Archives for January 2004

Talks between Pixar Animation Studios and The Walt Disney Company to extend their partnership failed today in what must be a real bummer for Disney stockholders, and yet another glaring indication that Disney CEO Michael Eisner is mismanaging the company into the ground. Pixar Animation Studios are the guys responsible for such computer-generated animation blockbusters as Toy Story, Toy Story 2, A Bug’s Life, Monsters Inc, and Finding Nemo (the number one animated film of all time). Pixar’s five films combined collected a sweet $2.5 billion in box office sales with a staggering 150 million DVDs/videos sold.

Pixar is currently working on 2 films it owes Disney in their contract. but is also working on other films such as the highly anticipated Toy Story 3.

Disney, who just closed their Orlando, Florida animation studio is not currently working on any traditionally animated films. They plan to bring a few in-house computer-animated films to the screen in 2005 and 2006 and also announced plans to make a third Toy Story movie without Pixar.

It seems to be that Disney, who long held the monopoly on animated feature films, is about to become taken by force, as Pixar, DreamWorks, Blue Sky Studios and Warner Bros. are about to declare Disney “the weakest link.”

Yahoo! News: Pixar, Disney Partnership Talks Collapse
CNNmoney: Pixar dumps Disney

(Thanks to CTH for the heads up. edit: and for clearing up who is making Toy Story 3. For some reason I saw “the company” in the article and thought Pixar. Of course Disney will retain all rights to Toy Story. )

You just can’t make this stuff up…

Yahoo! News: Decomposing Whale Explodes on Street

By now everyone has seen Dean’s speech after the Iowa Caucus where he finished in third. He got excited, and red in the face and started yelling about how his campaign was going to go on to the other states and take some names. He finished the exclamation with a high pitched “woo!”… or a “hoo!” It was a very strange noise. Now on TV they are referring to the speech as “The Doctor’s ‘I Have a Scream’ Speech” Man… I almost peed my pants when I heard that.

Mike Rowe is a Canadian teenager and a web programmer who decided to set up a website. He decided on the domain MikeRoweSoft.com (say it aloud.) Microsoft Corp. decided that despite the fact that the kid just used his first and last names, he was infringing on their copyright. They demanded he change his site, and offered him $10 to do so. Mike didn’t cave, and has since started a defense fund. He is now offering to take the site down for $10,000.

Microsoft obviously looks foolish now, and after realizing this, company spokesman Jim Desler admits that they might have taken this issue too seriously.

Yahoo! News Story: Microsoft Lightens Up on Teen’s Mikerowesoft Site

Winamp is like a girlfriend you had in high school who broke your heart. Only now, she’s back, and as much as you can’t forget the past, you really can’t help but notice how much she’s grown up since then.

I am of course talking about Winamp 2 (high school girlfriend), Winamp 3 (when she broke your heart), and Winamp 5 (she’s back, and much improved!).

Winamp 5 sort of slipped under my radar. After the Saturday night puke fest that was Winamp 3 (it was buggy and slow), I had sort of resigned myself to the fact that if I was going to listen to music on my computer, it’d have to be through Winamp 2 or Windows Media Player 9.

If Winamp broke your heart with version 3, I strongly urge you to give version 5 a try. It has all the best features of Winamp 2 (relatively small memory/CPU footprint, great audio quality) and adds all the nice Music Library functions of Windows Media Player 9 (even better, because of how fast it is!)

Supergau, a German insurance company, has started offering motorists a policy that will pay their speeding fines (up to 1,000 euros a year). The highway police are less than pleased. Despite the fact that the policy will not cover a crash or any tickets for more than 40 kph over the limit, the police are afraid that such a policy will result in an increasing number of carefree offenders.

Yahoo! News Story: Police Criticize Radar Trap Insurance

An American company, Rocky Mountain Radar, makes radar “jamming” (scrambling) devices and offers to pay your first ticket if you own one of their qualifying products.

Should law enforcement be worried? Hardly. Both schemes have a loophole that doesn’t protect you from massively speeding. Speeding laws are not really a safety issues (when we’re talking about 0-20 mph over) and only exist as a way of increasing revenue. Consider the town of Waldo, Florida.

A drunk woman who was driving (and talking on her cell phone to boot) swerved onto the wrong side of the road and killed a teacher, and put his pregnant wife into a coma back in June 2002.

Jennifer Langston pleaded guilty to vehicular homicide, reckless endangerment, and reckless driving. She was sentenced to a month in jail, house arrest, probation, and was ordered to carry a picture of Glenn Clark, the man she killed, for five years. His parents provided Ms. Langston with a picture of their deceased son. Let me run that by you again: they provided her with a picture of their deceased son, in his coffin.

Langston’s attorney said that the “spirit of the agreement” was for them to provide a picture of Mr. Clark that was taken while he was still alive.

The judge’s decision on this matter is still pending.

I say that the “spirit of the agreement” was to never let Ms. Langston forget what she did, and the picture of her victim in his casket absolutely does that.

A man in Wisconsin who became addicted to cable television is threatening the cable company with a lawsuit. Timothy Dumochel claims that cable TV made his wife become fat and his kids grow lazy. What does he want? Well, poor old Timmy wants $5,000, or three computers, and a lifetime of free internet access. Apparently television addiction is a lot like heroin… instead of going cold turkey, he will be switched to another drug. Internet access will be Timothy’s methadone. But something troubles me. Mr. Dumochel wants a lifetime of free internet. With methadone treatment programs, the addict is weaned off the drug, but in this case, Timothy has requested a lifetime supply of his treatment drug.

Apparently, Mr. Dumochel asked that his cable be disconnected in 1999, but although the billing stopped, the TV didn’t. The cable stayed on for four years, his family unable to pull the plug and keep it out.

The Reporter: Man says he’s addicted to cable; wants to sue Charter