I love my Element, but one thing I don't like is the separate remote and key setup that is identical to that found on the '97 Civic that one of my exes owned. It takes up a lot of pocket space, and it whacks my knee while I'm driving. So I figured, there had to be a way to get a slightly more modern key with OEM parts -- no eBay crap. I figured out this procedure using a few helpful forum threads, but thought I'd write it up here because searching forums is a task that should be reserved only for the hated Fnord, not civilized man.

So, what you need is an '07-'08 Acura TL flip key (35111-SEP-306 - $60), an Acura RDX remote faceplate (35118-STK-A01 - $10), a spare original key for your car, and an '04-'11 Element. '03s use a different system. You can use a $30 Honda Ridgeline key to save some part costs -- it's not a flip key, but it does have the keys and button in one unit so it has many of the same benefits. I'll also note that if you have an '07+ Element I believe you can skip all the transponder pill stuff (although I can't confirm that one way or another). Mine's an '05 so I couldn't.

There's the beginning. The first step is to cut open the old, donor key. The easiest way is to run a Dremel around the edge of the plastic and peel the halves apart. You're after the transponder pill, which is in a white plastic housing. This is what the car's immobilizer talks to.

The pill is easy to pull out. Do so and set it aside.

The next step is to replace the TL key's "pill" (more of a "rectangle thing") with your original one. Unscrew the Philips-head on the bottom (the only visible screw) and pull the faceplate unit. Set it aside -- we'll come back to it.

Once that's done, pull the cover around the key flip button off. It's held on by two clips and an adhesive. The clips aren't very fragile, but be careful of scratching the part of the housing you're using for leverage as the plastic is a bit soft. After that, you can see a cover with three Philips screws. Undo those, but be careful -- there's a clock spring pushing off that cover, see? So release the tension gently, and remember how it goes in.

Now, take out the key unit, and flip it over. There's a little plastic cover; pry it open from the inside, and the immobilizer chip thingy is visible. It's tough to get out; my solution was to use a very thin bit and drill it out from the other side. Then you've got both of them out. The job now is to get the pill from your old key in the space previously occupied by the new key's transponder. I widened the hole using a very small file, but you could use your Dremel. Put a bit of epoxy or glue in there to make sure it stays put.

The next step is optional, although I found it necessary because the TL key looks way too much like a face. It's got that trunk release button, right? And that's useless with the Element. So, get your RDX faceplate out.

This will be pretty self-explanatory. Pry the TL remote unit open from the back; the front part that carries the buttons and electronics will separate from the back, which carries the battery. Then, pry the front "button carrier" unit open; you can see that it's held together by four clips -- note its rubber weather-sealing. The two halves will separate, and if you're like me the buttons will fly everywhere. Go find them.

You can guess what's coming now -- cut off the nose. Reassembly goes in reverse. Make sure the light comes on when you push the buttons, then take it and the rest of your keys to the Honda shop. Have them cut it and so on, and you're golden.

When you get it back, the "unlock" button will probably not work even when the key is paired to the car. That's okay -- just press both the "lock" and "unlock" buttons at once, to set the key's memory function (which the Element can't use, of course). Then the button works just fine.

"Boxcar" Stalvepolp was the foremost collector of porcine megalodonical oil paintings in this hemisphere, which is almost certainly the best hemisphere. And those take up a good bit of cubic foots.

Look, it is a new collection of rudimentary beeptone covers entitled: "ZIP THE ITCHY BROGUES OF WAR". Here is the full download, containing several songs. Here is a preview:

Millions of years of evolution and, well, here we are.

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Ollie likes whipped cream, but he gets mad if pictures are taken of him liking whipped cream. Made self-conscious by ribald modern media, no doubt!

I bought a book on Amazon about the Battle of the Nile, and for some reason they suggested that I might also like this book, even though I've never bought a book that has anything to do with religion or politics, with the possible exception of all those biographies I have of Victorians who went "what manner of thing is this?" while firing a full broadside of grapeshot into some decrepit native who happened to have been standing around on his island, eating a guava, when a flotilla of Her Majesty's Bestest sailed by:

Given that this likely-terrible book seems to acknowledge an ongoing dialogue right there on its cover, I was naturally curious about what sequels might be waiting on the publisher's hard drive:

I didn't want to do Danger Zone, because someone already did it better than I could, but I had to do something, or else we'd all look like saps. On that note, I also need to speak with somebody about why and how that movie only has a 6.8 on IMDB. Die Hard and Terminator 2 have appropriately good ratings, but Top Gun and Robocop/Robocop 2 are way too low. I think maybe it's just a problem of perspective. I am a normal human, so I think those movies are good. However, maybe some people are communist charlatan primeval monsters -- literally lizard-people -- so they can't see that those movies are good. Thor 2 should not have a better rating than Top Gun or Robocop. Thor 2 is to 1987's Jaws: The Revenge as 1987's Robocop is to -- hell, what's a good action movie that came out in 2013. I don't know, I'm done with this. Gonna go pull my head off like one of the prototype Robocops. weeeooo

Back in the game, okay? I had to sell my overclocked orange iBook that ran on CF cards, plus the indigo one I put a real SSD into a couple years ago, to pay for grad school, or at least groceries while at grad school. But now I've pulled this PowerBook 1.33 outta storage and gotten another iBook, so I'm all set to do it all over again, to create another Quake 2, StarCraft, and WarCraft 2 LAN kit. This iBook was walking-around money, not "save up for it" money -- I wanna grab a Key Lime iBook, as well as a Cube, but those things are pretty expensive. Of course, it's particularly stupid because I had both of those things, but sold them in early 2008 for a lot less than what I will undoubtedly have to pay for them now. My Cube even had a 1.4 GHz upgrade, wastrel that I was.

I'll grab a Transcend PATA SSD for the iBook this time, to compare it to the KingSpec I put in the last one, as well as a 4400 mAh battery. Runcore and OWC also do a PATA SSD, but they use real parts for theirs, as opposed to things they found in their cereal boxes, so they are too expensive.