Stranger than Fiction

Finally back to the vacation posts, here's the previously alluded to Science Fiction Museum. No, it wasn't really stranger than fiction, but it was pretty cool!!!

And there I am, also looking pretty cool. Ahem.

The boy, in the red glow, was being scanned for motion capture technology, the kind of which they use in many of the SciFi movies these days. This particular one was for the exhibit from Avatar, where they motion capture you, and make a rough video clip with you replaced by an avatar!!! Pretty cool, you can see the video here, watch the boy almost stagger off his feet at the end. Oh, and instead of just touching the plant, he gives it a karate chop!!!

They had a lot of other cool stuff from that movie, too. Models, costumes, and an interactive computer display.

James Kirk's captain's chair, surrounded by tribbles.

The cane and amulet of Yoda.

Not pictured but appreciated was the gun from the Men in Black series.

The skeleton of a face-sucker stage of alien.

There were many displays of groundbreaking Science Fiction books and authors. The Watchmen is featured here.

Concept sketches from many movies were on display. Pictured is the costume concept for Neo from The Matrix.

Unfortunately, we only hit about 2/3 of the museum before it closed. at the end we were watching video trailers and commentary from several classic horror movies. Too much to see!!!

The Frickin' Lions...

As alluded to on an earlier post, here's a shot of the lion casting I had been doing some work on.

Actually, the first shot is one of the beam being shot up into the sky. Not a great shot, but it came out pretty cool, seeming to split the clouds it's shooting into. Nice intense beam, huh???

And, of course, the second shot is how I pictured the lion shooting the beam from it's mouth. Dr. Evil would be proud... "The frickin' lions, with the frickin' lasers shooting out of their frickin' mouths!!!"

What I Did This Weekend...

I'm sure it's not the ONLY thing I got done this weekend, but it's pretty much the most major thing. My dad's Studebaker had been getting a bit tired in the engine leading up to the later part of last year, and he decided to replace the vintage 327 with a fresh 350 crate engine.

He did a nice detail job on the engine compartment. He'd picked up what he thought was some catalyzed black paint at a fair discount, but as you can see, it came out an... INTERESTING shade of brown!!! Good enough, he thought, it rather compliments the yellow outer skin, and I have to agree, not to mention it's something you don't really see. He tends to never show it with the engine compartment open, anyway, as it looks much better with it closed. Not that the engine and compartment aren't on a showable level.

While he had the engine out, he made up a custom recess for the firewall to clear the distributor better, which was always a tight fit. The final touch was the addition of a Dynamat type sound and heat insulator. Two last things once all the parts are back together are going to be the replacement of the air conditioner condenser, which seems to have some seepage, and eliminating the leaks in the power steering system.

It was no small job, but all that was really done was to swing the engine in, bolt it to the transmission, bolt the torque converter to the flexplate, and bolt down the engine mounts and tighten up the transmission. A series of twelve bolts turned.

Anything else??? Yea, spent quite a bit at Big Lots! for their 20% off day, and visited a seafood restaurant my wife had spotted in Glendale.

I'm doing a bit of work for a neighbor. He has a couple of cast bronze lion faces that were originally for a fountain where it squirts from the mouth. The studs were frozen in it, and one snapped off. Spray penetrant loosened 'em up. He's going to mount them and use them as wall hangings. I was thinking of the intense green laser I got for my son, and got the idea that it'd be pretty cool to take the element from one of those (or possibly two), hook it to a wall transformer instead of the batteries, and set it up so the lion would shoot a laser beam from it's mouth!!! Would that not be awesome??? Now I'm thinking of contacting my foundry guy and see about getting a couple duplicates cast up!!! Set 'em up with motion detectors, set up little mirrors and bounce a grid of beam all about the ceiling, set it up with a little motor to make the beam track back and forth... the possibilities are pretty cool!!! If I get anything together, I'll take a picture...