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Saturday 31 July 2004
Actually posted on 7 February 2005.
Until I posted this, there was nothing here for the month of July 2004. That was the month I came back from a New Zealand sabbatical and I was a bit busy. But having a missing month in the monthly archive just looked odd, and I had to fix it. So, here is a dose of lorem ipsum.
Lots of second-hand Japanese cars are exported to New Zealand. They include cars with strange English names concocted for the Japanese domestic market — I particularly like the sound of the Suzuki Afternoon Tea, the Diahatsu Social Poze, the Mazda Secret Hydeout and the Mitsubishi Mini Active Urban Sandal.
How did the Toyota Ipsum get its name? I like to think that a product designer used Ipsum as a placeholder. Somehow the marketing people never came back with a real name, and the car slipped into production with this odd badge.