We were warned that Colorado has quite a bit of critters in the area. We have been here just over a month, an we had 3 critters visit us:

The cats are doing a great job of keeping the rodent population down (just today, we had a second mouse in the house…), but not so much with the insect population. I would not let them mess with the snake because I was not sure if it was poisonous or not. It actually got into the house for minute and I damn nearly lost my mind. I’ve handled 6′ boas before, but I didn’t want to pick it up without knowing it’s capabilities.

Leila is definitely a mouser. I am sure that she killed the first mouse and left the present in the middle of the floor.

I poked a little fun at Nad’s car stereo back in April. She recently had it checked out at a nearby Car Toys and confirmed my suspicion: the last two clowns to work on her stereo equipment royally screwed it up. The first is this guy back home in Rockaway that everyone goes to. He has made a living off of ruining cars (everyone I know who has gone to him has complained of poor work). The second was this hole-in-the-wall shop on Route 1 in MD, who promptly closed up shop when Nadia ran into problems.

Now her car’s audio system is in much better shape, and looks pretty good:

Nadia and I found ourselves at Mike Shaw Pontiac this morning for her Grand Am’s 123K mile checkup. I brought several things to entertain myself with, like a fantasy novel, my Nintendo DS, my Zune, etc. I ended up ignoring all of those; instead reading a Good Housekeeping article about how dangerous roller coasters are and how there is no federal regulation of these rides.

Eventually we left the waiting area to look at some of the cars in the lot. When I stopped to ogle a Pontiac G8, a saleswoman asked if I would like to test drive it. I was torn; yes, I wanted to tear ass down the road in this car, but deep down I thought it would be best to pass on the offer. The Vibe is two months away from being paid off, and I really didn’t want fall for another car. I knew that if I got behind the wheel and liked it, I would end up getting that car. I was beginning to like the idea of a car note-free existence.

Before I knew it, we were on I-25 riding in a red G8 GT. After the saleswoman showed me how powerful the car is and how fast it wants to drive, I got my turn behind the wheel. I took it easy at first, since it is the dealership’s car and all. But when the opportunity to pass someone at a totally illegal speed came up, I took it, and I loved it.

Before going on the test drive, both of us were clear that we wanted a manual transmission, which is only available on the upcoming GXP trim. That did not dissuade her or two of her associates from trying to subtly change my mind. We left without the car, but now we are on the waiting list for that GXP.

Nadia and I had been eying the GMC Acadia for some time, but I think today’s drive has totally removed it from the running.

Since I’m already talking about cars, I had a few others in mind. While the Nissan Altima Coupe, Cadillac CTS Coupe, and Nissan GT-R (pictured below) are cars that I have lusted after and are attainable, they are ultimately unrealistic because they don’t comfortably support more than two people (there will be more than two of us one day, you know).

The car of my dreams though, is unrealistic not only because of its lack of space for other people, but the price is mighty high.

All of the car images are all from Autoblog, my favorite car-related blog.