Spent the day reading up on Disney/Pixar deal (still don`t know what to think but hoping for the best) and setting up meetings, getting contracts and contacts together, and otherwise helping Ed Gonzalez get his video shoot off the ground for the Annies. Man, has he put a lot of work into this project.

Found out that I do have to do some kind of short thank you speech (important word here is short) at the Annies, maybe I should thank the guy that laid me off from my place as the head of the corporate art department way back in 1995. That lead to me to starting my state funded animation program in Orange, which lead to me joining ASIFA in that same year. No one ever thanks the mean spirited jerks that do us back handed favors all the time thinking that they are doing us dirt. Life is strange but it is still the best show in town.

Next Friday (day before the Annies) I am meeting up with Tom Geller who is coming down from San Francisco with a piece of the Nightmare Before Christmas set that he is donating to the ASIFA-Hollywood Archives. I think it is part of the Bogeyman wheel of chance set where the big showdown happens. That is what it looked like from the photos. Tom pulled it out of a dumpster behind a subcontractor studio shortly after the movie was finished. That is what happened to all of the stuff on Nightmare. Not so with Corpse Bride all of that went straight to the Warner Museum as soon as the shoot was over. About time we get some respect for Stop Motion.

The votes are all in so I can talk a little about the features. Three way race between two stop motion movies and a 2-D movie from Japan. I feel the clay movie is in the lead. We will find out a week from Saturday.

Just got a number of emails from people wanting to volunteer for the Annies so that they can get in free. Man, that boat has saled 3 months ago, so don`t ask. It is getting in the way of my spam.  ¶ 9:32 PM