Yeah we have that here too. And 3-4x the impact because of measuring in litres not gallons.

Ok apparently Illinois has a 39c per gallon gasoline tax, another 18c in federal, and another 6% or so on state sales tax, plus any regional sales tax. It’s unclear whether the sales tax applies to the gasoline tax (in NZ it does), but let’s assume it doesn’t. Then that’s $3 - 0.39 - 0.18 = $2.43 then remove 6% tax is 2.43/106*100 = $2.29

We can probably knock a bit more off because there is probably some regional/city sales tax but it should be the right ballpark.

It does seem we pay about the same for petrol, though from what I’ve been searching up, this is wildly different across states because states have much different ways of paying for roads (e.g. Hawai’i is mostly taxed at the pump where as Alaska has big taxes on oil extraction to keep taxes for residents low, including for roading).

Huh, the US gets another layer more confusing. Tax is included in gas prices but not in anything else? How do the arguments for not including that tax in the price stack up when gas stations are already including it?

Taxes throw things out because everyone does it different. What are the sans-tax prices?

There is a book called Factfulness where they talk about presenting the UN scientists their own data and surprising them at the standard of living in many third world countries. People’s ideas of third world countries is based on what they were like in the 50s, but many are catching up to the developed world in leaps and bounds.

In NZ it’s roughly $2.50NZD per litre minimum, or $5.31USD per gallon. This is roughly 50% tax (it’s how we pay for roads, plus is subject to sales tax), so a bit over $2USD per gallon at the moment excluding tax.

Is it really $3 a gallon plus tax in the US right now?

I compare it to how I thought mobile phone calls in the US were super cheap, then found out people pay to receive calls, which was super weird to me. Where I live, my whole life it has never been the case that a normal residential connection would pay to receive a call, mobile or not.

Differences in how we do things make differences appear more than they are.

I can’t say I know drumming, but from what I can search up it’s apparently better than nothing. An electronic drum kit is better than a pad but not as good as a real kit. They all have different feels.

However, it seems that doing anything (even air drumming) is better than doing nothing.

If you are serious, then investigate lessons. You might be able to use real drums at your lessons and the pad for in-between. The teacher should be able to help you pick good exercises for using on the pad.

From what I’m searching up, it seems if you’re not doing lessons you’ll get bad habits regardless, but it shouldn’t prevent you from starting. Anything is better than doing nothing.

Get a pressure washer. Then you could get a cheap electronic drum pad like this.

If you enjoy the drums you can upgrade to a better set later.

Haha good call. What about “that works the way I want it to?”

What’s the monkey’s paw when simply adding “that works how I expect it to” to the end of any wish?