Well, the car situation is now resolved. Once the insurance company finished jerking me around - it took them two weeks to make an offer to settle on the car, then tried to low ball me with an offer that was barely even trade in value, and not even close to the car's actual replacement value. After an hour of talking nicely (well, mostly) with them, we agreed on a sum that was closer to the actual replacement value of the car. Take note: If you are shopping for car insurance, don't even bother calling American Family. Even if they quote you the best rate, you can be assured that when the time comes that you need them, they'll take care of you in their own sweet time.

At any rate though, once I knew what I had to spend, I commenced shopping for my next Celica. If of course had to be a Celica because they just don't make anything as good as a Celica. To my disappointment though, I found that I simply could not find another Celica that was relatively new - no older than 2002 or 2003, with low miles, without having to finance the car. What the hell, if I'm going to take on a car payment again, I might as well look around and check out some new cars.

Enter the Chevy Cobalt. Now, this is one of Chevy's newer models, they only just started producing the Cobalt in 2005. If you haven't checked one out, I highly recommend it (smile).

So I trot down to the local Chevy dealer after taking a look at the Cobalt online. I had settled on the LT3 because it has a nice sporty look, but nowhere near the power of the SS model, which I had decided was much too pricey for me. Salesmen being what they are though, he of course took me straight to this snappy little Cobalt SS w/ supercharger. He offered a test drive, and who am I to refuse the chance to drive a car with 205 hp and a supercharger?? So we went for a spin, after which I again told him that this car was way over what I was willing to pay, and now could we go and look at one of the LT3's since I know they had half a dozen of those to choose from.

But salesmen being what they are, he offered to run some numbers and see if we could come to an agreement on the SS. He said after the look on my face, he just had to put me in that car (surely, his commission on the sale had nothing to do with his altruism). To make a long story short, his first offer was WAY over what I'd told him I wanted for a car payment, and a year longer than I wanted to finance for. I just laughed and said OK, you gave it a shot, now lets look at an LT3. Three attempts later, he actually managed to come up with an offer that was only $10 over what I'd told him I would pay, and 6 months longer than the 4 years I had been willing to finance. Not too shabby.