Hey, everybody, it's the weekend again-- and rather than sit idly by and watch you people waste your lives vegetating at home, we thought we'd propose a fun little activity that'll get you out of the house and onto the open road. Think of what all that fresh spring air could do for your winter blahs! And if that's not enough to get you to pry your kiesters off the couch, how's this for an incentive: a ten dollar gift certificate for the iTunes Music Store. Ahhhhh, now we're talkin', right? After all, that's the equivalent of ten winning yellow caps in the Pepsi promotion-- better, even, because you can buy a whole album with a ten-buck gift certificate, which, if you purchase wisely, can net you way more than a measly ten free songs.

Anyway, here's how to do it: go test-drive a Scion. Faithful viewer Nathaniel Madura reports having received email from Scion informing him of a promotion whereby simply test-driving the new Scion xA qualifies you for your free gift certificate. (Apparently the tie-in is that the xA comes with "an amazing stock sound system," and "what better to go along with the xA than some iTunes?" Clever.) All you need to do is print out the Complimentary Gift Voucher and have your dealer fill it out at your test drive. Mail in the completed form, wait 6-8 weeks-- the gift certificates are evidently hand-painted by limbless monks who hold single-hair brushes in their teeth-- and voilà: you get your one free album of your choice.

There's a slight catch, of course: Scion is a pretty new sub-brand of Toyota, and while you can't leap out into traffic without getting run over by at least four Toyotas, your odds of being hit by a Scion are pretty slim. The cars are only available in about half the states in the union so far, and what's worse, this iTunes-Scion test-drive promotion is limited to "participating" dealerships in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and North and South Carolina. If you live in, say, California, the price of a round-trip flight to Alabama may make the prospect of a free $10 gift certificate somewhat less appealing. On the other hand, hey-- ten bucks!

Meanwhile, we couldn't help but notice that the "amazing stock sound system" in the Scion xA maybe isn't quite as well-matched with the iTunes Music Store as it could be. True, it includes a CD player that can play MP3 discs, but iTMS purchases aren't MP3s-- and as far as we can tell, the system lacks a line-in port, so you can't just plug in your iPod and rock out. You can also forget about using a cassette adapter, since "there is no cassette deck included in any Scion audio system. You don't need it, you don't want it, and you shouldn't have to pay for it." That means you'll either have to get an FM adapter for your 'Pod, or burn your free test-drive album to a plain vanilla audio CD to play it in the Scion. Hmmm... do we sense a slight lack of synergy?