Forums Closed
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As of January 1, 2019, we have closed our forums. This is a decision we did not come to lightly, but it is necessary. The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk. The server software itself must be updated, and it cannot be without removing the forums.
So it is with a heavy heart that we say goodbye to our long-running forums. They came online in 2000 and brought together so many wonderful Disney fans. We had friendships form, careers launch, couples marry, children born ... all because of this amazing community.
Thank you to each of you who were a part of this community. You made it possible.
And a very special thank you to our Guides (moderators), past and present, who kept our forums a happy place to be. You are the glue that held everything together, and we are forever grateful to you. Thank you aliceinwdw, Caldercup, MrsM, WillCAD, Fortissimo, GingerJ, HiddenMickey, CRCrazy, Eeyoresmom, disneyknut, disneydani, Cam22, chezp, WDWfan, Luvsun, KMB733, rescuesk, OhToodles!, Colexis Mom, lfredsbo, HiddenMickey, DrDolphin, DopeyGirl, duck addict, Disneybine, PixieMichele, Sandra Bostwick, Eeyore Tattoo, DyanKJ130, Suzy Q'Disney, LilMarcieMouse, AllisonG, Belle*, Chrissi, Brant, DawnDenise, Crystalloubear, Disneymom9092, FanOfMickey, Goofy4Goofy, GoofyMom, Home4us123, iamgrumpy, ilovedisney247, Jennifer2003, Jenny Pooh, KrisLuvsDisney, Ladyt, Laughaholic88, LauraBelle Hime, Lilianna, LizardCop, Loobyoxlip, lukeandbrooksmom, marisag, michnash, MickeyMAC, OffKilter_Lynn, PamelaK, Poor_Eeyore, ripkensnana, RobDVC, SHEANA1226, Shell of the South, snoozin, Statelady01, Tara O'Hara, tigger22, Tink and Co., Tinkerbelz, WDWJAMBA, wdwlovers, Wendyismyname, whoSEZ, WildforWD, and WvuGrrrl. You made the magic.
We want to personally thank Sara Varney, who coordinated our community for many years (among so many other things she did for us), and Cheryl Pendry, our Message Board Manager who helped train our Guides, and Ginger Jabour, who helped us with the PassPorter-specific forums and Live! Guides. Thank you for your time, energy, and enthusiasm. You made it all happen.
There are other changes as well.
Why? Well, the world has changed. And change with it, we must. The lyrics to "We Go On" for IllumiNations say it best:
We go on to the joy and through the tears
We go on to discover new frontiers
Moving on with the current of the years.
We go on
Moving forward now as one
Moving on with a spirit born to run
Ever on with each rising sun.
To a new day, we go on.
It's time to move on and move forward.
PassPorter is a small business, and for many years it supported our family. But the world changed, print books took a backseat to the Internet, and for a long time now it has been unable to make ends meet. We've had to find new ways to support our family, which means new careers and less and less time available to devote to our first baby, PassPorter.
But eventually, we must move on and move forward. It is the right thing to do.
So we are retiring this newsletter, as we simply cannot keep up with it. Many thanks to Mouse Fan Travel who supported it all these years, to All Ears and MousePlanet who helped us with news, to our many article contributors, and -- most importantly -- to Sara Varney who edited our newsletter so wonderfully for years and years.
And we are no longer charging for the Live Guides. If you have a subscription, it's yours to keep for the lifetime of the Live Guides at no additional cost. The Live Guides will stay online, barring server issues and technical problems, for all of 2019.
That said, PassPorter is not going away. Most of the resources will remain online for as long as we can support them, and after that we will find ways to make whatever we can available. PassPorter means a great deal to us, and to many of you, and we will do our best to keep it alive in whatever way we can. Our server costs are high, and they'll need to come out of our pockets, so in the future you can expect some changes so we can bring those costs down.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for your amazing support over the years. Without you, there's no way us little guys could have made something like this happen and given the "big guys" a run for their money. PassPorter was consistently the #3 guidebook after the Unofficial and Official guides, which was really unheard of for such a small company to do. We ROCKED it thanks to you and your support and love!
