June 24, 2003
With inspiration from Tucker Max I have written a story simply called Nick Gets Hammered. Feedback is welcome.

You may have noticed I changed the layout slightly. I decided purple and pink was a bit gay, don't you agree? I'm inspired by Maddox's easy-to-read layout. I may consider using a bigger font like he does.

I also added Fiona Apple to my "Shut up and listen" list. Listening to her 2 CDs plus some extra songs regularly for 8 months and sleeping to them every night means I think she is extraordinary. Of course I listen to Evanescence, but was that a big surprise?

Having watched every South Park episode, the next show Lisa and I have completed is Scrubs. This show is so good and we've watched every episode at least twice, most of them 4 times. Until we find another show of this calibre to watch, we'll keep watching reruns. I got Nathan and Andreas to watch them, too. If you don't watch this show, you're stupid.

Stop laughing. It makes you sound like a whore! JD - Scrubs

Until next time.

February 11, 2003
Here's a page devoted to my car's modifications.

February 10, 2003
Okay, lots of stuff happened with my car. I don't have a lot of time to post this, so this is going to be rushed. The pictures are massive so it sucks to be on dial-up. On boxing day I got this sweet Panasonic CQ-DFX572U MP3 CD deck.
50x4 MOSFET.

A week ago, I went "cheap" and got a JL 250/1 amp and 10W3v2 sub....

Then I decided it wasn't good enough so I upgraded to JL 500/1 amp and 10W6v2 sub and now it sounds beautiful. The only pictures that turned out well were the pictures of the amps. The pic of the deck is horrible, but you get the idea. Maybe I'll come back and describe everything in more detail and have better pictures.


December 11, 2002
I updated my Nick's Mix list if you would like to see it. It now lists my highly successful CD, Nick's Mix Summer 2002 Disc One. It will be hard to make a better CD than this unless I made it very similar. Lisa's very picky about what I'm allowed to play in the car and it comes down to 3 CDs: Nick's Mix Summer 2002 Disc 1 and 2, and Sublime's 40 oz to Freedom. Well, these 3 CDs are pretty good, I must admit.

2002 Mercedes

When I first read about this car and saw the picture, I was like, "Who the hell would buy this?" It's a Mercedes G500. Then Nathan and I saw someone drive it this morning on campus. Nathan asked me, "Is that a really old SUV?" I said "No, it's a really expensive Mercedes. It costs a hundred thousand dollars." In fact, $106 900 MSRP for a really big ugly SUV. It was black so it looked better than the one in the picture and it had ram bars. But besides that this thing is hideous, over-priced and the styling is outdated. I think it makes the statement, 'I'm rich and have no idea what to do with all my money'. If there was no Mercedes symbol on this behemoth, no one would respect it because it looks like junk.

I want to say that I hate TV and radio. I've felt this way for a long time. If it were up to me, my house would have no cable, but Lisa disagrees so that sucks. TV pisses me off with all their damned commercials and their shit shows and goddamn Simpsons reruns back to back to back. Simpsons was good but I could only take so much and I know too many people who think it's the greatest show in the world. Guess what? It's not! South Park is better, especially lately -- Nathan and I agree that they've gotten better with age. He also feels the same way with me and he is one of the people that goes nuts every time a new Simpsons comes on. Lisa still thinks Simpsons is better. South Park is better because it actually has a point. Some really good episodes to watch (download) are Ladder to Heaven, Biggest Douche in the Universe (which is John Edwards from Crossing Over), and Lord of the Rings. I don't recall any Simpsons episodes being as good as these episodes. Kevin Spencer also sucks except it sucks really bad. I don't know why it's still on the air because I can't bring myself to laugh at it. Apparently the creator is originally from Belleville which explains why it sucks so much. Here is an article from my university newspaper and I agree with this writer, especially where it says "Kevin Spencer tries to emulate the style of South Park, but completely fails to grasp the witty satire and intelligent humour which lie beneath the surface of that show, making it actually funny."

Well I could go on and on but let's speed it up by saying you are fucked up if you think Friends (I hate this show a lot), Roseanne, Will & Grace are great shows and Mike Bullard is witty, funny, or cute.

Oz is a good show. I watched this show semi-regularly years ago. I recently re-watched one I saw a long time ago and holy crap it was depressing - I forget the guy's name, but the Italian who beat up the gay black guy and as a result people hated him. He seemed to redeem himself by reluctantly euthanizing an AIDS patient but to everyone else it looked like murder. He was burned to death. No wonder I was depressed back then.

