Hawk’s Babble-Log

Starring Brandon Routh, Kate Bosworth, Kevin Spacey, James Marsden, and Parker Posey.

Directed by Bryan Singer.

Outstanding! I loved it!

This is truely an excellent film. It’s nearly perfect. It would kinda seem to follow the first film. Then Superman leaves for five years to check out the remains of his homeworld. When he gets back, Lois Lane has moved on with another man and has a son.

Then there’s Lex Luthor, the truely evil villain. He’s come up with a plan to not only kill Superman, but also to kill virtually everyone in North America by using Superman’s technology.

The rest of the film is about Superman kicking ass and saving people all over the world. I love seeing superheros kick ass!

I’ll probably see it again while it’s still at the Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood. It would be good to see it on the big screen while you can. I saw it there opening night, Tuesday @ 10:00pm and the crowd was fantastic! Also saw a good preview for Spiderman 3.

Of course, I’m going to buy this when it comes out on DVD. Is there any other option? No, I don’t think so.

Starring Sara Foster, Jordana Brewster, Meagan Good, Devon Aoki, Jill Ritchie, Holland Taylor, and Michael Clarke Duncan.

Written, directed, and edited by Angela Robinson.

Actually, this was surprisingly good. It’s funny, sexy, fun, and a little kinky. Not to mention the five georgeous girls running around in short skirts. Ohhhh yeah. Especially Jordana Brewster.

It’s all based on the idea that there is a secret test embedded within the SAT which can determine your spy-worthyness. One girl (one of the main characters) gets a perfect score, the only girl to accomplish this, but she really would rather go to art school. Then she meets someone else and the story moves in the direction on getting these two hooked up, which ain’t easy; they’re polar opposites.

Don’t take it too seriously (because they sure don’t) and you’ll have a good time with the film. It doesn’t take itself seriously at all, is fun, and moves along at a good pace. Plus, the girls have guns. Big guns. That’s always a plus in my book.

I watched the special features and there was a short version made in something like a week or two on an extremely low budget. Same director, editor, writer, etc. They even had one of the same girls who played the same exact part. It did well at a few film festivals and so forth, so they got a deal to do the full feature. I love these kinds of stories. It’s like the little guy finally get’s his (or her) break, and just goes with it and makes something cool.

I hope it did well at the box office. Yeah, if I find it for a good price, I’d buy the DVD; I’m kinda interested in watching the commentary.

Sarring: Owen Wilson, Paul Newman, Bonnie Hunt, Richard Petty, and Cheech Marin.

Directed by John Lasseter and Joe Ranft.

Maybe I should title this “Pixar bats a thousand”.

Wow! What an _outstanding_ movie! I loved it, every minute.

The story is excellent. The characters are excellent. The voice acting is excellent and non-distracting. In short: all excellent!

By the way, if you sit through the credits, you’ll have some good laughs. Even after the credits are over.

I’m _definately_ buying this when it comes out on DVD.

Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Val Kilmer, Michelle Monaghan, Corbin Bernsen, and Ali Hillis.

Directed by Shane Black.

A fairly fun and entertaining film. I loved the way it was narrated. It was narrated as if the narrater knew it was a movie and knew that he was narrating to an audience, and just ran with it. Very lighthearted and sarcastic and funny.

It’s all about a girl named Michelle Monaghan. No, I’m kidding. Michelle Monaghan is in the movie, and that’s one of the best reasons to see the film, but it’s not all about her. She is one of the hottest girls I’ve ever seen–hands down. Here she is in a cute little Christmas costume (with a gun!). Is that awsome, or what?!? Most recently she plays Tom Cruises’s sweetiepie in Mission Impossible III.

Anyway… It’s really about two different murder/suicide cases in L.A. which, at first, don’t seem to be connected (but they are!). Robert Downey Jr. plays one of the main characters, a petty thief who accidentally gets potentially cast for a part in a movie. That’s how he gets to the party. I’ll leave the film to fill in the details, which are really funny.

At the party, he meets a private detective with a gigantic sarcastic streak running straight up his gay ass, played by Val Kilmer, a really funny guy. It’s his task to give the other guy some “detective lessons”.

Eventually, the main character spys Michelle Monaghan’s character (and how can you miss her?), kinda falls for her, tails her to a bar, and kinda meets her. Then she makes him recognize her; as it turns out, they’re both from the same town! The main character ain’t the sharpest bowling ball in the film.

