The cars

I bought a new car over the weekend. I'll keep you in suspense until I actually take delivery, at which point I'm sure there'll be a post about it. But it got me thinking about a couple of things.

One is that no matter how faux friendly the salesman is with their mimicing technique-"You have a German Shepherd? I grew up with German Shepherds." "You used to live next to the beach? I live a block from the water." "So you like Breaking Bad? Best show ever!"—the car buying experience is awful.

Again, details for another post.

The other thing it reminded me of was all the cars I've owned.

Like the 1965 Plymouth Fury. It was my first car and it was an eight-cylinder beast. It ran great when it ran, which was usually about ten minutes at a time before something broke on it and had to be fixed. My parents bought the car for $500 from my cousin Mark, who I don't think I ever saw again after that. Wonder why?

By the way, the Fury was my first and last American car. Sorry Detroit, you had your chance.

Then there were the VWs. First was a 1971 Orange Super Beetle. I can still hear the gas sloshing around over my lap when I came to a stop since the gas tank was in front. That car got wiped out in a bad accident which left me with a little souvenir you can read about here.

Anyway I swore I'd never own a VW again, much less an orange one. That was right up until my 1973 Karmann Ghia called to me from the showroom floor. I loved that car, but what I didn't know is that it had originally come from the east coast. I found that out when the rocker panels started disintegrating. Rust never sleeps.

Just as a side note, when I met the wife she was driving a 1972 orange VW convertible, fully restored. Coincidence? I think not.

With my 1980 Celica, 1986 Supra, 1999 Land Cruiser and 2010 Lexus ES350, Toyota was well reprensented in my garage over the years.

Of course I speak metaphorically. There hasn't been room for a gnat's ass in my garage since the wedding. I'm not naming names.

There was the 1986 Mercedes E190 we bought from the wife's grandma in 1994. It was eight years old and had 12,000 grandma miles on it. There was a four and a six-cylinder model, and grandma had the four. It was like driving a brick, but the car didn't have the power to get out of its own way. Neither did grandma.

Then there was the 1995 Volvo 960 Wagon, which despite being the longest car I ever owned, could turn on a dime in the middle of the street. Volvo made its chops selling safety. They should've been selling turning radius.

My second experience with a Swedish car brand was the Saab 90 I bought off my friend Rob. It was a stick shift, and was technically my son's first car. But I was the one who wound up driving it the most, zipping around town and reliving my VW days when I learned to drive a stick. You know, real driving.

My 2000 Audi A6 was great right until it caught fire, which actually was a more pleasant experience than having the oil changed at the Audi dealer (there may be a hint there as to my new car).

Now you're up to date on my wheels. Or you will be when I post about the newest addition soon. And if you're keeping score on colors, it's one blue, two orange, two silver and six black.

They say the car you drive says a lot about you. Mine say, "Oh yeah, I'll have one of those."

Why yes, that is a new tagline

Years ago, Volvo decided to take the bold step of not having a tagline in their ads. At the time it was considered revolutionary by most, and heresy by some, including their agency who didn't get to charge development time against new taglines.

And yet, Volvo continued to do just fine.

The print ads were cleaner and more focused. The TV and radio spots were less "addy." And despite the fact they didn't try to sum up everything they stood for in a few words, people somehow managed to either remember or glean from them that Volvo was synonymous with safety.

You may have noticed by the plethora of lousy taglines out there that coming up with the perfect one is a challenging thing to do (this isn't the first time I've posted about this).

Especially if you're trying to come up with one for a blog. I've often thought of following Volvo's example and just not having one, which would be fine if anyone including me already knew what this blog stood for.

I've had two taglines since I started it. The first was "No meaning. From a tire store sign. Stop trying."

Rolls right off the tongue doesn't it? That was one problem. The other was it spoke more to the blog title than the actual content.

The second one I used for a short while, without any fanfare or any notice was "With a great blog comes great responsibility. Or so I hear."

I liked it, but as a friend told me, I'm not Spiderman.

I keep forgetting.

Although you'd think falling off the sides of buildings all the time would be a good reminder.

So it was time for a new tagline. This time I decided to go with something more descriptive of posts that appear here. Hence the new line:

We didn't invent random. We just perfected it.

It works because random is the central theme of this blog. I almost went with "Mindless ramblings whenever I God damn feel like it."

But for some reason the random thing seems friendlier.