First Old Yeller, now this!

Dogs' fate gnaws at HK Disneyland

The fate of dogs roaming the site of Hong Kong's Disneyland theme park is causing embarrassment to the entertainment group.

Since May, Disney has called in local officials to round up and destroy at least 40 dogs, the South China Morning Post newspaper reported.

Disney, whose cartoons often portray cute animal characters, said the packs of dogs posed a threat to its staff.

"We felt that they posed a safety threat to our staff, so we asked the government to take them away," said Esther Wong, a spokeswoman for Hong Kong Disneyland.

Previously, the theme park operator has dropped shark fin soup from park menus in Hong Kong following pressure from campaigners.

Albert Hui, a spokesman for Hong Kong's agriculture department, said 45 dogs had been rounded up at the Disneyland site since May, the Associated Press reported.

He added that some of the animals had since been destroyed, though there were no records of how many.

"They're unofficial guard dogs," insisted Sally Andersen, of Hong Kong Dog Rescue.

"They are fed and looked after by the workers. They're friendly and used to humans."

Disney has denied that it used the animals as guard dogs at the site that is due to open on 12 September.

Hong Kong Disneyland will be the entertainment group's second theme park in Asia, after Tokyo.

Disney hopes to tap into Hong Kong's appeal to newly-wealthy mainland Chinese and their often-pampered only children as a shopping and leisure centre.

The resort is being built on Hong Kong's outlying Lantau island, where semi-wild dogs are common.

This is the second animal-rights embarrassment Disney has suffered over the $1.8bn (£1bn) theme park.

Last month, it withdrew shark fin soup from planned banquet menus after campaigners criticised the dish - a local luxury - as cruel and destructive.

Thanks and a tip of the hat to Don B.

Seems like a good price to me!


Wild Mouse!

After many weeks of spare time work, I finally finished my Haunted Mansion model. I took the pdf file to Minuteman Press, and they printed a very nice copy on heavy paper. I love my local Minuteman Press -- they're grumpy but completely competent, as opposed to the Kinko's corporate culture of being grumpy and completely incompetent. The printing set me back $15 or so, but that's about the cost of a decent European card model anyway.



I really didn't want to top the model off with the completely flat weathervane which was included. I cut Q-Tips into pieces, colored them to match the bat, and assembled a new, three-dimensional weathervane. Those letters were a bitch to cut out and glue on!



I didn't like that the backs of some pieces were left exposed and white on the model. So I carefully colored the back of the decorative iron railing black, and drew matching images on the back of all the exposed finials. I like to score the front of the model with an X-Acto knife, which usually leaves white creases on all the vertices, so I ran a felt marker along all the edges before assembly. I cut out many of the small pieces while bored at work, and I consequently lost one of the chimney parts. When I realized it was roughly the same diameter as a pencil, I shaved off the paint and re-colored it with a matching Prismacolor pen. Pretty damn close...



NEAT!