Diary of a Wolfeman

As I learned the hard way back in high school, if you’re driving a ’70’s era Subaru with a manual transmission, it may behoove you to own a pair of long needle-nosed pliers with a bend in the jaws. A lack of this tool turns replacing a clutch cable from a 30-minute task to a 2-hour task. That’s 2 hours of lying on the back of your neck upside-down in the driver’s footwell trying to remove and replace a cotter pin by reaching a pair of straight needle-nose pliers through a hole in the actual clutch arm… yeah, buy the pliers.

If you own a 2009, replacing the #1 spark plug requires a wobbly (“universal joint”) socket extension due to the placement of a pressure sensor solenoid mounting bracket. At least, I think that’s what the device is, I can’t find a specific picture. It’s a block with a half-dozen or so small-diameter pipes sprouting out of it, and it looks like way to big of a pain to remove. A wobbly adapter is useful and only costs $3, so it’s worth the purchase.

The irritating part is that there’s nothing in the owner’s manual about spark plugs save for one small section that says something along the lines of “this should be done at intervals, but it’s difficult, so take it to your dealer”. How about you include pertinent information for those of us who actually have the same skills and don’t feel like buying the dealer repair manual?

Just a couple quick takes on the movies we went to see this weekend. A hugely rare event for us, going to two movies in a weekend is something we never do.

Star Trek: Beyond

This one was on our list from the beginning, and worked it’s way higher after a number of reviews remarked favorably on the lack of stupid visual effects that do nothing for the story. (Take a note here, J.J., we really don’t like the lens flares.)

Overall, a good flick and worth the price of admission. There’s one bit that stood out for both the Wife and I, however as ridiculous in the extreme: at one point, Kirk asks Uhura to open the all-ship address system. A fairly routine request on a starship, you would think – probably happens about twice a day. You’d expect this to be a couple quick taps on one of the square yards’ worth of touch-enabled consoles, right? Nope. Uhura has to reach up over her head with both hands to flip open the safety latches, and then flip a pair of toggle switches to turn on the mic.

O_o?

Thankfully, this is the most-egregious bit of bad blocking in the movie. They did manage to leave a bit of an open plotline by not definitively nailing down the fate of the bad guy’s right-hand man. (This bothered the Wife more than me, but it’s there.)

Suicide Squad

This one was on and off our list a number of times due to ‘meh’ reviews and the general handling of the DC universe by Warner Bros. (We still have not seen, nor desire to see, ‘Batman v. Superman’). The final deciding factor for us was Kevin Smith’s review of the movie. Die-hard comic book guy liked it? OK, we’ll watch.

It ended up being better than I thought it would be. I was disappointed with a couple things. It stood out badly that Rick Flag had the scruffy beard and they had him portray the character with a kind of Southern redneck personality that just didn’t work for me. (At one point I swear the guy had a pinch of chewing tobacco in his mouth…) I think Adam Baldwin did a better job in the Justice League animated series.

To the guy suing Warner Bros. for not including enough Joker? I side with the editors on this one, they cut whatever they cut for good reasons. This was not a Joker movie, this was something else. Joker will have more of a presence in that upcoming Harley movie that’s hot in the rumor mill now.

So, if you’re of a mind, either movie will sit well with you I believe. Enjoy!