I took this from #eatdrinkandbemaryy simply because I'm super bored, and I haven't posted in a while. Plus I think I can stump you all

 

1. I have never been drunk.

2. My parents have told me that I'd be really successful as a video game tester, because they think I'm incredible at video games.

3. I am ambidextrous.

4. I am active in online dating.

5. I have not had sex in over two years.

6. I really love beer.

7. I have been in 12 different states. 

8. I have walked the turf of the Ohio State University football stadium, as well as the Indianapolis Colts' RCA Dome, and Syracuse University's stadium.

9. I graduated high school as the top trumpet player in my class.

10. I still have the first cell phone I ever used.

11. I have two alarm clocks instead of one.

12. Michael Jordan is my favorite athlete.

13. An ex girlfriend of mine still loves me.

14. I was a very good student, both in high school and college.

15. I don't have that one person I can call up at 3am when I need to talk to someone.

16. I at one point owned a N64, Xbox 360, Playstation 2, and a Nintendo Wii all at once.

17. I absolutely hate living at home.

18. I prefer talking in person to texting/talking online.

19. I'm an extremely shy person.

20. I have never cheated.

21. I haven't been on a date with someone since my last relationship ended over 2 years ago. 

22. I've lost respect for myself, and I feel the things I do are not going to ever be enough to satisfy the people around me. 

23. I used to own an online business.

24. I have double jointed legs.

 

So, what are the lies?

I'm sick again.

Another fucking fever. Loss of appetite, nausea, headache, diarreah. Yeah tmi but i dont care. I haven't eaten a single thing all day. Its been almost 24 hours since i last ate and i'm still not hungry. It sucks. At least I don't have to work tomorrow..although I had plans (which are now not gonna happen). I just gotta wonder sometimes...why me?

Conversation I had last night with a clearly depressed friend of mine.

 

Her: Hey

Me: Hi

Her: How r u

Me: I'm good. You?

Her: I'm alright.

Me: You're not still sad are you? (she'd been sad about her crush losing interest in her and not talking to her)

Her: My dad is in the hospital

Me: Oh no...for what?

Her: Um he thought he was having a heart attack so they're keeping him overnight for observation

Me: I'm glad he didn't.

Her: Me too but I should be there.

Me: Is he back home in Utah?

Her: Yes

Me: I'm sorry

Her: It's not your fault I'll be there soon enough

Me: How soon? 

Her: Not until probably December

Me: That's too far away!

Her: I know

Me: I wanna see you sooner than that lol

And this is where she flips.

Her: That's selfish of you. I just want to go home.

Me: It's not selfish to say I want to see you. I know I can't until you go home and get your life back in order.

Her: I know but all I want is to go home. And your biggest concern is whether or not you get to see me.

Me: No. It's not.

Her: I'm saying that's how it came across.

Me: It's not my biggest concern though.

Her: I know what people say, Joseph. I am not going to argue with you. That's how your words came across. I'm not having a good day. If you want to argue then find someone else to argue with. I only know the words you say to me. And it seems like all you care about is being flirty lately and I don't want to be flirty at the moment. I am depressed. I'm going through a divorce, thus far my life has been a waste, I want to go home. I miss my family and the guy who I really have deep feelings for barely talks to me. I'm just not in the mood to argue. All this is doing is making me cry.

Me: I've already said my biggest concern isn't seeing you. I guess I shouldn't have been sarcastic about it because you clearly took it the wrong way. You can vent to me about your day if you want. I'm here

Her: Joseph it still came across that way to me.

Me: Well then I'm sorry. If you'd rather talk to someone else I don't blame you.

Her: No one really listens to me so it doesn't matter.

Me: That's not true. I listen.

Her: Sometimes. But you shouldn't tell me what I do and don't know You know that you try to listen. Doesn't mean you are actually listening or that I feel listened to.

Me: Again, I'm sorry. I'll try harder. But I can't listen if you don't let me. I've already told you it's okay if you want to vent to me.

Her: You don't have to try harder.

Me: You make me feel like I am not doing a good enough job, and maybe I'm not if you feel the way you do. So yes I do have to. I take that stuff personally.

Her: I'm not trying to make you feel that way, I'm sorry.

Me: You have nothing to apologize for. You're right.

Her: About?

Me: Well you said you don't feel listened to which means I'm not doing a good enough job. So that's true if you feel that way. So, you're right. And I'm sorry.

