i'm now driving what might conceivably be called a chick magnet car -- with the understanding that the magnetic attraction is confined to within the cabin, and the repelling forces work all over the outside. net result: it'll take a woman of superhuman persistence to actually come close...

a universal repellant, so to speak.

it's a 2011 holden colorado 4wd turbo-diesel ute. so far i do quite like it, even though it's much more of a lumbering dinosaur than the nimble subaru forester that it replaces; you do feel like the captain of a big ship navigating the twisty shallow shoals of suburbia.

but on the other hand it will be pretty nice for camping and trips. on sunday i'll have a bit of a bigish outing to pick up a canopy for the car (the previous owner had had a home-made hutch of extreme ugliness on it, which the car salesman offered me for nothing but i declined).