Toy Story 3 Scrapped! Does this mean Pixar is in charge?

We definitely live in interesting times. Just a few nights ago I was watching tv and a commercial comes on for a Disney movie. It appeared to be Bambi, but the animation looked different. And with good reason: it was Bambi II.

Thus continuing to prove that Disney, if not Holleywood et al, is creatively bankrupt.

I came across this story about Toy Story 3 being canceled, today I see it on Slashdot with the comment that this could prove that Pixar is in charge of the merger. This is good news, but is it "too soon" good news? Is the Disney board letting Pixar think they are calling the shots for a couple of years, then bringing the hammer down and making them produce TS 3 and Snow White 7: Dopey Returns From Rehab?

Disney wants to sell toys in all the stores, online, and theme parks. They want giant-sized characters wandering around terrorizing two-year-olds. No movie, fewer toy sales.

According to this article in the Independent and the securities filing, the Creative Chief at Pixar has full decision-making capability for both Pixar and Disney Animation, he's the one that brought the axe down. Apparently they had ONE HUNDRED SCRIPT WRITERS on TS 3! No frickin' wonder they couldn't get a good script out!

And here's the Slashdot thread, if you're feeling like reading a lot of geek fan-boy rantings.

We finally watched the Serenity DVD last night

Good movie. But it definitely benefits from a REALLY BIG screen. That's not to say that my TV is small, it's probably 29", but still, this benefits from a bigger screen. The bonus material was quite good, the deleted scenes added a lot of context to the film but still did not diminish said film from their absence. The bloopers were quite good, I particularly liked the one where they are cleaning up Book's encampment after the slaughter. We haven't watched the full version with the commentary yet.

This is sort of a landmark event because I gave it to Russ for Christmas and it's remained in its shrink wrap ever since! Kind of sad to think that this is the first DVD we've watched together in a month.

Food Network Program: Ham on the Street

Recommended. It's a half hour program, the guy is really funny. The first one that I saw was on hot dogs. He decided to "core" a bunch of dogs and stuff them with various things, so he went to a hardware store and they made a bunch of attempts at coring, few of them successful. The first was to drive a rod through it, it had problems with accuracy and the fact that it didn't remove material from the inside of the dog. Then they tried a drill with a long bit. That chewed up the inside of the dog nicely but didn't remove enough material. Finally they found a thin enough metal tube that removed enough material, except they now had said tube filled with hot dog meat: they quickly found the best solution was using a syringe and popping out the plug with a blast of air.

Finally the dogs were stuffed with ketchup, chili's, bleu cheese, perhaps mustard and mayo. The reactions from the eaters was quite positive, I'm interested in trying the bleu cheese one. Or perhaps a ketchup/BBQ sauce.

The other show that I've seen had to do with late-night dining and insomnia. It included Rice Krispie treats that contained a few tablespoons of coffee, bowling in the frozen food aisle with quart cartons of milk and frozen turkeys, and testing hospital staff to see if they could tell whether coffee was decaf or regular.

It seem to be paired with Good Eats, it makes a good double-header.