Another good show is 24. A few weeks ago my roommates and I downloaded them all and watched the entire first season. It's a really addictive show and I highly recommend it. After we were done watching the show I was sad and went through 24 withdrawal. I think it's more geared towards men because all the women in the show are either stupid or liars. It makes you want to hate women. But I kind of got Lisa to watch it and she thinks it's a pretty good soap opera for men. So I can't wait until this current season of 24 is done so I can download and watch it all at once.

November 14, 2002
I've been reading this guy's site regularly. Check out this article Anime Nerd. Then read all the other great ones. I've read ALL his articles. I was talking to Anthony a couple weeks ago and he asked if I was still surfing the web. He didn't think I did because I never write here. Well I am on the internet way more than most people, just reading things.

Besides the above mentioned website, here's a list of the other web pages I read everyday, in the order that I visit them: Those are pretty much all the daily websites I visit. Every other day I'll read Futureshop to see how my favourite products are doing and to make sure I didn't get ripped off on my latest purchases. For example, last week I bought a digital camcorder (Canon ZR-40) (expect a link to cool videos sometime in the future) so I check frequently so that if it goes cheaper within 30 days, I would demand to have it at that price. I also did that when I bought No Doubt's Rocksteady CD for $14.99. It went down to $13.99 the next day and of course I demanded to have it at that price and I got $1.15 put back onto my credit card. Oh ya.

But my most favourite thing to do on the internet is internet banking. I was hooked on it back in '98 when it was really shitty. So I like to check my bank accounts often to "feel smug about my money" as ING Direct says. The days of having to pay credit card bills by mail are over. I even pay my tuition through internet banking which is kind of scary. What if the transaction somehow fails? What if I accidentally pay for someone else's tuition? But you just have to be careful. Doing taxes online was really fun, too. It's not as stressful because my philosophy is that they'll correct it anyways. So all you have to do is a half-assed job of it and they always correct it for you. It all works out.

So what else is new? I know my parents don't care. Last year on Christmas night they called me when I was in Cambridge spending time with my own family of course. They told me to come down right away. "You have to", they said. So I got pulled away from my fiance and baby on Christmas night just because "you have to". Then everyone was like "where's the baby?" And that pissed me off because previously my parents were like "don't tell anyone" so I thought they didn't know and here they are blabbing to everyone.

Then this other time my dad called me up (again while I was in Cambridge) on a Sunday at 8 am forcing me to wake up of course. He says "meet me in Toronto at 10 o'clock, bring the baby, we're going to meet with relatives". Of course I was all pissed off at him for the short notice -- 2 hours is not enough time to get ready... let alone with a baby -- a sleeping baby -- you have to consider all the things to pack for a baby. So I responded firmly saying something like "I'm not bringing the baby, she's sleeping and this is very short notice." Then do you want to know what he says to this? I could not believe it -- I hate him for it. "Okay that's fine, it's embarassing anyways." Embarassing? EMBARASSING? Fuck you. I'll never forgive him for saying that. You know how I can hate people forever. I do it all the time -- easily. Mean people suck. So I mean it when I say I'll never forgive him for saying that. Also notice he didn't say to bring Lisa. She's probably an embarassment, too.

And yet another time was this after-wedding dinner my relatives had. My dad instructed me not to bring anybody with me. Oh thanks, you're the best dad ever, I love you.... Grrr...

I have to do whatever he says because he's got the money to control me. Once I graduate it'll be different. Then I won't have to put up with bullshit orders like 'I woke you up on your rare chance to sleep in to tell you to wake up the baby and bring her immediately' because 'you have to' mingle and act fake around relatives. Relatives? Fuck off. If you're embarassed of us leave us the fuck alone instead of putting us on like circus freaks. Especially on Christmas night spoiling my quiet and peaceful Christmas night with my fiance and daughter! If they don't accept my own family then I don't want to be part of the family.

At the wedding dinner there's this Uncle who is apparently really disappointed in me blah blah blah so he kept ignoring me. I don't give a fuck, do you think I like being separated from my own family in order to be snubbed by Uncle Fuck? If you hate me I hate you more. Leave me the fuck alone.

