S. Evan Townsend's Blog, page 16

Mandatory Supercar Training

There's a saying at the racetrack that goes "Money can't buy talent or skill." But it can buy too much car for someone to handle. For instance, the 2023 Corvette Z06 puts out an astonishing 670 horsepower. Frankly, that much power scares me. But I'd still love to drive one.

To be honest, my Corvette Z06 with 505 horsepower scared me until the day I sold it. Especially when I was doing 155 mph on the racetrack.

They used to call the old Porsche 911 Turbo (in the 70s) the "dentist killer." Because dentists (and other people with money) would buy one and not understand how that rear-engined car and the turbo boost works. They would take a corner and stomp on the gas at exit. The turbo would up the horsepower breaking the rear tires loose and the engine would work like a pendulum, and the car would spin and wrap around a tree. This was decades before traction control.

After an accident that killed a teenage girl, South Australia is thinking of requiring mandatory supercar training for those who buy such vehicles. They are also thinking of banning turning off traction control. 

This is not a bad idea. A lot of people buy too much car for their talents and skill (the racetrack is a great place to acquire skills). Some training maybe a good thing. I learned quickly not to turn off the traction control in my Corvette. I also never floored the gas unless I had a long straight bit of road ahead of me. That car was scary quick. You could easily get to 100 mph in the time lesser cars took to get to 60.

And that was after I paid to get trained at the racetrack. 

What do you think of mandatory supercar training? Is it a good idea or just government overreach? Let me know in the comments below.

The Best EV You Can Buy Now is Not an EV

Toyota PriusI'm not 100% against electric vehicles (EVs). There are some problems to solve. One is battery disposal. Maybe someone can come up with a way to make new batteries out of old ones. I don't know. 

My biggest issue with EVs is the range. The highest EPA range (which is not realistic for real-world conditions) is the Lucid Air at 520 miles. You can probably cut that by at least half if it's too hot, too cold, too hilly, or just plain not perfect. Plus the Lucid Air sells for $169,000 which is a little more than I want to spend on a car.

But there's a solution to the range problem: have a internal combustion engine (ICE) as a backup. The Chevrolet Volt was such a car, but it's been discontinues. Cars such as the Volt are called "Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles" or PHEVs. 

Despite the demise of the Volt, Toyota makes two PHEVs: a plug-in Prius, and a plug-in RAV4 small SUV hybrid. Volvo makes one, the XC60 Recharge. I thought those were the only three until I saw this list from Car and Driver. There are a lot more than I thought from Ford to Ferrari.

The advantage is, you can plug in the car overnight and charge its battery. Toyota claims a 25 miles battery-only range for the Prius and a 42 mile range for the RAV4. The Volvo says its range on electric-only is "up 35 miles." That could get you to work and back, or around town running errands. Then when you need to go on a longer trip, you have the ICE to back you up.

Am I going to buy one of these cars? Not yet. I bet for a lot of them either the driving experience is awful or they are very expensive (or both).

(Question: How well do EVs such as the Tesla corner?)

But for a lot of people, the plug-in hybrids might be the perfect EV.

What do you think? Let me know in the comments below.

SpoCon

 

I will be at SpoCon this weekend at the Davenport Hotel, downtown Spokane. 

Here are my scheduled events:

Friday:

1:00 PM: "Care and Feeding of a Writers Group" Matador Room

4:00 PM: "Flash Fiction: What is it?" Matador Room

7:00 PM: "That's too Political" State Room A

Saturday:

10:00 AM: "Navigating Your Debut Novel" Matador Room

11:00 AM: "Creatures" Matador Room

3:00 PM: I'll be doing a reading in State Room B

4:00 PM "Write What You Know" State Room B

I hope to see you there! 

Old Halloween Costumes

When I was a kid in the 1960s (yes, I'm that old), Halloween costumes you bought in the store were awful. For example, see the picture at left. What you usually got was a mask and a plastic top (that would probably go up in flames if it touched fire) that had a picture of the character and often their logo/name. The Bambi "costume" in the middle is a perfect example.

And, at the time, I thought "that's not a very good costume, it's more like an ad my parents pay for me to wear." So, I often wore homemade costumes. I don't ever remember wearing one of those abominations.

One year, my mother found a mask that was translucent and make me look like an adult male. I wore that with a tie a sportcoat to be an adult. I once made a robot costume out of a Clorox bottle and a devil costume. I don't remember any of my other costumes from when I was that young.

What kind of costumes did you wear at Halloween? What do you think of the costumes shown above? Let me know in the comments below.

Driving Shoes

 I used to think the notion of buying driving shoes was pretty ridiculous. I would see ads for them in car magazines. Ridiculous, that is, unless you are racing then you needed flame-resistant Nomex shoes. But for everyday driving, a good pair of running shoes would work.

Then I got the wrong shoes. For casual use, I always buy Asics Gel running shoes. They fit my feet and if I get the right size, I don't even have to try them on. They just fit. It's great.

Then I accidentally got a pair whose bottom looked like this:

(I think these are "trail running shoes.") And the way the bottom was made affected my driving.I'd go to brake and the car wouldn't slow as fast as I thought it should. I'd have to adjust my foot to get full braking power. I still don't understand why. But they definitely made driving more difficult.

