...but first, I wanted to describe something funny I saw earlier. We were on our way to the bank to finalize some loan paperwork, and standing across the street were a couple of dudes protesting - one had a shirt with Obama's picture on it captioned "Dictator for Life" (which really makes me think he doesn't understand any of those three words, but whatever), and one had an anti-health care reform sign. Anyway, we went inside, and when we came back out, there was an elderly black lady with a walker standing next to them. I couldn't hear what she was saying, but she was gesticulating pretty strongly, and the two dudes were looking distinctly uncomfortable. Ah, the joys of freedom of speech. It goes both ways, folks.

As those of you who follow either my Facebook page or Brian's blog probably have figured out, a confluence of factors inspired us to go new-used-car shopping.  It wasn't the best time to do so financially (we were upside-down on the loan for the Audi, and didn't have a lot of liquid assets for a down payment), but the negatives of keeping said Audi were starting to stack up: it was coming up on some pretty serious maintenance at the 100K mark, and as we've already discovered several times, maintenance on that car was significantly more expensive than on less esoteric models.  Plus, we don't have to worry about ploughing through snow berms anymore, and it only gets about 15 mpg with all the city driving we do around here.  Ouch.  

Since a goodly percentage of the used cars in Arizona seem to be located in Phoenix, we decided to drive up there over the weekend to try some of them out.  It's about a three-hour drive from Sierra Vista, not bad when you're doing an overnight trip (although our hotel experience wasn't as restful as we'd hoped), and that gave us plenty of time to test-drive the several cars Brian was interested in.

I won't bother posting a rundown of everything we tried, especially since Brian already did a far more detailed one than I would. I will, however, state for the record that Phoenix was far nicer than I thought it would be. I'd heard it referred to in the media as aiming to be "the Los Angeles of the Sonoran Desert", which seemed to me to be rather an odd goal, given that the one good thing about Los Angeles was the beaches, which they're simply not going to have here. But on the whole, I'd say it was rather nicer - I was actually able to differentiate between the neighborhoods, and it didn't feel quite as hugely overcrowded and barren of human kindness and charity as LA did. Admittedly, I might be responding more positively to Phoenix because we had a GPS device, which were far less common in early 2004 when I visited Los Angeles, which is a nightmare for anyone like me with a poor sense of direction and a phobia of getting lost - see above re: undifferentiated neighborhoods. Also, we weren't there in midsummer, which probably has something to do with our generally positive experiences as well.

(Note to tygenco_x: sorry we didn't let you know we were in town, but almost all of our time was taken up by test-driving cars, eating, and sleeping - plus it was sort of last-minute. We'll be back at some point, though, so I promise we'll get that lunch date in sooner or later.)

Ultimately, we found a pretty good deal on a 2006 BMW 330i, which I love because it's slightly smaller than and gets half again the gas mileage of the Audi, and Brian loves because it's got a really impressive engine, and we both love because it was one of maybe three in the Arizona area that has heated seats. (I completely understand why most people don't bother with them in the desert, but they're rather nice on chilly mornings, and we're kind of spoiled on them.) Additionally, it has one of the few sound systems I've come across that actually is slightly more impressive than the one in the Audi, and Brian says - it's a stick shift, which I still need to learn - that it drives like a dream. Even from the passenger seat I can say that the ride is a really nice balance between sporty and smooth. Plus the sport seats have adjustable side bolsters, which I dig way more than might be reasonably expected. And (quite importantly, as we've learned) it's a fairly common model of car with no turbochargers and an engine that's supposed to be dead easy to work on, so it shouldn't be too expensive to maintain.

On the whole, though, I'd say what thrills me most about it is how happy it makes Brian. He's wanted a BMW for a long time, and finally being able to afford one makes him pretty seriously happy. (Sign #348 that he's a good husband: He was feeling a bit self-conscious, parking it next to the beat-up little del Sol that cyranocyrano gave me. "Don't you think people might think that your husband's a controlling jackass who won't let you have a nice car?" I laughed and assured him that I would tell people I was perfectly happy with the del Sol, because it was a convertible and because it was free. I'm sure eventually we'll be able to get me a nicer car too, but for right now I think the del Sol's perfect for me. Plus, it was free.)

The other important discovery we made on our trip (aside from "don't stay at the Bell Road Red Roof Inn until they fix their wireless service and mattresses") came in the form of an Irish-style pub in the university district of Tempe that went by the name of Rúla Búla. See, when Brian and I first started dating more than five years ago (eep!), we used to go to a place called Doc Water's in Juneau. While not an Irish pub per se, it had a similar atmosphere, as well as the best burgers and fish 'n chips either of us had ever experienced. Sadly, a year or so later they came under new ownership, and the food went rather downhill. Eventually they closed, but ever since then Brian's been on a quest to find a place that makes a burger as good as Doc's did in their heyday. And after sampling many a burger at many a restaurant (ranging from greasy spoons to some quite nice places), we finally found it. Bonus - their fish 'n chips are equally excellent as well, and they make a fantastic lamb stew. Plus, they're an Irish-style pub, so they have both Guinness and Smithwick's on tap. Highly recommended to anybody who might be in the area.

On a more personal note, I'm working on making friends with a girl I met via Craigslist (believe it or not) - her name's Liz, and while we come from rather different backgrounds, so far the chemistry's been pretty good. (And she's cute!) She's coming over for corned beef tonight, so here's hoping things continue to go well - she seems pretty neat and it's nice to have someone other than Brian to chat with.

Also, happy St. Patrick's day to the Irish, non-Irish and wannabe-Irish in the crowd. :)