Her: Please don't apologize to me. I don't feel listened to by anyone.

Me: I'm going to change that.

Her: If you want to try go ahead but it's more of a personal thing.

Me: I will try.

Her: I know you mean well, but it's annoying me that you're saying you're going to try so hard.

Me: What do you want me to say? Would you prefer it if I said I won't try to help? That I won't be a better friend? That hurts. It really does.

Her: You don't need to be a better friend though. No one is perfect.

Me: I'm not trying to be the perfect friend. I'm just trying to help.

Her: I know. That's why I said that I understand you mean well. But you saying that stuff doesn't help me.

Me: It will when you need someone to listen to you.

Her: K

 

That's where it ends. How do you help someone who doesn't even want help? With everything going on in her life I feel for her but really? She can't just go and say I'm annoying her by trying to help. That just makes me not want to, if that's how she's going to act.

 

People and their bullshit...usually with this friend our conversations are always cheery and happy. This time I'm just going to not talk to her for the rest of today. If she wants to put all her problems on my shoulders then fine. But don't expect me to be all over the idea of being openly ready to help you when you need it.

Isn't it great? I have a sprained ankle. AND I have to go to work in less than 7 hours. Yeah real excited for that. Not. I still can't hear (fluid in my ears from having the flu) and now I can barely walk. I can't sleep. These past two weeks have been absolute hell.

Oh, and fuck women who lie. I can't stand liars.

This may be my last blog. I'm honestly quite tired of this place.

I have really nothing to ever share because nothing exciting happens to me. I've noticed i really only check in on a few people from my list of 50 something subs, and that's telling me maybe it is time to go.

But if you want to hear something that happened to me today, listen to this. I have a fever of 101. Yep. Exciting right? So i get to spend tomorrow in my bed, just like I did today, and hope that maybe someone gives a fuck enough to help me feel not so shitty. Oh well.

This is Xanga. But after 6 years of it, i have changed and so has this place. I don't like it anymore. I need a more productive hobby than sitting on my ass in front of my computer checking the maybe 1-2 blog updates that pop up every 5 hours on my subs.

Maybe i'm just being a dick, but at this point I really don't care. I'm sure not many of you care that much either.

I really dislike people who cut ties with some friends for the sake of their significant other. Eventually, that kind of treatment is going to come back and bite you in the ass, and I WON'T be there to help you when it does. If you are currently dating someone who makes you choose between your friends and themselves, you're with the wrong fucking person. They have to deal with the friends you have, and they should have no control over who you choose to talk to. Especially when it's "oh you can't talk to any other male friends because I don't like it (and I'm secretly really stupid and insecure)."

 

Food for thought, ladies.

Something just broke inside me. I was watching tv and the next thing I know i'm crying my eyes out. I hate not being happy. This isn't me. I have some real problems I don't know how to solve. The best thing for me to do may be to just remove myself from everything. From this place...the people in it. All the loudness and craziness and stress. I can't deal with this anymore and I need to go. Everythings just bottled up inside me and now i've hit that breaking point. I need a solution. Really fast. Before this spirals downward further.

I may need to take a long break from xanga too...if anyone even cares, my number will be available for those who would want to keep in touch to check on me..

I feel like I don't have any fight left in me. I've let myself down

So Sunday i took my car to my friend's apartment and we started working on getting the clutch and flywheel installed. Here's pics of what we would be putting in. This is my new clutch disk and pressure plate.

 

And here's the flywheel we put in. 

Everything went smoothly until we had to drop the transmission. Our instructions, which wound up to be really no use at all, didn't tell us that there were 6 bolts connecting the engine and transmission. So we had to find those to drop the transmission, which we eventually did. 

 

 

That, my friends is the inside of my car's transmission. Of course there's nothing in it right now because the old clutch and flywheel are still mounted in the bell housing on the car, but that would soon change. You can see the input shaft for the flywheel and the hole for the front axles, which are actually directly behind the transmission in this picture on the ground. It was really cool! 

Here's the old clutch and flywheel that we pulled out soon after the transmission came out.

 

 

They were SO fried. When we pulled the bell housing off of the clutch assembly, black soot fell out of it. I talked to a friend of mine who has a Celica and those cars use the same clutch as my car. He said his clutch went on his car (as in completely stopped working, making the car undriveable) at 117,000 miles. My car has roughly 112,000 miles on it now. I probably lucked out by doing this now as opposed to 5,000 miles from now. Seeing all the soot that fell, and all the burn marks and hot spots on the old clutch and flywheel make me feel good about myself. 

