Honda Civic Stereo Install

Hey everybody! Back again, no nutritional smackdown yet, but it is in the works, I promise. In the meantime, I will present to you a pictorial tour of some things I have been doing during my time not spent blogging. First off, we are upgrading the stereo in the Missus' car. Thanks to her love of "rocking out" as the kids call it, 3 out of 4 speakers have been blown. Also, she wants to be able to listen to her ipod through her stereo. So, this means new speakers all around (components in front, 2 ways in the back) and a new head unit. Also, because I am both cheap and stubborn, I am doing all the work myself. I neglected to take pictures of the rear speaker install, but I have pictures of the rest of the process. First off, the head unit... I forgot to take pictures of the removal part, but here is what the dash looks like minus HVAC controls and the stock stereo. A closer view... The tools of the trade (yes, that is a rice spoon, I lost my trim panel tool for a while). Test fitting the new CD player A clean and well organized workspace is always important :) Connecting the factory wiring harness with an aftermarket adapter The finished product!

Ding Ding Ding! Round Two: Double Quarter Pounder (w/cheese) versus Whiskey River BBQ Chicken Sandwich

Ladies and gentlemen, after the Double Quarter Pounder's victory of the Subway Footlong BMT, it goes on to face its next opponent. Red Robin's Whiskey River BBQ Chicken Sandwich. I know what you are saying - chicken sandwich? Are you kidding me, how can a McDonald's burger compare to a chicken sandwich, especially once that's grilled? Well my friends, that's what we are here to see. Let's go to the stats. Unfortunately, Red Robin's website is a bit sparse on the nutritional information, they only have calories, fat, carbs, dietary fiber and protein listed. No breakdowns on type of fat either. Right out of the gate, this hurts the Whiskey river bbq sandwich. However, because it has whiskey in it's name, I'm willing to give it the benefit of the doubt. Here we go.

	Double Quarter Pounder w/Cheese	Whiskey River BBQ
Calories	740	954
Fat (g)	42	51
Carbs (g)	40	72
Dietary Fiber (g)	3	4
Protein (g)	48	48

It looks like the Double Quarter Pounder w/Cheese (sweet lord, this sandwich might lose soon just because I am so tired of typing out the full name!) takes home another victory! Let's break down the categories

Calories

Winner: DQPw/C - See, I decided I would just abbreviate it, because I can't handle the typing anymore! With 214 fewer calories, the DQPw/C takes this category easily.

Fat

This one was darn close, DQPw/C edges out the Whiskey River, but only by 9 grams. if the robin gave us more info about the type of fat, Whiskey River might have had a chance to pull this one out, but that's the price you pay for limiting dietary informational disclosure (just ask Quizno's).

Carbs

DQPw/C leaves the Whiskey River back at the ranch on this one. No contest, as the whiskey river has almost twice the carbs.

Dietary Fiber

Frankly, I am a little disturbed with how the DQPw/C has 11 grams of dietary fiber, I'm not sure how that works, but however they get that fiber in there, gotta give the DQPw/C the edge yet again. EDIT: I apparently transposed the dietary fiber % with the amount of fiber in grams. Whiskey River takes this one by a gram!

Protein It almost seems like generosity at this point that the whiskey river takes home one category. I originally listed the Whiskey River as having 2 grams more protein, but upon looking at the figures it looks like they are tied. Result: Draw.

Conclusion

The Double Quarter Pounder w/CHEESE (for emphasis) walks away with this one. The combination of high sugar bbq sauce and high fat onion straws on the red robin sandwich doom it from the start. This is sad, because it's a favorite of mine, but something definitely best left for only occasional consumption. The sandwich itself is almost half the daily caloric intake for a middle aged male. That doesn't even include the bottomless streak fries that accompany it.

Be sure to tune back in to see who the Double Quarter Pounder w/Cheese will take on next. Can anyone stop it?

Nutritional Smackdown! The legacy continues

Due to the popularity of the Footlong BMT vs Double Quarter Pounder w/Cheese tale of the tape. I have decided to write another in my series of nutritional comparisons. My thought is that now I am going to structure this as a sort of gauntlet of semi-unhealthy restaurant lunch foods. In order to keep this fair, I have laid out some ground rules for myself (not that anything is going to happen if I blatently violate them).

 

1. The item in question must be under $10 (this excludes things like giant meals from cheesecake factory and huge orders of ribs).  Items over $10 may one day have their own series of articles.  However, items from sit-down restaurants are okay if they are under the limit.
2. No "health food" unless the item in question is merely masquerading as a health food.  Lean cuisine won't be making an appearance in the ring anytime soon.
3. No blatently in your face unhealthy food (this means no items from the heart attack grill, etc). If it's advertised as a food that doesn't give a shit about its own nutritional content, then I hope you aren't dumb enough to eat it if you are on a diet. If you are that dumb, nothing I write can help you.
4. You have to be able to actually find the food. I'm not going to review a sandwich from a diner that has 3 locations. Must be from at least a regional chain.

Reader suggestions for items to review are very much welcomed and will be addressed in order of entertainment value (in the unlikely event that I get more than one suggestion).

 

Tale of the tape #2 is in pre-production, even as we speak, or should I say, as I type.

Alright, gotta get a post up here

Okay, so there has been a drought of blogging lately, which is totally not fun, I'm not sure how much entertainment value I can provide in this particular post, but I'll try to get everybody at least caught up on all events (kind of an ambitious goal eh?). 

 

So, this past weekend took a trip down to the hometown for some fishing and entertainment, succeeded in finding entertainment, fishing was a slight bust however, wind pretty much killed our big trip out on the river about 3 hours in.  We did salvage things a little bit with some pond fishing back at the ranch, but a 1lb bass can hardly compare to a 7' sturgeon. 

 

I got to check back in on Yakima on my way back and believe it or not, still rather depressing down there.  We stopped to get gas @ the 7-11 off the interstate and it was a scratch ticket bonanza.  I'm not paid to be a social scientist, but I would say there is some correlation between scratch ticket sales and the 1st of the month, when all the government aid checks come rolling into town.  To quote Trailer Park Boys "That's how the government gets its money back".  So damn true.

 

So, weekend, fishing, was a semi-bust, but I got to see developments around the old stomping grounds. Oh, and the huskies got their asses handed to them again, as has been the case all season. 

 

Also, in case you haven't heard, there is some sort of chew-gate going on re: sideline shots of Jake Locker apparently with a wad of chewing tobacco in. Since there isn't much point in discussing if UW might win a game anymore, the more rabid fans are now debating what exactly was in Jake Locker's mouth - chew vs gum vs sunflower seeds.  Looked like chew to me, but what do I know, I'm just some dude on the internet, I think you need paid professionals for this type of serious analysis.

 

To wrap it all up, work is borderline crazy right now, especially when your hours are constrained and your workload isn't. I'm supposed to develop productivity tools to help decrease the time, but the catch 22 is that I don't have time to develop those tools.  Hmm , what to do?

 

Oh, and finally, I launched a new blog, in face of the results from my post about CL scammers, you can check out amibeingscammed.blogspot.com to determine if you, in fact, are being scammed.  Check it out.

 

Peace

 

 

I promise I haven't left

Just been pretty busy and working on random stuff. Soon enough I'll be back with a post that has some actual substance to it.