September 17, 2002

Infinity 605CS 6 1/2" component speakers to replace the inferior factory speakers. You can look them up at Future Shop with WebID 11432061. They've made a big difference with 90 watts RMS, 270 watts peak. The back speakers are 45 watts RMS, 135 watts peak. The back of the factory door speakers say 15 watts, so it's probably RMS cuz they weren't bad until the back speakers dominated. I bought the component speakers "open box" for $239.99 + taxes + install = $380. Very expensive. So I've spent $600 total in upgrading my car stereo. The difference in sound isn't in bass, of course, but in quality and the sound quality is great. I love the tweeters that are mounted on the dash. I bought them the weekend before school started - meaning the weekend before I had to give up the car for the school term. It wasn't a smart decision because I only got to enjoy them for a week. So I wish I had the car. The next things to get are an amp, a subwoofer and maybe a new car deck. I don't really want to replace the deck because it matches the rest of the puke green lighting. But seriously it works just fine. But right now the speakers are underpowered and so I think the amp's the most important thing to get next.

I also signed up for an ING Direct savings account with 2.75% which is better than my current 2.25% savings account.

August 31, 2002
Yay! I passed my driver's test and now have my full license! Now I can accumulate all the bad habits I want. This was the first attempt. There was a lot of pressure because all of my friends passed it their first time and it would suck to fail in that situation. And I'm thinking about buying the leased Corolla. My dad told me he was going to buy it from the beginning (don't ask me why the hell we leased it). But I'm sure he'll let me buy it. It's a reliable boring car. When I used to drive, it used to be about going as fast as I could but now I don't care for that. There's no real advantage to going fast. I haven't been pulled over for speeding but I just think it's more rewarding to play the fuel economy game. That's right. When you try to get the best fuel economy possible, you save money on gas and you'll never get pulled over for speeding. I love going a nice and relaxed 50 km/h on 70 km/h roads. It pisses off the people behind me. So instead of me driving fast on the fast lane so that cheaters can't cut back into the fast lane, I block these cheaters off in the slow lane. I'm not gonna bother explaining myself further than that. Anyways, the best fuel economy so far is 9.24 L/100km. My goal is to get to 8 L/100km. That's it, yay!

July 10, 2002

So I gave in... I've boosted up my Corolla's stereo. The car only comes with 2 front speakers which I thought were pretty good. But they're crap compared to these new ones. I'm sure you'll say these are crap (I paid $144.99 + taxes + install = $220) but they're tons better than my front speakers. Look them up at Future Shop with Web ID #11432005. I have my sound set so that most of the load is at the back speakers. Now it's hard to focus on cars behind me because the rear glass always vibrates. I've never had that feeling before. I got them installed for me at Future Shop - I wanted to do it myself because I want to learn, but this isn't really my car.

The strangest coincidence happened as the guy was installing the speakers while I kind of watched and Lisa sat there waiting: Before I drove in, I set my mix CD to the first track, just because I always put my best, most durable songs first and I wanted it to be the first song to come out of the new speakers. So the guy was listening to some CD at first but then when it was done he put on Sublime's last album and I was quietly excited and saying to Lisa how awesome it was that the guy was listening to Sublime, one of my favourite bands. It played straight through for about 20 minutes until he was done and when he was done the song "April 26, 1992" came on. As he got behind the wheel to test the speakers I got in very excitedly and beat him to turning it on. The reason, of course, is because the first track of my CD was "April 26, 1992", the exact same song! Can you imagine the odds!?! While he had the song playing in his garage, totally out of my control, the song that came out of my car played -- at different parts of the song, of course because his started first. I thought that was the coolest thing and he said I had a nice CD.

The next thing I want to do is to get my windows tinted - my dad would freak out. He would ask how much it cost and no matter how cheap I got it for, he'll say it's too much. With the rear speakers I'm just hoping he won't notice. Lisa thinks he will. But with tinted windows, it's kind of hard to not notice. And if I knew for sure that I was going to be allowed to keep the car for myself, I would want the factory fog lights and spoiler. I think the factory spoiler looks alright. I always like when spoilers come with brake lights so that in the dark people know it's there. Otherwise, adding a spoiler isn't that difficult. All you would need is some cardboard, paint and glue, right?

