My new room mates...

Went to a couple pet stores today to see if I could find some new roommates.  My previous roommates (African Cichlids) make too much noise when I'm trying to sleep, as they like to fight with each other, and like moving things around in the tank.  Was looking for some red belly piranhas, since I used to have some, and loved them for their savageness, but I only found one.  Ended up at Riverfront Aquariums, and they are in the middle of getting ready for moving, so they were having some major discounts on fish.  Walked around a bit, looked at a few fish, didn't see anything that interested me...

...until I passed the tank with the spotted puffers.  They came right to the glass, and were so cute and friendly.  Talked to one of the people working there about them, and also got some outside information on care/feeding (thanks Aubrey!).  And with them being discounted to $4.49 each, I decided to pick up 10 of them.

Here are my new roommates, exploring their new living quarters:

I told them to stay still for the picture, but they wouldn't listen.

You'll notice an African Cichlid back there in the last picture.  He is staying because he was born in my tank, so this is his home.  Hope he does ok with the puffers.

If I had all the time in the world...

...then I still wouldn't have the patience to complete something like this.

This is a 1/12 scale Tamiya model.  I've never seen anything this detailed, but the best part is, most of the build up was documented. This just blows my mind.  Just remember, this started as a box of plastic parts. I wonder how long it took?

Full build here, just wish I know what I was reading, but the pictures tell enough of a story:

http://www.mobile01.com/newsdetail.php?id=5933

From this:

To this:

Changed it up...

Changed up the front end of my WRX again on the weekend after a slight run in with the law... the po-po didn't like my yellow lights, so I pulled off the yellow headlight film and did something else.

Here are some pics with my brothers STI so you can see the difference (I also did his reverse lights the same as mine with the 'iron' film a few minutes before these shots).

Much better...

Yesterday, I put the smoke film on the reverse light part of my taillights, but decided that it was way too dark, so I pulled it off today, and used an 'iron' film instead.

What I started with today:

Peeled the 'smoke' film off:

Laid the 'iron' film down, before the cutting (the scariest part):

After 20 minutes of careful cutting:

The finished product, I did the spoiler LED too:

Much better now, not dark enough to attract unwanted attention (cops), but enough to be unique.

3 more full days off, what else can I do?

Its too late...

I found this funny, so I decided to put it up here.

Things didn't go as planned...

I picked up a chunk of smoked exterior tint film over the weekend because I was gonna tint my spoiler LED so it would blend into black underside of the spoiler.  But things didn't go as planned, the film ended up on the reverse lights instead.  I just did it to see what it would look like.  I think it is too dark though, and will probably go with a lighter film on the reverse lights and this film on the spoiler LED.  Good thing I have this week off.

The Man of Many Belts...

Just finished watching the Manny Pacquiao/Miguel Cotto boxing match.  And it was insane!  Pacquaio is way too fast.  If there were any doubts that Pacquaio is the worlds best 'Pound for Pound' boxer, then he silenced those doubts tonight.  He was in total control of the fight (with maybe the exception of the first round) with a knockdown in the 3rd and 4th round, up until the ref stopped it at 55 seconds of the 12th round.  Cottos face was puffy and swollen, and even his wife and kid left their seats after the 9th round because they couldn't watch any more.

With this win, Pacquaio made history by winning his 7th world title in 7 weight classes.

Floyd Mayweather Jr. has been ducking and dodging him since he's been back fighting again.  I think it is finally time...

Home Depot, for all your car needs... or at least some...

What happens when you have a day off, and have a itch to mod?  You start looking at your car and decide to see what you can improve on the cheap.  Last year, I put a little thin rubber piece on the bottom of the front lip/bumper, but it got all tattered and torn over the course of the year, and was looking mangled, so I took it off.  Then I ran to Home Depot and found this:

Took some double sided tape to it, and ended up with a new front lip:

I put a few self tapping screws in it to make sure it stayed, but this stuff was much better than the stuff I used before, it was much thicker, and more foamy so it'll last through the cold weather.

Total cost: $25

R33 GT-R = My favorite of the bunch...

People often criticize my choice of which is the best GT-R.  Everyone love the R34 for its beefy and huge looks, but my favorite has always been the R33 GT-R body style.  Beefier than the R32, but smaller and more sleek than the big R34.  I like it because is has that look of subtle authority.

I saw a prime example of a fairly stock looking R33 on 'The Ku Cars' blog (http://thekucars.wordpress.com/).  This example is an R33 GTR LM Limited.  The LM Limited only had a production run of 1 year (1996) and only came in 1 color (championship blue).

Here are pics of an LM Limited in its quiet aggression, this gorgeous example is from Sweden:

You spin me right round, baby, right round...

Saw this over on MotorMavens (http://motormavens.com/), and had to post it up... sick!!!

Go Manny!!!

Wow, this guy is a world champion boxer, and here he is chillin and singing on the Jimmy Kimmel show.  Hope he wipes Cotto out.  Can't wait for the fight!

Turn it up!!!

Ken Block has way too much money...

If you don't know who Ken Block is, then you're once again on the wrong blog. :P  Google him and you will see what he does, what he owns, and what he does for fun.

This man decides to do what some people have thought about doing if they had unlimited amounts of money, I know I thought that doing something like this if I won the lottery would be cool.

Check out the story here:
http://www.0-60mag.com/online/?p=20459

I got a bit stiff...

If you thought something other than car suspension after reading the title, then you are totally on the wrong blog. :P  Just kidding, I found it funny too.

Anyways, I told myself I would try to hold of on buying any suspension related parts till I got some new good tires (the RE070s are probably too worn to run again next spring), but I could not pass up a good deal.  I picked up a Perrin Performance front strut tower bar that was on sale from Tunerworks.

Check them out here: http://www.tunerworks.ca/home.php

The bar retails on Perrin's website for $189US (+tax, shipping, customs, etc.).  Rob at Tunerworks posted it on WSC for $175 since he was (by the looks of it) trying to make room on his shelf where the bar was sitting.  Being a Filipino, its in my blood to take advantage of that price.

The install was unlike any other strut tower bar I've ever installed.  All the others ones I've installed on other cars were direct bolt on, you take the strut nuts out, put the bar on, and then the bolts go back in.  This one was not so simple.  It is a three piece setup.  You take the endpieces off the bar, and put them where they should go, loosely putting the strut bolts back in.  Then you have to put the bar in place (through the harness you see on the top right), and put slip them into the endpieces.  Sounds simple enough, but getting everything lined up properly to tighten down was a little bit of fun.  Took a little bit of twisting and swearing, but I eventually got everything locked down.

And here are the pics:

Jen-Ette was happy, you can see her smiling. :P

She's gone...

Sorry, I didn't abandon the blog or anything, just been busy.  I know that made me sound like I was doing important stuff, but I really haven't been.  Mostly been playing DJ Hero and Forza 3, surfing the internet, and just overall being lazy.

But one of the things that I was doing was getting my truck all stripped down, and really for her to leave me.  The day came on Thursday Oct 29, 2009, exactly 3 years, and 23 days after I bought her from Country Hills Toyota, she went back to the same dealerships used lot.  She's been sitting since I got the Subaru, and was pretty much impossible to sell since nobody in Calgary or Alberta for that matter wants a RWD truck.  I took a pretty good hit on the loan, but I had to get out of it as it was causing havoc for my finances.

She will be missed, but in the end, it was for the better.

Here are the last pics I took of her before she left for the dealership.  Sorry about the quality, I took them with my iPhone.  She looks so weird without her black housing headlights.