So I recently replaced those shoes with shoes that look like this:

And the difference is amazing. When I brake, the car slows as much as I intend it to. 

So maybe driving shoes are not such a strange idea. But they are expensive.

Have you noticed different shoes affect your driving? Let me know in the comments below.

Are Public Bathrooms Public?

One time I was driving in Portland, Oregon on my way to see my grandchild. And I desperately needed to go to the bathroom. Traffic was moving slow otherwise I would have waited to get to the hotel. 

I saw a sign for a Starbucks at the next exit, so I took it. But the exit wasn't a simple one. There were multiple roads that could be accessed from that exit. And no signs for Starbucks. So I took a random road. There were no Starbucks there that I could find.

Now I don't feel bad about going into a Starbucks and only using their bathroom. I spend a lot of money at Starbucks. But I couldn't find a Starbucks. So I stopped at a McDonalds. But this was at the tail end of the pandemic (and Oregon was still pretty locked down) and only the drive through was open. Finally I found a gas station. I went inside. The bathroom was locked so I asked for the key. They gave it to me and I used the bathroom. Ahhhhhhhh.

As I was leaving (after returning the key), the manager glared at me since I didn't buy anything. Not even a bag of chips and certainly not gasoline. I feel kind of bad about that. But not too bad.

Sometimes you see signs such as "Bathrooms are for customers only." But when you need to go, you need to go. 

Conversely, on the way to Portland there's a gas station that we often stop at to use the bathroom. And I almost always buy something to drink and maybe a small bag of chips. I think the reason I do that is because we stop there often. The gas station in Portland I'll likely never be to again. I probably couldn't find it again if I tried.

What do you think? Do you think public bathrooms should be open to the public? Or is it okay to say "customers only"? Let me know in the comments below.

Book Review: Good Omens

I was looking for a new book to read (after re-reading The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein) and a friend recommended Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman (the complete title is Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch).

The book is a fantasy set in the '80s (at least before cars had CD players). It is often laugh-out-loud funny at first, but then it settles into simply being amusing. As a writer, I know it's tough to maintain humor for a whole manuscript. It's set in England and some of the terminology is different than the US. For example, a telephone answering machine is called an "ansaphone." 

The story is that the forces of good and evil are about to clash for the end of the world battle (Armageddon). But first, the baby antiChrist needs to be brought to Earth. But then there's a mixup at the hospital and the antiChrist is... misplaced. And somehow an angel and a demon (who are unlikely friends) never figure it out.

I usually do my reading at Starbucks and I had at least five people come up to me and tell me this is their favorite book. It's a good book, but I don't see that it's worth being one's favorite. It's an amusing and fun read. I would recommend it easily. Maybe it was the buildup my friend gave it, but I was actually a bit let down by the whole thing. There was clever writing and clever takes on the whole end-of-the-world that the Bible predicts. For example, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypses ride motorcycles, not horses, and War is a woman.

So, yes, read this book. It's amusing. 

Have you read Good Omens? What did you think of it. Let me know in the comments below.

My Favorite Bit of Opera

I'm taking a break from writing about cars today!
I have eclectic tastes in music. I can listen to most any music except rap/hip-hop and jazz. I can even listen to old country music.

Every now and then I just have to listen to my favorite bit of opera. It's the "Flower Duet" ("Sous le dôme épais") from the opera Lakmé, written by Léo Delibes. The opera was first performed in 1883.

I've never seen the whole opera and I don't really want to. It would be interesting but after the "Flower Duet" in Act 1, I'm sure the rest of the opera would be a let down.

I think it's likely the most beautiful piece of music ever written and performed. 

Judge for yourself here. That is the best performance of it I can find online. 

Even if you hate opera, give it a shot.

Let me know what you think in the comments below. 

Video Game Instrument Panels

Oh, man, I'm writing about cars again!

There's a trend in automobiles, especially high-end ones, that I don't like. I call it the "video game instrument panel." The car industry called it the "digital instrument panel." In any case, I don't like it. It looks cheap to me.

My current car has what I guess could be called a hybrid instrument panel. There is a real tachometer and a real speedometer and between them is a digital display that can show various information. I like this set up. It is classic and it's useful. And it doesn't look cheap.

Maybe digital instrument panels are expensive. I don't know. So maybe that's why car makers think they are cool. And, yes, they are much more versatile than fixed dials. But no matter how expensive they are, they look cheap to me.

But I'm probably stuck with digital "video game" panels because that's what automakers are moving toward. Maybe I don't want to buy a new car soon.

How do you feel about digital instrument panels. Am I making a big deal out of nothing. Let me know in the comments below.

Sip and Stroll in Moses Lake

Tomorrow (the 17th) I will be participating as an artist in the Moses Lake Downtown Association's "Sip and Stroll." (It used to be called the "Wine Walk" until they started bringing in distilled spirits in addition to wine.)

I will be at Skaug Brothers Carpet One Floor & Home, 222 East Third Avenue, selling and signing my exciting urban fantasy and science fiction novels. Hope to see you there! 

Judith Ann McDowell will also be there.

More information on the Sip and Stroll can be found here (scroll down a bit). You can also buy tickets there. VIP tickets get you access early (at noon).

Here's some of the books I'll be selling: