After reading up heavily on the subject, I decided to go ahead and change my engine air filter. 5 minutes or less gets you a new air filter installed, right? Well, that's what I read online from many Si enthusiasts.
I found the seemingly innocuous filter at AutoZone. Just a mostly empty large box with a tubular shaped, easy-to-install filter inside. I got it home, popped the hood and gazed longingly upon my little Vtec intake box. Only 5 phillips head screws... not so bad. I went upstairs, gathered my tools and a flashlight and headed out to perform surgery.
First thing's first! I proceded to loosen the 5 screws sealing the intake cover. 15 minutes and multiple hand lacerations and burns from a steamy engine block later, I finally completed the first task. One which should have taken 1 minute. I stripped one, but I had all 5 bolts fully loosened! Yay.
Next step: simply pull the intake cover up and flip it over to the left. Ummmmm... right. I don't think so. After pulling and cursing at the cover, it finally came up and flipped over while simultaneously popping the brake fluid resevoir up, bending a hose housing and disconnecting the main intake hose and another hose which is still a mystery to me.
One more step to go! The main event. Pull out the old filter and stick in the new one. Sounds easy, right? It was.
All in all, I think it went well, although my hands would disagree. I later checked the cabin filters and was amazed to find the reason the streets are so clean: all the dirt had left the roads I'd driven and lodged inside my cabin air filters. An hour or so later I found an AutoZone with the necessary filters and changed those out as well. I do notice a difference in the engine idle and performance and the filter really didn't look that dirty to me. But, I've never seen an air filter and so have no reference to go on. Hopefully I did good? I keep telling myself that having Honda do the very same thing would have cost me about $80 (I paid about $35).
The Pix page is updated with images from our Vegas vacation.
I can't say that I'm happy or surprised at the outcome of the elections yesterday. I didn't register to vote in time, so I can't really complain. But, I can opine, right? It's obvious that either the majority of voters are uneducated or the educated voters mostly didn't get out to the polls due to demoralization. How could one vote Demoncat (Savagism)... err, I mean Democrat in good conscience??? They stand for everything the U.S. was set up to protect us against: high taxes, widening the gap between the poor and the rich, high taxes, perpetuating racism, higher taxes, anti-small business, anti-corporation, anti-capitalism, socialism, high taxes... did I mention high(er) taxes? I think I did... in fact I'm sure of it. Most liberals have no idea what Iraq and the war over there has to do with the free world. Actually, I think most people are too comfy sitting in their living rooms disconnected from the world either by apathy or depression medications... or Britney's divorce.
Oh well, I just hope we keep our military going once Pelosi gets in there and starts her Communist, left-wing agenda. And notice the deafening silence on the side of the Republican majority as pertains to legal action against voting results! Could you imagine how many months of lawsuits we would have seen had the Democrats lost? It just goes to illustrate how absolutely absurd the Democrat party is. Remember all the lawsuits recently after losing elections? It reminds me of 5 year olds who just can't accept losing. I guess a lack of post-election lawsuits is a silver lining.
I recently found the absolute last box of Mr. Bubble powder bubble bath in existence... I think. If your'e a child of
the 80's, or earlier, then you will remember the iconic Mr. Bubble before his liquidation into a bottle. Now Mr. Bubble is little
more than colored bath liquid which produces as many bubbles as a submerged fart.
Angela and I haven't figured out what to do with it. Do we seal it in an airtight collector's case? Do we open it and celebrate with a housefull of bubbles? Perhaps we could sell it by the spoonfull online? We just don't know yet.
If you are tired of that same old Windows XP blue theme, you can try these two official themes. They are a little difficult to find, so I'm providing them here.
The Royale theme is what you get with Windows Media Center Edition. It is another blue theme, but is much nicer and has a Mac-like glassy look. The theme is much more appealing than its Windows XP counterpart. The Zune theme is a variation on Royale. This one has the same glassy look, but replaces the blues with black and deep grays. Download them below...
To install Royale, unzip the files to C:\WINDOWS\Resources\Themes, then right-click on the desktop, click Properties, select the Theme: drop down menu and select the Royale option.
To install Zune, simply run the MSI file. It will install the theme files and bring up the Display Properties window. Select Apply to set the new theme.
These are Microsoft created themes, but are not officially provided or supported. They both were leaked recently and have circulated around the net. You need no extra software and they are safe for your system. I am using the Royale Noir theme at the moment and am very happy with it.
I've been listening to Michael Savage on talk radio for over 3 years now. I can't tell you how liberating it is to hear someone speak out against the anti-Americans, some of whom run our country, others who simply infect it. I decided to google for Savage quotes tonight and came accross many Michael Savage hate sites, many of which are actively trying to get him banned from radio. They claim that it is "hate radio" and Savage's show should be completely removed from the airwaves. Funny that these same individuals on the same webpage in the same breath claim to be pro-American, espousing the first amendment and the rights therein.
Michael Savage has one of, if not the most listened to radio show in the U.S. That means people want to hear it. More people want to hear it than don't want to hear it. He also has some of the best selling books in the nation. If you don't listen to it, you won't hear it. Why trample on people's freedom to listen to the show instead of changing stations, or better yet, burrying your head in your fabled Marxist propaganda?
Why do we have countless Americans attacking Christians and bashing people who believe in the American dream when, conversly, we have a film being released and celebrated titled Death of a President dramatizing in a documentary format the assasination of our own President who has fought to protect their very freedom of speech? That's rhetorical, btw. True Americans know the answer.
As much as I love my little Civic Si, I find it very annoying that Honda chose to fit a faulty master clutch cylinder in this model! Good lord, the clicking and popping can drive you NUTZ! I've already had it replaced and it's at it again not even a year later. *SIGH* Oh well. Too bad it's the latest of its model and there are no more to be found.
Today I educated myself on grease guns (no, not the WWII weapons) and went out and bought one. I eventually got the needle nose attachment on, but not before completely destroying the nozzle that came with the gun. I am retarded when it comes to cars and tools. Anyways, using Mobil 1 Synthetic Grease, I managed to inject some of the red stuff into the CMC shaft and voila! No more creaking clutch. I also bent and broke the needle attachment.
If you see one movie the rest of your life, you should probably make it Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against The West. This film should be on every American's must see list, period. It is a documentary about radical Islam and the links to Nazism, among other thingss. Yeah. Hitler partnered with the Mufti of Jerusalem because he had the same ideals, specifically: the complete eradication of the Jews. The Mufti of that day begat the violence we see currently.
As of today, the producers of this film cannot find a distributor for the U.S. They claim that the ones they've spoken to don't believe there is a market. Yeah, that activates my hilarity unit.
Microsoft is working on a new core/kernel OS research project called Singularity. Incredibly interesting and something to watch out for. The core of the project is running the kernel completely seperate from all other processes such as disk drivers, TCP/IP, etc., while still running everything in a single address space. Mmmmm... geeky.
Some new pics of Masterpiece Starscream have been posted. This figure looks to be pretty amazing. I can't believe the amount of
detail Takara has attained. His hands and fingers alone look like design masterpieces.
The identities of the Transformers characters in the new live action film have been announced. The Autobots will be Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Jazz, Ironhide and Ratchet. In the Decepticon corner we have Megatron, Starscream, Brawl, Barricade, Bonecrusher, Scorponok, Frenzy and Blackout. Some of these characters I've never heard of. I was also a little dissapointed hearing that Frenzy has taken the place of Soundwave, officially knocking out possibly one of the 4 most adored Transformers of all time.
Volkswagen said NO to the Alternators line of Transformers when Hasbro asked to license their new Beatle because they didn't want to associate their name with violence. Even though the writers have stated that a VW Bug turned out to be unworkable, I still think VW turned them down and is the real reason Bumblebee is now a Camero.
Pix page updated with Galveston pictures from Angela's BP company trip.
Cybertron Primus is probably the best Transformer I've seen since the 20th Anniversary Optimus Prime. In Cybertron mode, he is absolutely fabulous. In robot mode, he is incredible. Takara has outdone themselves with this one. The Unicron head Hasbro includes in the first wave is pretty cool, too.
I've been in love with Futurama for a long time. The more I read about it, the more fascinating it becomes. One of the writers was a
PHD in applied math who embedded mathematic theorum within
the episodes. Pretty cool and geeky... even though I know nothing about mathematics or even addin' stuff up 'n things...