Speaking of Michelle Monaghan, here’s another pic of her. Sorry, I can’t help it! She’s just so cute! By the way, pay attention to this book that she’s reading. It’s kinda important to the mystery-type story line. Important to her and to her sister. You’ll see what I mean if you watch the film.

Anyway, it’s a very fun movie and worth the rental. I might even buy it if I can find it for a good price. After all, it’s got Michelle Monaghan!

Hey, did I mention that it stars Michelle Monaghan?

Okay, just checking.

Starring Bruce Willis, Garry Shandling, Steve Carell, Wanda Sykes, and William Shatner.

_Hillarious!_ LMAO! (Laughed My Ass Off!) I haven’t laughed so dang hard in a long time! I laughed so hard I nearly lost control of my bladder. The people behind me were laughing even harder than I was.

So many jokes on humans, and so many jokes of the animals acting like humans… friggin’ hillarious! I gotta see it again. Remember, it’s all about the food.

All the voice acting was excellent and non-distracting.

I’m definately going to buy this one when it comes out on DVD.

It’s got the name “Luc Besson” on the poster, and it’s from the producers of “Ong-Bak” and “Transporter 2″. I think it stars Cyril Raffaelli and David Belle. I think it’s directed by Pierre Morel. I may have those names wrong. It’s tough to find info on the movie.

C’mon people! You can’t go wrong with these guys! I loved “Ong-Bak”, and Luc Besson has been involved in so many kick-ass movies: The Professional (Leon), La Femme Nikita, The Transporter (both), The Fifth Element, and probably some others I can’t think of right now.

My roomie and I were going to see Over The Hedge, but missed the showing. I took a look at the posters the ArcLight has up next to the door and saw one for District B-13. It looked interesting, but what really made me decide was the name “Luc Besson”.

Done! Sold! We saw it. We liked it. We had fun.

In 2010, cime has gotten so bad in an area of Paris that it’s walled off and labeled “B-13″. There is no law, drugs are everywhere, and gangs rule their areas with lots of cool armaments. Things really begin to heat up when a supposedly “clean nuke” is captured by a crime lord in B-13… and it’s activated.

It’s in French with English subtitles, but don’t go see it for the dialog. Two phrases which _do not_ describe this movie: “Love Story”, and “Deep”. It’s not either, but it’s lots of fun with cool stunts. NOT a chick-flick, unless she just wants to watch the main characters kick ass with their shirts off. It’s got some pretty darn good music, too.

For not knowing anything about it, I was very pleased. I may even buy it when it comes out on DVD.

Here’s the main site:

http://www.districtb13.com/

You can watch the preview there.

Here is Sherline’s Step Block Hold-Down Set in action… or, rather, inaction. The whole idea of a hold-down set is to keep your part fixed in place to the mill table so that you can work on it. In this picture, I’ve got a 70mm x 70mm x 147mm block of aluminum fixed to the table with the step block hold-down set and two blocks of wood. I needed the wood because the block of aluminum is much taller than the two included step blocks, and I didn’t have two more step blocks to stack. In fact, with the current threaded studs (3.5 inch), this is the maxiumum height that I can hold down. I could go taller, but I’d have to get some longer threaded studs and some bigger blocks.

Here’s a better look. I’m not using an endmill for this, just a regular drill bit that I found in an accessories kit for my Dremel. It’s the smallest drill bit I’ve got. You can see the bits of aluminum which have been carved out of the block. Also, in the lower-right, under the X table, is an additional step-block included in the set. This one is uncoated aluminum and is intended for me to cut to specific size. I think that’s pretty cool.

Not too long after I started, I rotated the whole mill so that I could get a better look at what I was doing. “But Hawk, _what_ are you doing?” you may ask. Let me take a moment here to clarify something: I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. But it’s fun!

Actually, I’m trying to cut a smaller block out of this large block. After quite a bit of grinding, I did put a good notch in the side of the thing. But this tiny drill bit is not designed to do what I’m trying to do; it’s the wrong tool for the job. It’s not even an endmill. It took about an hour to do the first notch, and about a half an hour to do each hole.

Here you can see that I’ve made four additional perfect holes. A note about the handwheels on this mill: they’re _excellent_! I can easily adjust my part in either X or Y direction to 1/100th of a millimeter. And this is only if I stick with the markings on the handwheels. I could turn a handwheel between the markings, and get half of a hundredth of a millimeter travel.

