passive-aggressively tells you that it would be "super" if you didn't adjust the seats because he has an iffy back.

When a producer asks you to park his car, he tosses his keys at your chest and asks you if you wouldn't mind swinging by the dry cleaners on the way to pick up his kid from school. Also, producers have better coke. Always.

What will happen if there's a strike?
 Movie theaters will crumble to dust as a 10.5 earthquake ravages the West Coast. Your television will not turn on, and if it does, there will be nothing to watch but Chico and The Man reruns and Iron Chef episodes without the English dubbing. The talking-heads on VH-1, deprived of adequate pop-culture material to quip about, will overrun your city, stopping strangers on the street to reminisce about how they always wanted to fuck Smurfette, but not after Papa Smurf and Hefty were done.

Naturally, producers will have abandon their beach homes to move further inland. They'll have frequent, uncomfortable run-ins at the local Coffee Bean with striking writers and the writers that weren't working anyway.

Michael Eisner will still be fired.