Friday Fun -

[kyburg]

You're lucky, exedore, that today has turned into a slow day.

1. What drew you to Switzerland originally?

I married Cliff. Literally, I knew nothing about the place until I arrived there on honeymoon. I'm a quick study, neh?

2. You know Milka chocolate as well as I do. What are your favourite flavours?

I love the bars with whole hazelnuts in them - but just plain milk chocolate will get me by every time. Those special flavors at Christmas time were fantastic, but I think I liked the zimstern best.

3. You're in one of the earlier generations of animedom. What drew you to anime originally?

I was one of those lucky few who grew up in Southern California in the early 60's and got most of the commercial Tezuka properties off broadcast television - Kimba, The Amazing Three, others - Gigantor and of course, Astro Boy. (It is whack seeing the new show in color!) I can remember seeing Alakazam The Great when it was in the theaters (I even had the soundtrack), and that film has a copyright of 1961 - I was born in 1960.

I can't really remember a time when I did not like anime. I've always thought the artwork looked better, the stories made more sense and followed a more coherent path than American animated properties. Let alone had more than one type of female in the cast - people might bash me for liking "harem" anime, but I'm just glad there's more than a Smart Girl and a Pretty Girl to pick from.

And then we can talk about the music scores. BAABY!

4. What is your take on the Disney/Pixar fallout and how do you think it will affect the involved parties come 2006?

This is big. It's as big or bigger than losing Katzenberger to form Dreamworks, bigger than losing Frank Wells - but it's hard to say just how things are going to shift and change as a result of it. Disney has said they are divesting themselves of 2-D animation and have shuttered some of their studios. But the 3-D work is all Pixar, isn't it?

Perhaps Disney is just going to shop around for a replacement studio for Pixar - or try to recreate the technology in-house. Could they do that without getting sued?

But that's a long time in the future, and much could happen before then. One things for certain - all bets are off. I doubt we'll recognize either company by the time this separation occurs in 2005.

5. Kannst du and deine Deutsch errinern, oder musst du jetzt ein Wortebuch benutzen?

Was für mich schwierig ist, ist die Grammatik. Ich kann die Worte. Aber an nicht zu viele mich erinnern. Und sie zusammenfügend nach rechts kicks my ass. So I often double check my work with Babelfish - I do retain enough fluency to know when the wrong set of words has been used. Most of the time. I started learning the language at 30 by full-immersion with no classroom time to learn vocabulary or grammar - it works well to get started, but achieving a state of comfortable fluency has so far eluded me.

--

That was fun! Anyone else want to be interviewed? Ask and ye shall be queried.

Comments

[elorie.livejournal.com]

Me!

You asked for it!

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

1. I loved reading Emma Boll's "War For The Oaks," - I know you did too. You write. Where would you set a modern fantasy story like hers? And why?

2. Tell me your dream dinner - your very favorite. Give recipes.

3. What were you in your past life? What makes you think so?

4. If civilization ended today - we all go back to sunlight and what we can make or grow with our own two hands - what part of "civilized" life would you miss the most?

5. Pick three books. You can't carry any more and you won't be able to get any more - and you're leaving this world for good. What three do you chose?

I want to be interviewed

[juan70x.livejournal.com]

ai

Does her best "aiyaaaa" ala Jackie Chan's Uncle -

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

1. Plot a course around the world; money is no object. You have all the time you want, all the money you need. Where do you go, and why?

2. If you could bring back one musician from history to talk to you and give you pointers (or you'd like to show that worthy a thing or two) - who would it be?

3. Name three things you wouldn't eat - but you did anyway because it would offend or hurt someone's feelings if you did. Describe the situations for extra credit.

4. Who is your heir? Why?

5. Describe your favorite smell.

[unclemilo.livejournal.com]

Feel free to ask me!

Hoookay -

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

1. Name the best teacher you ever had in school. Why?

2. Is there someplace you've visited that you would like to return to?

3. Favorite place to hang out and get something to eat, open or closed - and who would you invite to go with you? (Anyone, living or dead.)

4. Name one thing about yourself you would change. Name one thing about yourself that is not open for discussion. Why?

5. If the items in your home were up for MVP - what would be the first five nominees for the award?

Me?

[muimi07.livejournal.com]

If you can think of any :D

*rolls up sleeves*

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

1. What is the longest you have been awake in a non-interupted stretch - and why were you?

2. Name the worst trip you've ever been on.

3. You've got one chance to tell someone everything about you - but you've lost your voice and the only thing you have is your DVD/video collection to express yourself. You have six hours - what are your choices?

4. What would be your dream job?

5. What's the strangest thing you *love* to eat that nobody else will touch?

[jadegirl.livejournal.com]

Me, please!

