my car-o-scope

[Dana Loomis <dloomis@domain.elided>]

Too wet to drive the Alfa?   It is here today, so for laughs I tried out
the latest time-waster from the hosts of "Car Talk" (a US radio show
ostensibly about cars, but primarily a vehicle for the off-beat humor of a
couple of MIT-educated, Italian-American, ex-hippie, mechanic brothers from
Boston).  It's a thing called the car-o-scope, and it works like this: you
go to their web site (www.cartalk.cars.com), answer a series of questions
about yourself and your car, and their computer tells you if you're
"compatible" with your car by matching you up with data on other owners of
the same car.  

I put in my tow vehicle (91 Ford Crown Victoria) and this is what they
said: "Boy, oh, boy, you picked a vehicle that isn't quite right for
you...when compared to other people who drive a Ford Crown Victoria...you
care too much about your car compared to other Ford Crown Victoria Owners,
you're just too educated to be driving a Ford Crown Victoria, yu're a
little too much of a risk-taker, you're, well--to be generous, a bit too
frugal, and you're just not enough of a snob."  Now the best part.  The
alternative vehicles their computer recommended to cure my incompatibility
with the Ford were: an Alfa Romeo Milano, a Land Rover S2A, a Fiat X1/9 or
a VW bus!  Go figure.  

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