I put the car up on wheel ramps. Can't get under the car to undo the pan plug (which was, by the way, one of the tasks in a "World's Strongest Man" competition on ESPN2 a couple months back...) without putting the car in the air some.
Eventually, after finally removing the pan plug by using a leather mallet on the wrench (and I'm not exactly a 90 lb weakling...), I go after the filter.
Which is directly under the intake manifold on the passenger side. Next to the inner part of the fender. I'm not sure the oil wrench exists that can get in this area-- which is fine, since the strongmen couldn't get at the filter, either, so I didn' actually need the wrench once the manifold had cooled sufficiently that I could snake my wrist in between it and the fender, wishing I was triple-jointed, to remove it.
Then I found the next problem: The area I'd snaked my hand into to was not large enough to get this filter out through-- remember the monkey with his fist wrapped around a nut stuck in a jar? That was me. Except now that I'd done it again I couldn't just break the damn jar.
No problem, I can just reach in with my other hand around the throttle body, grab the filter with that hand, now that I could do so. Except it was my left hand that was free, and the throttle body was to the right of where I was working.
Eventually I had to drop the filter, which made a sickening oil-filled thunk landing on the subframe and slogging crufty oil all over everything. Yeah, I hadn't mentioned the subframe. If there were a little more room to work, I'd've put something in to catch the bit that spills out each time one removes an oil filter becasuse this one is positioned about eight inches above a large chunk of the frame (which is why I couldn't get it from underneath). Now mine's (once again, from the looks of it) coated in an oily black sludge, and I can only reach the edges of it to clean it.
I managed to find a hole from which to remove the filter (how can the smallest oil filter I've ever met possibly be so large?!). I installed the new one left-handed, using my right hand to snake the new filter to lthe left hand which installed it (I can't reach the filter from in front the throttle body when it's installed...)
I understand there are some design issues one has to compromise on when engineering an engine designed to be installed sideways into a car that's rear-wheel drive, but boy I wish this hadn't been one of 'em.
I think I'm going to have to do it more like Beak's Rotten Apple story next time. His sounded less painful.