A Car Built After 1996

(side note: I have been so god-DAMNED sick lately.  It has to stop.  I am turning in this winter and getting a new one.)

Anyway!  We bought the car finally!  It is rad!

It's one of these: A 2013 Honda Fit.

It is the following things:

• Cheap ($16000 and change, brand new)
• Comfy
• Responsive and easy to drive
• Speedy
• Intuitively and thoughtfully laid out
• Zippy

Thus far, the *only* drawback is that its "happy speed" on the highway seems to be about 60 MPH; at 70 it's working pretty hard (this is a tres minor issue, it's just the only "issue" we've found, period.)

Also, here's how to buy a car:

1. Decide what car you want ahead of time.  Test drive a friend's or something.
2. Get pre-approved on a loan from a credit union.  You will get some sick, in the teenage-skater sense, APR (ours is...1.7%?  Something like that.)
3. Buy the car over the internet.  All dealerships have an internet sales manager guy who handles this stuff.  You just call or e-mail and tell him what you want, he finds one, you agree to buy it, and it's easy.
4. The guy will have one of his fellows drop it off at your house.
5. Go get milkshakes from Burgerville.

Now I Remember: Rock N Roll Is Fun

So we played with White Murder and the Blood Types last night in a very-big-walk-in-closet-sized venue in an early show, all ages context.  It was really, really fun.  Back when Ransom and I were in Mondale, I always suspected that there was a kind of novelty factor thing going on with us, that people "liked us" mostly because of the nerd rock schtick rather than actually enjoying the music (with the exception of our steadfast buddy Cody, of course.)  With The Nervous, however, I think people actually like us because we don't entirely suck.  We are pledged to suck even less as time goes on. 

My favorite moment of the show last night, besides witnessing how completely fucking badass White Murder are, was when the crowd insisted that Ransom turn up, and lo, the band sounded better.  Told ya so, man.

The band is my one, count 'em, one, extracurricular activity.  It's a big deal for B to let me out to practice and play shows...Plan C is many more than one handfuls, and we do not abandon one another to her tender mercies without due consideration.  I am hugely grateful for this one outlet, and I suspect it ultimately pans out since it is fast becoming a pretty much unmitigated force of fun in my life and makes me a generally happier person as a result.  Anyway, thanks, baby, for letting me do it.

So: onward to write new songs and get more gigs.

P.S. Never, ever pour two pints of hoppy IPA into an empty stomach, especially if that stomach is in your body.

Dude. Brutal.

So... Let's see.

Potty trading is rough. The kid knows the score, but she is very hesitant about it. We could be in for a long haul.

Also, with a show scheduled for Saturday and a job that revolves around lecturing for almost four hours a day, I appear to have contracted laryngitis. Or something. Damn. It.

On the up side, we are signing papers and taking possession of a spamming new Honda Fit in a few days! Neat, dude!

Ah, Adulthood

The last link I have to the good old days of scruffy (relative) irresponsibility is the band.  My homie S posted pictures of his recently-reformed band, Gordon Taylor, on his flickr site (this is a great picture of them, minus S himself who is taking said picture), and it reminded me of how I used to spend just about all of my spare time back in the day: equipped with cheap beer and loud music and good friends.  I sure love me my domestication now, but it's very easy to be nostalgic about back then, too.

The latest adult move was starting the process of moving our moneys from the shitty evil corporate bank to a nice local credit union, which we did this morning.  In the process, we got pre-approved for the auto loan, so we're finally going to buy one of these.  We're going to use one of those snazzy online "concierge" services that gets the car from a dealer and delivers it, in the process obviating the need to actually get within four miles of some smarmy coked-out nutball on a car lot (no doubt surrounded by balloons.)

Also, we voted yes on all of the library + school bonds in Portland, and that is great, but now our mortgage is up $100 a month.  Money-where-mouth-is/was.

Like I said: adulthood.