and then there's this

Even worse than delving into a new driver, I'm still a year away from the lease being up on my vanilla 2001 Honda Accord, but I'm already starting to collect new car brochures.

Today I stopped at the Acura dealer. It was right beside the appointment I had at the doctor's office, so why not, right? Right?

Sweet sweet TSX / RSX (premium).

Fraser is telling me to look at the Saab 9-2, although unless you get the enhanced version, you're basically driving an Impreza. And how Swedish can it be after the GM takeover? Am I basically buying a Saturn? Not that there is anything wrong with that. I know some very fine people who are Saturn owners. Really I do. But back to the 9-2. At this point, there's not much more than an artist's rendering of this car kickin' around the net, so I must reserve judgement until later.

Mazda 3 (sedan). If I were truly a sensible human, I might just do. But, I'm really not that sensible. However, if I decide on the smaller two door RSX over the TSX, it might be worthwhile to give a second or third thought to the Mazda 3 sedan because a) it has 4 doors b) it has appealing lines and c) it has equal hp output (160 horsies). All that and d) i'd be saving around eight large in the process.

All this, for something that is yet a year away. Sad really.