Also, I think it's really cool that Bif Naked is playing in Belleville this weekend. Much appreciation and thanks to Ryan for informing me and at first I did really want to go, but now I'm like "what's the point?" It's such a long drive and I feel like I'm getting too old for concerts.

May 31, 2002
Phew, I almost rented a car and blew away hard-earned money, but luckily I didn't mostly because all the good cars were gone. The best I could find was a Sebring which I like, but the smartest thing to do is wait. I told myself I'd only rent a car once this work term and I don't wanna waste it yet. I was tempted to do it because I'm going to the Incubus concert tomorrow and we know how much I love renting cars when there's a concert! (recall Bif Naked and Pontiac Bonneville)

What's new with me? Well, I've been enjoying some really good music!!! Damn, I've already made my official Nick's Mix summer mix and I've been listening to it everyday for a month now. If you think about it, that's a lot of time spent listening to the same songs.... Lisa can vouch for it! Before I tell you what's on it, I'm going to make some minor changes to it. I can only think of 1 song out of 17 that I have gotten sick of through extensive listening and I have several others that I'm considering putting on there. Look at what I'm listening to on my mp3 player to get an idea of the songs that I listen to over and over. How good is it? Well, currently there's only one No Doubt song on it, so what makes this CD so good? Discovering 2 wicked bands called Too Rude and Long Beach Dub Allstars!!! Thank god for audiogalaxy, cuz they opened up my eyes and let me finally diverge from mainstream music. I've always admired people who liked bands that nobody's ever heard of. Was it just a year ago that I listened to Britney Spears and Backstreet Boys? How embarassing! So how good is the CD? Well, everytime Lisa's in the car with me I still make her listen to my CD and she hates knowing the words to all the songs. You have to know that she earlier said she hates all of my music which is quite hurtful and depressing, don't ya think?

Of course the No Doubt concert (which was more than a month ago) was excellent. I wish there was some way I could relive it and re-experience it in different ways (by that I mean from different angles/perspectives... nevermind, I'm drunk, but that's why I'm writing in here cuz I would never in my right mind waste my time on here!).

Bought the game Boggle recently cuz I always felt I could be good at it. First we played it on the internet (an applet). Lisa and I have had fun playing it. It's a lot of fun! But I feel that it's overpriced at $21 something at Wal-Mart ($22 at Toys R' Us).

With my music being so good in my car these days it's very tempting to upgrade the stereo in my Corolla. But I have to remember that it's actually my dad's car and upgrading the stereo would be like giving away money. That's what I tell myself. Even though I know the smartest thing to do is to get a van since I'm a family man, I still wish my first car could be a Celica. It's strange because it's the car I wanted when I knew absolutely nothing about cars and after all my research, I went from considering the Elantra, Grand Am, Impala, and many others until I finally went back to the Celica.

Okay, I'm going to stop abruptly right now!

April 8, 2002

Well.... haven't been here in ages and I don't regret it. Writing stuff sucks when I'm not in the mood to write. The only time I like to write is when it's really, really late at night and I've been reflecting on things from the past.
So you wanna know what's new, huh? Well, what do you think? I'm excited about seeing my favourite band of course! I finally picked up the tickets... it turns out I got the 5th, 6th, and 7th tickets. Pretty darn good, eh? So the cashier was this blonde female was impressed with my numbers and asked how early I had to be to get those tickets and I said really early because they sold out within 2 or 3 days, which isn't the fastest, but oh well. Of course I mentioned that they were my favourite band and she said "Ya, mine, too!" Pfft, bullshit. I told Lisa this and she wonders why I think that, believing that it's possible. I think it's unlikely and she was just being fake.

Car talk: I know you don't wanna hear it, but when we went to pick up the tickets, I saw the ugliest thing done to a Sunfire. I really wish I could have shown you a picture of it. First of all, it was yellow, which is your first mistake. God, if you've seen that commercial where the yellow sunfire goes through the showroom window, I think you'll agree with me that it's retarded. Are we supposed to believe that, being yellow, the Sunfire can now go through glass? Or that being yellow, it suddenly goes faster than regular Sunfires? Now before I talk about what makes this particular Sunfire worse, we have to establish that the Sunfire comes with 2 possible spoilers. This Sunfire had the one that starts at the window as opposed to the Grand Am style spoiler which is tons better looking. So this guy has the ugly spoiler.... but what will make you want to barf was the HUGE shopping cart handle spoiler that stuck out high and far. It was disgusting and especially in poor taste because the other spoiler was still there. So try to imagine these two spoilers on the same car that are not even touching and you have a hideous mess of a Sunfire. I wish we could have seen the driver of that car to give him a retarded thumbs up. I say "him" because we all know women are smarter than men and a women would not do such a stupid thing. Agreed? Given that, I give you the fact that Sunfires are purchased mostly by women. So whoever this retard is, he's driving a woman's car, and thinks it's really trendy because it's yellow and fast because it has a spoiler and a shopping cart handle.