It was such a pain in the ass to get the transmission back up in the car...it took us 5 freaking hours to get the perfect angle to mount it back up. But we did, and this is what it looked like when the transmission and the axles were put back into place.

 

You can see both axles are back in, and the transmission is mounted. NOTHING was completely rusted out, which shocked me for having 112,000 miles on the car. Everything came out smoothly. Look at the front of the transmission, see that wet big brown bolt? That's where you put the transmission fluid in. I went with synthetic fluid just because it's so much better for the transmission (especially now with new parts in there) and it also lasts longer. It was STILL a golden-reddish color when we drained it before we started everything. And it had been 2 years since I last drained the fluid. Usually it'll come out pretty thick but this came out like brand new engine oil. Gold and thin. 

 

I would post a video of the car starting up on the first try, but it seems I can't submit it to photobucket since it's too long of a video lol. I am SO happy to have a like-new transmission again. And I sorta can't wait to break in the clutch and flywheel, so I can gas it and see the real improvement. But yeah, I spent a total of 20 hours doing this. I've got a few battle scars. One on my left pinky finger, one on my left knee from where the transmission fell on it, and one on my right arm. Other than that I am just SORE. I actually had to call into work yesterday because my car wasn't running yet. I can tell the assistant manager was mad...I just hope everyone understands that I couldn't leave the car just sitting there. It was only one day...if I get penalized I accept full responsibility. As long as I keep my job i don't care lol. 

 

But yeah that's about it! I'm spending today pretty much doing nothing and just recovering from doing all this work, which by the way, I'm never doing again. EVER. Too much stress on the body. At least I didn't have to spend a grand on having it installed by a shop. If I can do something myself, I will. Being a total gearhead has its advantages.

 

Have a good day everyone

This blog has no real point other than to be a total car geek and say that on Sunday I'm going to be spending roughly 8-10 hours pulling the transmission out of my car so I can put a new clutch and flywheel in. I'll post pics just for you @jess_i_cuh cause I KNOW you're going to want to see. Lol. Gonna be such a headache of a job but all I really need is a few beers, a few burgers, lots of time and lots of tools. It's been a long time since I've actually gotten really down and dirty with my car. Last time I did was changing out the rusted out shifter base bushings and the cable bushings as well with new aftermarket bushings. Shifts like a dream ever since! Plus I don't think I've actually posted a picture of my car on here, so I might as well give you a look.

 

In other news I've been falling asleep for the past 3 hours and havent managed to yet because I keep getting phone calls saying something along the lines of "OMG YOU'RE PUTTING IN A CLUTCH?! YOU'RE NUTS!!" *sigh* what I sacrifice to be a mechanic...lol.

 

I won't be posting again until probably the day after the job is done. I'll have tons of pics to upload. But to give you an idea of what I'm doing, here's the list of everything I'll be going through on Sunday:

 

1. Drain OEM transmission fluid, to be replaced with aftermarket full synthetic transmission fluid.

2. Remove battery.

3. Remove engine cover.

4. Remove cruise control actuator assembly, then disconnect the wire harness and ground cable.

5. Disconnect ground wire from the bottom of the transmission.

6. Disconnect reverse-lamp harness.

7. Remove slave cylinder and fluid lines.

8. Disconnect transmission shifter cables.

9. Remove starter.

10. Remove axle hub nuts.

11. Separate control arms from axle hubs.

12. Hammer the halfshafts out of the hubs.

13. Remove halfshafts in order to pull the transmission out.

14. Remove rear engine motor mount

15. Remove a bunch of bolts from suspension.

16. Pull transmission out and clean it. 

17. Remove clutch, pressure plate, and flywheel from bell housing and replace.

18. Align clutch assembly and torque down pressure plate and flywheel.

19. Lube input shaft splines.

20. Attempt to align the clutch with the input shaft splines without swearing too much

 

And once that last step is done, I can put everything back together, then adjust my clutch pedal free play and change my oil (I'm due). Those 20 steps are just a very very brief summation of what I actually need to do. Basically I'm taking apart the whole front subframe of my car in order to do this. If I spend 10 hours on this, and do it successfully, I'll thank myself later and so will my wallet for having saved a thousand bucks in labor charges. 

 

Well that's all for now. I am soooooooooo looking forward to this!