UNDERDOG of PERFECTION

Yes, for the record, I was speaking of hell freezing over.

I’ve never really been a big Guns N’ Roses fan. I didn’t care for them at all, frankly, when they were around, although I’ve come to appreciate some of their earlier (less self-important) work as the years have gone on. “Sweet Child of Mine” is a superbly crafted pop hit, not to mention a real rocker. “Welcome to the Jungle” is legendary. I can take or leave the rest of their oeuvre, especially the overblown covers of “Live and Let Die” and “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,” and I really can’t stand “November Rain.”

But I digress (as is my wont, a phrase that encourages further digression, but I will refrain, for once). Chinese Democracy is now second only in the annals of legendary, doomed, never-to-be-released rock albums to the Beach Boys’ Smile. (Personally I’d put Captain Beefheart’s Bat Chain Puller in there too, but well, that’s me.) But, hey… Brian Wilson finally finished the damn thing and released it four decades later. Axl couldn’t wait quite that long, but apparently now this new GNR album has been 17 years in the making. Not bad. It’s more of a joke, now, than anything else, but there has been growing buzz lately that the album does exist and is actually coming out this month.

I didn’t believe it at first, but then I opened up the iTunes Store and found they’re selling the title track as a single now, and accepting album pre-orders. It really is real, really! Of course, the page says “Expected Release Date,” not just “Release Date,” so retailers still appear to be hedging their bets.

And, there’s also the matter that Axl is the only “classic” GNR member on the album. So is it really Guns N’ Roses at all? And has Axl gotten himself in better shape than he was in for his appallingly breathless performance on that MTV awards show a few years back? Here’s hoping, and I’m not even someone who cares.

OK, there wasn’t really a smackdown. But if you are an aficionado of the overpriced chain coffeehouses, you probably know that each year between Halloween and New Year’s Day they both offer a trio of “holiday” beverages. The names may vary, but for the last few years I believe they’ve both offered the same three options: an eggnog-flavored latte, a peppermint mocha, and a gingerbread-flavored latte.

Last year they actually both called their gingerbread latte the “Gingerbread Latte.” As I said to SLP (and I think she was somewhat surprised that I chose the analogy, though I think it is apt), it’s like they both wore the same dress to the party. This year they seem determined not to repeat the same mistake: Starbucks has renamed theirs the “Gingersnap Latte” and Caribou has dropped it altogether!

Well, I’m not happy about it! I generally prefer Caribou over Starbucks for three reasons: 1) they’re based in the Twin Cities, 2) I (somewhat pathetically, I suppose) enjoy the ego boost from correctly answering their daily trivia question, and most importantly 3) they have free wifi. I can’t believe Starbucks still charges for wifi, but I suppose ultimately it comes down to the simple fact that they can.

The only thing Starbucks had going for itself with me was that its coffee is marginally better (especially the Pike Place Roast), but all things considered it wasn’t enough to make a difference for me, especially since there are two Caribous closer to me than the nearest Starbucks, and one of them is a drive-thru.

But now in order to get my gingerbread latte fix I’ll have to head to Starbucks… and call it a “Gingersnap Latte,” no less. Drat!

What’s worse, I’ve had two “Gingersnap Lattes” so far this year. The first one had some chunks of… something… in the bottom. They looked almost like pieces of real ginger, but I find that hard to believe, and didn’t bother to investigate them too closely. And the second one tasted more to me like red Plax than gingerbread. Yum!

That is, our two-for-one even trade on a new 2009 Honda Fit is (a) go! We love our orange 2008 Fit (which we’ve only had for about 8 months), but our 2000 Civic has been sitting in the garage untouched for about three months now. Clearly, despite juggling transportation for SLP’s job, kids in kindergarten and Montessori school, and my own freelance work, we are still a one-car family. Convenient access to the light rail and my own scheduling flexibility (and willingness to shuttle people around) definitely help in that regard.

So, with winter fast approaching and a single-car garage, we’ve decided it’s time for the Civic to go. It has served us well for nearly nine years, despite nearly meeting its maker (which the deer did, alas) about 4 years ago. But now, what can I say? We’ve moved on.

As I said, we love the Fit. So when I made the mental leap that a possible way to rid ourselves of the Civic would be to try to get an even trade of both cars for a new one, there was no doubt that the new one would also be a Fit. Honda’s made a few of our requested improvements (not that we actually requested them, but they must have read our minds) to the standard package this year, including a USB iPod interface, a passenger-side vanity mirror, and ten — count ’em, ten — drink holders. You wouldn’t think a car that seats five would need that many drink holders, but I can tell you, when you’ve got two kids in the car, the drinks-per-person ratio is higher than you might expect.

I checked Kelley Blue Book for the trade-in values on our cars, and determined that we should be able to pull off an even trade — zero dollars exchanged — including a few additional (entirely utilitarian) dealer add-on accessories. No clear coat though.

We went with Inver Grove Honda and were extremely happy with the whole process… and we got our deal! Our new red 2009 Fit will be arriving in a couple weeks.

As a “web guy,” I now have even more reason to like Barack Obama as a soon-to-be-president than I did already. His website was no small part of his extremely effective and well-organized campaign, and I am pleased to see that he plans to continue to use the Internet as a core component of his approach to governing once he takes office. To wit: Change.gov, the official site of the “Obama-Biden Transition Project.”

As I’ve been saying for the past couple weeks, in a to-the-point if less-than-genteel way, he’s got his shit together. And as they say in Australia, “good on him.” 2009 is going to be an interesting year.

And not a moment too soon. A Newsweek article explores the return of intellect and reason to the White House after the shallow anti-intellectualism that has plagued our nation for (at least) eight years.

This may be the number-one reason I supported Obama as vigorously as I did. He is a thinker. He’s curious. He wants to know the truth, and he’s not afraid to question and challenge — or to be questioned and challenged himself. It’s about time!

And now… please… let’s put a few anti-intellectual ideas to bed:

1. Earth is not 6000 years old. We can be reasonably certain through carbon dating and other scientifically validated methods that it is approximately 4.5 billion years old.

2. Evolution is a fact. We can observe it — and we have — at the microscopic level (i.e. antibiotic-resistant bacteria) and in other species with short lifespans (like some insects), and it is a logically consistent explanation for the diversity of life we see on Earth today. Why can’t we witness it happening at the macro level, like in humans? See point number 1. The slice of Earth’s lifespan that your own represents is smaller than the division between Al Franken and Norm Coleman in this year’s Senate race. It’s the same reason we don’t see stalactites grow.

3. Global warming is caused by human activity. Sure, the overall temperature of the planet has fluctuated over the millennia, but the rate of increase in the last 150 years (coinciding with industrialization) is unprecedented.

4. Science is the quest for knowledge and understanding. It is a good thing that everyone should study. It does not preclude religious belief; the two are not mutually exclusive. You do not need to reject science to have faith, and you do not have to reject faith to believe in science. But faith, by definition, cannot be proven, and science can — in fact, that’s what makes it science, and it’s given us just about everything we have in the modern world.

Ahh… it feels good! Brains are back! Now, let’s stop arguing the validity of things we know to be true, and start doing something about them!