Petrol Prices

Do you know what a good feeling is? I experienced it recently and cannot say whether I will be able to for much longer. The feeling is of course joy at paying less dollars than the number of litres of petrol I put into my car. I only received my license a year and a half ago and did not pay much attention to the prices of petrol before they became a larger part of my life and thus I have been living in a world where it is common for me to fork out in excess of one dollar per litre.

However, a little while ago, petrol prices in many other places began to drop which made me happy due to two of my traits: cheapness and wanting-to-get-my-money's-worth-ness. Naively, I assumed that the prices here would drop also; for if we were paying less to get the petrol here, the petrol stations could charge us less for their subsequent purchase. Alas I was mistaken. From what I remember about a radio report at the time, high prices were being continually charged for petrol just so certain people could roll around in more money and more importantly: because they could. Don't get me wrong; I know oil tycoons exist to be rich stereotypes, but they can do that without charging me $1.50 for a stinking litre of petrol.

Then the most wonderful thing of all happened: a (from what I've seen) unanimous decline in the price of petrol. For the first time in my memory I was paying only a double digit cent value for my litre of petrol; under one dollar! Twice I have filled up for less than a dollar (I don't consume too much fuel. 'Why then are you bent on low fuel prices if you don't need to pay often?' you may ask. It's the principle! And also because I want to get my money's worth! Oh - and I guess I care about everyone else as well...) and both times it has been euphoric to look at the cost/volume gauge and see the volume units tick over slightly faster than the cost units.

Then I saw part of the news and heard that BP would be raising its prices again. Again! By 12 cents! Why BP? I used to look at your little green funny looking logo and happyness would well in my heart for the bargain I am about to recieve, now I will only see a money hungry terror, longing for more cash from my wallet than is duly needed. And as a result, other petrol outlets may raise their prices aswell, the report said! I haven't gone past any service stations since I heard the report three days ago to find out if it is true but that doesn't particularly matter. I am aware that the entire situation may be slightly more complicated than the two linear Supply/Demand curves which formed the sole content of what I learned in economics in SOSE, but I do know that if other petrol stations needn't tease me with prices that aren't ridiculously unacceptable and then shoot them up again, then BP, you needn't either.

The coming weeks will allow a clearer view into what will happen to the petrol prices as a whole; whether it be a united increase or a few harsh words and a step back in line of the BPs that feel compulsed to steal from us again. I obviously hope for the latter and I will assume that you do too, otherwise you are probably an oil tycoon and you most likely have better things to do than read my blog. I give the decrease of petrol prices 10 very happy Justins out of 10, whereas the increase of BPs prices recieves a 1 fuming consumer out of 10.

Sex Drive Review

Ah, the road-trip-type movie. Been done before? Absolutely. Long dead? Absolutely not. I did fear that after Eurotrip and Road Trip there would be no more hysterically funny movies involving the conveyance of a group of humorous protagonists across a vast expanse of land (I know there have been some funny ones since then but none really compared to the originals did they?).

This movie starts off in the usual manner; teenage boy, ordinary life, not-too exciting job and promises of relations with a female if he carts his ass across the country (in this movie, it's not too far actually). The central protagonist Ian's country-crossing friends are revealed to be the long-time-crush-but-just-best-friend Felicia and the sex-craving-Stifler-stereotype Lance. Especially in Lance's case I thought the repeated cliché of a sex-starved male would be tedious and old but I was very pleasantly surprised.

Enter (he actually came in beforehand but I just wanted to say it) James Marsden, better known as Cyclops from X-Men. In this, he plays Ian's older brother Rex. And he does it well. Every second he is on screen I found myself laughing more than any other movie has made me laugh in a long time. Not to mention what he does at the end of the film (I'm not going to say it here - go and see the movie for yourself!).

The trek across a part of America (the starting point and destination escape my memory right now) in the stolen/borrowed GTO belonging to Rex is embarked upon early, allowing for the non-stop laugh-fest that ensues as the characters run into a very strange hitch-hiker (David Koechner), a very knowledgeable Amish man (Seth Green) a very popular band (Fall Out Boy) and (to paraphrase) a series of very unfortunate but nevertheless utterly hilarious events. I give this movie 10 uproariously stolen GTOs out of 10, as in my opinion it is the funniest movie I've seen in a while, leaving other recently released funny movies such as 'Superbad' and 'Forgetting Sarah Marshall' (both very good in their own right) in the dust.

The Marine Review

The Marine. This was the worst, plot-less, poorly acted, nonsensical, illogical insult to the film industry (and to the laws of physics; but I've long since learned to deal with that due to the rest of Hollywood's movies) I've ever seen.

As I mentioned; the plot (if you can call it that) was barely existent and was ridiculously childish at best. The fact that Rome's (the main bad guy) plans kept changing and becoming increasingly unjustifiable and more stupid as the movie progressed annoyed me (along with his unbelievable persistence to keep the kidnapped wife alive despite her being the most detrimental thing to their plans since their moronic conception).

I won't reveal anything but the ending was ludicrous to the point of hilarity, however I fear the writers intended us to accept it seriously (though it makes the fact that John Cena jumps (or unrealistically throws someone into) almost every prop imaginable seem almost plausible).

The only reason I watched this movie in its entirety was because I wanted to see Robert Patrick play out this bad guy and I had already paid the $1 to rent the movie (in hindsight; not worth it). The sole not-unbearable aspect of the movie was the one "Terminator" reference that Robert Patrick responds to.

Perhaps it is my disappointment tending towards hostility that causes me to give this movie a (probably unfair) 1/10 due to not only the waste of 93 minutes of my life but also the strain of my eyes caused by the multitude of terribly fake explosions, but if I can save another human being from my fate then the 93 minutes of movie watching and 10 minutes of review writing will be well worth it.