If you miss us, you can still find some of us online. Sara started a new blog at DisneyParkPrincess.com -- I strongly urge you to visit and get on her mailing list. She IS the Disney park princess and knows Disney backward and forward. And I am blogging as well at JenniferMaker.com, which is a little craft blog I started a couple of years ago to make ends meet. You can see and hear me in my craft show at https://www.youtube.com/c/jennifermaker . Many PassPorter readers and fans are on Facebook, in groups they formed like the PassPorter Trip Reports and PassPorter Crafting Challenge (if you join, just let them know you read about it in the newsletter). And some of our most devoted community members started a forum of their own at Pixie Dust Lane and all are invited over.
So we encourage you to stay in touch with us and your fellow community members wherever works best for you!
Best wishes for a wonderful and magical new year!
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01-25-2006, 01:44 AM
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#14
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Join Date: Feb 2000
Location: Ann Arbor, MI USA
Concierge Level: 6
Posts: 14,427
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Re: Disney buying Pixar?
[ QUOTE ]
Nice Deal for Disney. Interesting that Lasseter will also have some input into the themeparks!
[/ QUOTE ]
Lasseter has already had some input. Wasn't that his loud Hawaiian shirt I saw 15 feet away from me at the press opening for Buzz at DL on May 5? He had something to do with the development of Turtle Talk, I'm pretty sure he's got his mitts into the Nemo Sub Lagoon project at DL... But reading the tea leaves, I'd guess Lasseter's been wanting a bit more input than Imagineering has been willing to give, or otherwise he wouldn't have spent some of his bargaining chips on the title of "Principal Creative Advisor" to Walt Disney Imagineering.
"OK, John, what do we have to do to get you to stay a while?"
"I wanna be an Imagineer, Bob!"
Hmmm. About the only thing left for Lasseter is... Prototype Imaginative eXperimental And Really-Exciting Planned City of Tomorrow. (I don't have to spell it out, do I?) [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]
Anyway, Pixar President Ed Catmull gets to be president of both the Disney and Pixar animation studios, Lasseter gets to be Chief Creative Officer of the animation studios, and Jobs gets a garden-variety seat on the board.
Pixar stays up north in Emeryville for now. It's a 300 mile commute between the Disney and Pixar animation studios, so the commute for Ed and John is gonna be quite a pain. (Helicopter or private jet - you decide! You think they're gonna car pool, or use separate choppers?) I predict that Disney will be building a new studio campus for Pixar within three years. Location? Somewhere north of LA, near the Valencia campus of Cal Arts (Lasseter's alma mater and Walt Disney's own animation staff "incubator"). The excuse will be that the Pixar division will be producing more films than the Emeryville facility has space for, but it's really to save on gas. Either that, or they're gonna install a special version of Turtle Talk in Burbank. "Does anyone in the audience have a question for Ed?" "You there, sweating dude in the pinstripe shell!"
Now the pressure is really on. Eventually, some Pixar film is going to under-perform its biggest hits, or even :::gasp::: bomb. At that point, everyone will be complaining that Disney overpaid big time. There's no way this has a happy ending. Media mergers just never work that way.
One name missing from the story so far is Disney board member, former Chairman of Disney Animation and Chief Nephew to you-know-who, Roy Edward Disney. What role did he take in the Disney board's deliberations? Did he help with the deal-making or reapprochment between the companies following Eisner's departure? My recollection is that Roy and the Pixar folks are pretty chummy. Can the real result of "Save Disney" be the acquisition of Pixar?
Meantime, Pixar has about $1 billion cash in the bank, so the real cost to Disney is a bit over $6 billion. No big. All they have to do is up the price of popcorn. The company is getting ready to sell its radio networks (but not Radio Disney, ESPN radio, or the radio stations) for about $3 billion, so Disney will be in pretty fair shape financially.
Heck, I know some ships they could spend that billion on. [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]
Here's the official press release from Disney & Pixar. |
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