New car!

I got a new car!! The 2007 Acura TL Type S. This car features a 3.5 liter, 286 horsepower engine, navigation system, some sweet quad exhaust ports, satellite XM radio, cup holders, leather seats, and Star Trek computer voice. And for those of you who remember my old car (the TSX), this new car totally kicks the old car's ass in every aspect.

After a long time debating, I figured that getting a new car was a good choice for a couple of reasons.

1. Walking is for losers.*
2. Public transit is for losers.*
3. Having a car will help me establish the all-important credit.
4. The car will keep its resale value quite well relative to others in the same segment.
5. The car cost roughly $8000 less in the US than in Canada. (Before you bring it up, yes, that takes exchange rate into account.)
6. It's going to be really funny when I show up for a road test in a brand-new Acura TL-S.
   

* Applies only to people living in Seattle and surrounding areas.

And the best part? The new car cost the same as the old car did! Take the price of this new car and convert it into Canadian, and you'll get the price of my old car in Canada. It would have been cheaper even, if those bastards had let me lease.

Wait, that reminds me. "You want to lease a car? Well, never mind the fact that you've owned one car and leased another one before. We're going to pretend that you're some kind of high school dropout with no money and no prospects and not let you lease a car. Also, never mind the fact that we actually leased you a car in Canada. Here, in America, the rules are different. First you get the sugar. Then you get the money. Then you get the lease." - Acura.

I'm sure I'll have more to say about this soon. For now I just want to get the news out!

Why credit is important

So the United States is really stupid. Wait, there's more. One of the funny things you really never stop to think about when you have it is credit. It's kind of like sex. When you have it, you take it for granted. For example, in Canada, I could sign up for any old cell phone plan within 20 minutes and get a decent phone. I could also get cable. I could also buy a car. That was relatively painless as far as large purchases go. I walked into the dealership at 7:00 and I had a car by 10:00.

Not so here. See, when you move to the US from Canada, you essentially move to a whole other empire where your history is wiped clean. This could potentially be advantageous, but only if you were screwed in Canada to begin with. Which I was not. So starting over was basically not advantageous at all. Which means that it pretty much screwed me over.

The following took place between February 20 and March 9.

"You want insurance? Well, since you don't already have insurance, we can't sell you insurance. You need to have had insurance for six consecutive months before we'll sell you insurance. Never mind the fact that we've been insuring you for seven years in Canada. Here, we just assume that you're going to forget how to drive." - Allstate.

"You want a cell phone? Well, you have no history of having had a cell phone, so we're going to have to assume that you're a bum who won't pay your bills and we'll have to charge you the bum tax up front." (Note: bum tax is $500.) - Cingular.

"You want to live here? Well, never mind that you own your own house in Canada. As far as we're concerned, you've never lived anywhere in your life. So we're going to charge you the vagrant tax." (Note: vagrant tax is $700.) - Avalon Apartments.

"You want a license? Well, since you crossed the border, we're going to assume that you forgot how to drive." (Gee, you must know the insurance people.) "Never mind the fact that you've been driving for 11 years, or that you already own a car." (More on that later.) "We're going to make you waste your time on the written test (2.5 hours) and driving test. This is because Canadians forget how to drive when they come to the US. Never mind the fact that you're allowed to drive here for 30 days legally with a Canadian license, or that you haven't had a single ticket for over 5 years." - Washington State DMV.

"You want coffee? That will be $1.49." (Okay, that one wasn't just for Canadians, but it's still damn expensive coffee.) - Starbucks.

Fortunately, as with any obstacle in this country, one can get by this problem with money. But it's a hell of a lot of money, which makes me understand why relocation bonuses exist. And thank God they do. Now that that's out of the way, here's my main news.