June 2006 Entries
I have a rental car right now, as my car is in the shop being painted. The rental is a
Ford Focus. A good, economical car.
I'm probably returning the car today, so I had to get the gas level back to where it was when I picked it up, 3/4 of a tank. So as I open the gas tank door, the gas cap reads "Ford recommends BP".
This scares me. I mean, if you believe the
conspiracy theories, then the gas companies already own the patents on engines that get 100 mpg. But now, there's an acknowledged alliance between the car manufacturer and a gas company? Yikes! What's next, Ford and BP merge?
I recently read (I think it was an article in the
Weekly Standard, but I'm not sure) that what the US auto manufacturing world needs is a brand new company, not affiliated with any of the existing companies, but the barriers to entry are too high. Too bad, as innovation is great - it's what drives the US economy.
Update: An interesting story on how
BP was involved in a price fixing scheme for propane makes news the day I make my post.
Take what you want from the stories below, but I say that road rage makes for better driving! I say this based on two recent news stories.
First, Phoenix was was
recently ranked the #2 city for road rage.
And then we find out that according to Allstate (presumably based on their claims) that Phoenix is the city with fewest collisions for a population of more than 1 million residents. I know this, because, a) it's in this story
here (scroll down to see the listings for cities with pop. > 1 million), and b) I heard about and actually saw the line for free gas. I passed on the free gas because I have better things to do than wait in line for 10 free gallons. Although, with gas at it's current prices...
Put 2+2 together and you get that road rage prevents accidents. :)
So get out there, cut somebody off, slam on your brakes for no reason, make some nice hand gestures and get to know your neighbors! ;)
I love a good movie. I love it when the story pulls you in and you're really entertained.
An example of a great movie is "The Italian Job". It's got a great story, a guy you love to hate (Ed Norton [an actor whose work I admire] as "Steve"), a serious "get revenge" factor, a beautiful woman (Charlize Theron as "Stella"), characters with great personality (Lyle, Left Ear and Handsome Rob) and an appeal as just a good time, have fun movie. I enjoyed it quite a bit.
But I have wondered: do movies like this one shift our values as a culture? When you think about it, the "good guys" in the movie are thieves. The "bad guy" is the guy who double crosses the thieves. While a double cross is nothing unusual, the difference to me in this film is that the thieves are portrayed as the good guys. I perceived them that way, I was rooting for them to get their revenge against Steve and was happy when they did. But yet they were still thieves.
By portraying the thieves as good guys as morally more "right" (by comparison) than the bad guy, are we slightly de-sensitized to right and wrong? Does it shift our values and make us look at things in a more morally relative way? Or am I just way off base here and reading too much into a fun, entertaining movie?
Just a question. And yes, I can't wait for "
The Brazilian Job". I hope it's as entertaining as "
The Italian Job".