I'd like to mention that, even though I don't listen to it as much the Old Me would have, I really like Michelle Branch's "All You Wanted". This girl is offering to take me away from it all? The Old Me really wanted to get away from all and everything. I could really relate to this song in my past. Now I listen to this song to reflect on my stupid past. But now all I want is to settle down with my family (aww, I have a family!) in a decent house with a gradual collection of decent cars. It's not too much to ask for. Then time permitting I want to play the guitar and flute again, and try out the violin and piano. I'd still like to skydive one day.

I tell Lisa this many times but no matter how old I am, I always look back at my old self, at things I've done and I'm always embarassed about things I've done in the past. Mainly I'm referring to old things I've written. Just looking at my poetry section of this website, I'm embarassed at the stupid things I've written, but I've decided to leave them on because it's a part of me, I guess. On a tangent, why is it that I have a hard time understanding other people's poems? It seems like all good poems are those that stupid people like me can't understand. My "poems" (a loose term) are so basic, maybe I need to throw in some random words in to get that effect.

And a message to Anthony, I know you invited me to hang out and I'm sorry for taking so long to respond. It's because I HATE writing emails. It's an even bigger chore than this. Lisa and I would love for you to meet Camryn and then afterwards catch up on things with you, Amy and Ryan. But as I kind of said before, please disregard all stupid things I said and did as a result of you and Amy getting together. So email me at nickilas@hotmail.com because I'm trying to kill off musichead1 (what a stupid name) and I'll have to email you back.

Speaking of my internet names, I'm trying to convince Lisa to change hers to "AParentLee", but she says I have to marry her for that to happen, but I argue that she's a parent of a Lee. Corny? Then shut up.


March 1, 2002

No Doubt News: Thanks to Amit, I found out about a No Doubt concert in April 11th at Kool Haus. I didn't know my final exam schedule yet, but I was afraid of having an exam on that day preventing me from going. But I had to take the try because I've never seen my favourite band before. So unfortunately I have an exam from 2-5 pm and the concert starts at 7 pm. Nathan thinks we'll get there with time to spare, but I'm worried so of course I'm going to go through it as fast as possible. It's only an elective, so it's not like it's a super-important course. So I have 3 tickets to this sold-out concert... practically dragging Nathan while Amit just loves concerts. So I get to see my favourite band really soon! I've been listening to stuff wondering what they'll play since this is their Rocksteady tour. Hopefully a minimum amount from Rocksteady which I have tried really hard to like. There are good songs, but it's just not up to par with "Tragic Kingdom", "Return of Saturn" and "Beacon Street Collection" (every hardcore fan's favourite album). In those 3 albums, there are many songs to get excited and jump up and down to, but there isn't much to like about Rocksteady. So I hope they play "Comforting Lie", "Six Feet Under", "Total Hate", "Bathwater", and I could go on and on. Apparently the new single is "Hella Good" which is disappointing because it's not that great. I also never really liked "Simple Kind of Life" or "New". Anyways, the songs I would get excited like a school girl for would be "Dear John" and "D.J.'s". It would be a real treat because I don't think they do these songs live and it would be a real treat if they did. I have decided that "D.J.'s" is my favourite song for 2001 even though I started liking it in 2000; it just goes to show how durable this song is. I used to think No Doubt's version was better than Sublime's (No Doubt did this performed this song in tribute to the late great Bradley Nowell), but then I decided that both were good in their own ways. No Doubt's version for the simple fact that it's No Doubt and for a grooving trumpet solo. Sublime's version because Bradley Nowell just sounds undeniably awesome in this song. So some band originally did this song, but I don't know who. This song, especially No Doubt's live version, always makes me feel like I'm right there in sunny Anaheim, California just laid-back and grooving, a song expressing the celebration of life. That's probably not the intention of the original, but to me music is how it makes me feel. When I first heard it, it didn't really catch my attention, but it just grew on me into the best song of 2001 that I could listen to over and over. But before I get carried away, I simply can't express how excited I am about the upcoming concert. Since No Doubt is a girls' band (ya, ya, laugh it up), it shouldn't be too rough in the mosh so I can concentrate more on the concert than staying alive (just joking, it's never been like that). I'm going to try to get Nathan to stay near the back to hold my mp3 player (which doubles as a voice recorder) to record the entire concert for me -- this should guarantee myself endless enjoyment. Anyways, I'm sure you're sick of hearing about this now, so I'll stop for now.

