So much for "stealth mode"

The color is "Rebel Fur Gloss" (nee Hot Lava)

I drove by the site of the Christmas Eve accident today on my way to the dealership and am amazed--there's no way I could have intentionally made it in between those 2 barriers. I need to take a picture next time.

Oh, and yes, this means I am becoming a Scion-tologist (patent pending). It is the 2012 Scion xB Release 9.0. In one of those coincidences that really is just the recurring motif in my life of me eating my words, Clark and I looked at this very model at the Portland Auto Show Thursday night. He was very enthusiastic about its high visibility and I said it screamed "midlife crisis" a bit too loudly. Now, in fairness to myself, that was before I found out that the hood emblem glows like a Bat Signal. I think we can all agree that glowing auto accessories are dignified. That's why your country club parking lot looks like a rave.


The Scion is designed for customization (Toyota created the brand because The Fast and the Furious crowd was passing them over in favor of Honda, Nissan and Dodge... Dodge, couldn't you just die?), and my first act of customization will be addressing this below the front bumper.

I believe the thinking at Scion went something like this: "Aside from the glowing emblems on the front at rear of the car, how will people know what kind of car it is?" I don't know if the letters are individual, in which case I will try "COINS" or "ICONS" or merely "ICON" (now I'm blushing).

1st runner up at the new car pageant

The runner-up vehicle was a 2011 Mazda CX-7 (when I began looking there were several well-priced models in stock, but I may have inherited some of my dad's catlike reflexes and decisive action traits--we are the Étienne Driotons of car shopping, except, of course, that I'm being facetious... still, I give myself 8.5 Dennis Millers for the obscurity of that reference). When it got down to 1 at the price point I liked, it was time to move.

Notes: test drives around 4 p.m. on a Friday afternoon on the city streets of Portland around SE 122nd and Stark are boring. It's very flat and you're stuck in slow-moving surface street traffic for miles in every direction. Okay, mile, whatever. I drove to Mt. Tabor just to get some twisty hill action, which was good. Neither car dude (Andre with the Mazda, Pierre with the Scion, and as I type this I'm sure those are total aliases, probably to avoid retaliation from angry former customers I imagine) had ever taken a test drive out there, or so they claim (perhaps praising me for the idea was just some sales trick, although it was a great idea and I am very handsome to have thought of it). The Mazda was more fun to drive, but the Scion was more comfortable for me to drive (a boxy car for a boxy guy). And the Scion has a Camry engine. And the Scion's first scheduled tune-up isn't until 120,000 miles. Which should be well after Nibiru destroys Earth (advantage: Scion).

And finally, the dealership itself, Ron Tonkin, did a TV commercial last year highlighting their selection of autos (they have like 435 different brands for sale across all their locations) with a commercial (or a series of, I don't recall more than 1) incorporating zombies and Billy Ocean. So I was amused to find this pamphlet among the dealership's sea of collateral material.

I probably should read that. In case the zombies rise before Nibiru hits.