Notice how the additional holes are exactly spaced? I advanced the X handwheel exactly two millimeters for every additional hole. Same thing applies to the Z axis, which moves the drill bit up and down. I was able to make good progress using this tiny drill bit, by advancing down one millimeter, then pulling out to remove the excess shavings, advancing one millimeter, puling out, and so on. When I reached 12 or 13mm depth, I had to pull out every half millimeter. It was easy to tell how deep I was going just by turning the handwheel and counting revolutions: one revolution = one millimeter. I went to 14 millimeters depth.

I’ll make better progress once I get a circular saw blade. Then I’ll turn the headstock 90 degrees, change the orientation of the block, and be able to cut straight down the whole block. That’ll be fun!

Starring Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Famke Janssen, Anna Paquin, Kelsey Grammer, Rebecca Romijn, James Marsden, Shawn Ashmore, Vinnie Jones, and Aaron Stanford.

Directed by Brett Ratner.

Outstanding! I love seeing superheros kick ass!

There were elements about the story that I didn’t like, but overall, it was _outstanding_. They really put the money into this movie, and Ratner’s expert directing really shows.

I want to see it again.

I’m definately buying it when it comes out on DVD, and then I’ll watch the entire trilogy in order. Fun fun fun!

Good and not-so-good… or just okay.

My roomie and I took a few weeks and watched Gasaraki all the way though. All 8 discs worth. C’mon! There were very few special features, they could have put more than three episodes on each disc. _Eight discs?!?_ What were they thinking?

The good stuff:

- Good characters. There are many, many speaking parts, and they are all pretty good as far as being true to their characters and as far as acting is concerned.
- Good action scenes. It’s amazing, but there is very _little_ computer generated imagery in this animation. I say this is amazing because of all the machines. But all of the machines and pretty much everything else is traditionally animated. And they did a pretty darn good job. The action scenes are good, you can follow (mostly) what’s happening, and it’s easy to get absorbed into it.
- Good, broad, global impact in the story.

The bad stuff:

- The story takes _forever_ to get _anywhere_.
- The ending made me say, “Uhhhh… huh?” But hey, this seems to be a running theme in Anime that I’ve seen lately. So don’t expect an ending which makes sense, ’cause it won’t. Also, not much is resolved in the ending. It’s like it’s only there to confuse you so that you don’t notice that not much has been resolved.

So, overall, I kinda liked it; but I’m not going to buy it as I don’t really want to see it again.

Ever since I got my little Sherline mill, I knew that I was going to mount it to one of my spare shelf boards. The instruction manual even recommends it. The base is pretty narrow.

So… I got the screws, nuts, feet, and (recently) the drill and drill bits so that I could actually make the thing. In this picture, you can see that I’ve got all eight feet mounted, plus the holes for the screws & nuts which will bolt the mill to the board. I used eight feet because I wanted direct support for the weight of the machine, plus I wanted extra vibration absorption, just to help keep the machine quiet. Already it’s pretty quiet; it doesn’t make much more noise than a sewing machine.

Incidentally, my dad gave me the Ryobi drill pictured on the table because he managed to score himself a Hilti, the lucky dog. I’ll get a Hilti eventually. Thanks dad! Now I’m dangerous; I’ve got a cordless drill _and_ [drill bits](/images/sherline/drill_bits.jpg)!

In this pic, you can see that the original screws I had were too long. If you ever decide to get a Sherline mill and then mount it to a shelf board, use 1 1/4 ” screws, not 1 1/2 “.

Here you can see that the 1 1/4 ” screws fit almost perfectly. I didn’t plan it this way, but the way the feet are arranged allowed me to set the machine on the board, with the board partially off the edge of the workbench so that I could thread the nuts on. I did this on both sides. I think that worked out nicely.

And here’s the final product. The mill is secured to the baseboard, and I put the headstock and motor back on (it’s a bit lighter and easier to manage without those). Plus, I could re-square up the vertical z-axis column (it was a little off).

You can also see the little 3/8 ” end-mill set I got from Sherline on the back right-hand corner. I also had to get an end-mill holder for the spindle because double-ended end mills will not fit in a regular chuck.

I also got a step-block hold-down set. You can see it on the table of the mill, holding down a simple piece of aluminum. A spare step-block (non-coated) is sitting on top of that. It’s designed to be cut down to whatever I’d like it to be. Pretty sweet!