I'm also going to be seeing Incubus on June 1st so I think that will be a really good concert. Hey Charles, it's their "Civic Tour", where there will be a chance to win a "customized" Honda Civic SI which is Honda's version of the trendy wagon.... Here is an illustration of last year'sEverclear Civic... ya, as if I want to drive around in something that.


February 18, 2002

I know I don't usually talk about school but I've been so swamped with assignments the last week that I had to get my priorities into gear. I was so swamped that I decided that if there was anyway I deserved my Reading 2 Days (not Reading Week), I would have to step up my effort. I set my biggest goal last Tuesday when I wanted to deprive myself of music until this Wednesday -- that's 8 days of no music for Musichead! Well, I worked so hard that I have no more work to do until after Reading 2 Days and I've even made significant progress on the work that needs to be done after the break so that I can relax for a couple days..... well actually I'm starting now. Having no music for about 6 days made life really, really plain. Now that doesn't include music that was out of my control. i.e. when there was a party at my house on Saturday night, there was not much I could do... I couldn't really leave, and I'll tell you why in a bit. I just need to finish saying that I'm happy with almost achieving my goal of silence because I think music takes too much control of me sometimes. You will find this apparent when you see me listening to the same song over and over again.

So it was one of my friends had a birthday and we all went to Kelsey's in 4 cars: 2 Civics, an Intrepid ('97?, leather seats, fog lamps), and I was in a Buick. So at Kelsey's this guy across the table from me said he was going to get really drunk and he needed someone to drive his car. Since you all know me very well, you can easily predict that I was the first one to jump up and down (metaphorically) offering to drive his Civic because I've never driven one before and it's always great to try out different cars no matter how stubborn your tastes are. I'll bet Charles' is happy for me now. It was a white 97 Civic (DX I think?), spoiler, added 6 disc CD changer, only 72,000 kms which isn't bad for the year. Maybe that's too much detail, but it's all just to entertain Charles. Anyways, all I wanted to do was hurry up with Kelsey's so I could go driving.... in a brief moment it felt almost as good as renting a car. One guy looked at me like I was crazy, saying "You're not going to drink just so you can drive?" Obviously he doesn't know me very well. I can't even remember how many times I've rented a car, but I've probably spent over $1,000, twice was compensated for and then there's the 2001 Sentra that started it all when my Colt broke down. Anyways, back to the subject... so eventually I got to drive people around with the drunk owner in the passenger seat giving me directions. I was very flattered when he said that I was a good driver. And I simply said "Thanks, I like to be careful.", but that doesn't express at all how grateful I was just to be given the trust to drive this guy's car. I wasn't going to drive like a testosterone-fuelled, gotta-race-every-car-to-feel-better-about-myself boy in the prime insurance category of males 18-24. No way! I had been given the responsibility of a designated driver and having seen mucho court TV, I would not want to be the one responsible for causing damage to that car. Who knows what would happen. So I drove this guy's car in a safe, yet still fun, way, and I'm grateful that it was noticed.
My diagnosis of the Civic's performance? Well, it was a lot of fun, actually. Even though it only had 106 horsepower (compare to my Corolla with 125), it was a decent. I didn't get a chance to drive it too fast because of the ice and the court TV factor. I'd definitely rather have this car than any Corolla up to 2002. But if you know me, you know how much I hate the P.O.S. that I drive, and while saying this, my friend in the backseat who drives a 99 Corolla didn't agree that the Civic is better, saying that the Corolla is a smoother ride and that the steering wheel felt better. He may have been right about the smoothness, but the entire interior of the Corolla is shit -- an entire gray mass of greyness. I'd rather have a black interior. (yes, I'm probably crazy for wanting a black car with black interior, especially in the summer