*rubs hands together*

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

1. Tell me about your favorite holiday.

2. Do you believe a life of service should only be devoted to the one person? Or are we all in service to each other, after all?

3. *BAMPF* A miracle occurs! What is it?

4. Gardens. Library. Tea House. Which one? You can have the one of your dreams to build in your own home. Which one, and why?

5. If you could change one thing from the last five years - big, small or inbetween - the classic Quantum Leap-type change - what would it be?

[musicalchaos.livejournal.com]

I'll take a few if you've got any spares lying around.

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

1. You've been struck by lightning and I'm left to make a suitable memorial to you. What do you want me to tell people about you - I've got 25 words or less.

2. Tell me what you consider to be the most overused words in the English language, and why.

3. Faith, spirtuality or religion?

4. You've got one mp3 player that can hold 25 songs. Any length, but that's it. You won't get another player and you won't be able to come back and get more later. You're leaving this planet and won't be coming back. Which 25 do you chose?

5. Why?

[musicalchaos.livejournal.com]

Geez, I can't believe I forgot about this for so bloody long. Well... better late than never, I suppose?

1. He was far from perfect, but tried, and hopefully made a difference for the better more often than not.

2. Yes and no. They're handy words, obviously, and have their place, but I often feel people rip them off far too quickly as a means of closing down a line of conversation without truly expressing their own thoughts and opinions, much less whether they actually understand the given matter.

3. Personally, I don't quite fall under any of the three anymore. Although at the time this was posed I was more of a spiritualist than anything. Honestly, I don't tend to be overly averse to any of them in and of themselves, although I think each has a rather significant downside.

Faith is a powerful and beautiful thing. It gives hope and solace. Yet blind faith, and the willful ignorance which usually accompanies it, are both very destructive forces, in my opinion. Very little sours my opinion of humanity like seeing people who refuse to ask questions or accept that something they believe might be wrong, much more so those who take it as a personal crusade to try and rewrite reality to fit their vision of the world.

Spirituality tends to be a bit more difficult to codify. Generally, I'm a-okay with it. It makes people happy, and I can full well accept and understand that someone may appreciate some tenets of a number of religions, but not particularly accept any given one. I just tend to get a bit tetchy when dealing with people who take that to an extreme and use it as a catch-all excuse for whatever behaviour they want to get away with. It just doesn't often present an argument that holds water well, in my experience.

Religion... Cause for much good in the world and most likely an equivalent amount of suffering. I'll cut that off there just because there's too much which can follow from that. Suffice to say that when people are being helped and not indoctrinated or worse, I'm generally in favor.

4. Honestly, I don't know. Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition (Ravel's orchestration) would most certainly be the first among them, but beyond that, I'm really not certain. As my grandfather once quipped to me, "My favorite song is the one I'm listening to."

5. Why not?

Okay, well, in reference to the song, presuming that's what the question was referring to, it's because it is one of the few pieces of music which can move me to tears and I almost never tire of hearing. This is in no small part aided by the knowledge that my brother's choice of funeral music, should he have died while out with the fishing fleets, was The Great Gate of Kiev from that particular piece.

[exedore.livejournal.com]

I'm always looking for a reason to procrastinate a paper and will therefore subject myself to another round of questioning =)

It's late, but I think I can rub two brain cells together -

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

1. Cliff once told me the strangest thing he'd ever seen dubbed was a John Wayne movie into Finnish. Name the strangest thing you've ever seen dubbed into another language - and why.

2. Is there a dish you've learned to love in Austria that you want to make once you get home? Have you bought a cookbook yet?

3. Name your favorite season of the year, and describe it.

4. What was the strangest day you've ever had in your life, and why -

5. What would you like to be in your next life?

[natsumi.livejournal.com]

Just had to comment on the disney/pixar thing... Pixar has always been it's own company, the contract with disney was only for distribution rights. Disney had no creative influence at all. They merely got the films and loaned their name for the advertising/publicity. And for this, Disney was getting a big chunk of the profits. But Pixar now has their own name recognition. They can be distributed by anyone and still draw in the crowds, so the quality of pixar films is unlikely to change, unless it's to get better. Disney however is missing out on a partnership that was helping to keep their feature film department afloat. They have their own 3-d studio. The movie Dinosaur! was entirely 3d and made in house by disney. Technically it was a marvelous achievement (the lemur's fur was astonishing before the fur in Monsters Inc.), but while it was visually very appealing, the story was terrible. In my opinion Pixar has always had multi-layered stories that appeal on all levels, and that combined with beautiful animation has made them so successful. Obviously the execs at disney thought it was just the visual appeal, because the story was simplistic and downright boring. Disney doesn't need to drop it's 2-d animation department, it needs to look to the writers. But that's all just my humble opinion. ^_^ Anyway, I can't pass up the chance to comment on animation, sorry to rant on your journal.