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Gassing Up in New Jersey

Gas! How could you not love gas prices in New Jersey?  It’s on an average 25-30 cents cheaper here than it is back on Long Island.  Closer to 40 if you go a little further south or buy no-name gas.  This isn’t really a big deal of course, it adds up to a couple of bucks a month, but hardly life-changing.  
A bigger difference is that in New Jersey, they don’t trust you to touch the gas pumps.  The first time I filled up as a resident I went to go get out of the car and was initally confused why the attendent was talking to me.  Then I had a “Oh right, this is Jersey” moment and got back in the car.  It’s nice sometimes, particularly when it’s freezing out, but I really prefer to pump my own gas, not have to wait around on the attendent to come and go, and just be my general anti-social self.  Oh well.
It seems gas is going down in price again.  This is obviously good, I’m surprised it’s ever gotten as low as it has now.  Personally, since gas prices are based on speculation or whatever, I don’t know how they ever let it get this low, but that they did I’m glad.  Will it go down further? Only time will tell…however, if it shoots back up again come summer, it’s just going to hurt that much more.
November 21st, 2008 by Ceetar in new jersey
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Election Process

Voting is the same in New York and New Jersey for me.  Basically, both states are strongly democrat, and my vote didn’t really matter.  I’m happy with the outcome of the election, but the process still leaves much to be desired.

 

For one, I don’t understand why Election Day wasn’t Super Tuesday.  Let us all go in, and pick from at least the 6-7 legitimate candidates running around at the time.  This isn’t a tournament bracket where you slowly eliminate people until it’s only two. 

 

My biggest issue is with the process.  Why are any states still using scantron style sheets?  New York, at least on Long Island, usually votes with levers.  In New Jersey, there were buttons to push that lit up little green x’s, and then we pressed the vote button and the machine reset.  If I can get through the massive lines at Starbucks in Penn Station and place a complicated drink order while securely transferring information (money in this case, but could be a encrypted vote packet) digitally to a bank after authenticating my account through a swipe of a piece of plastic, why can’t I vote that way?

November 7th, 2008 by Ceetar in new jersey, new york
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