S. Evan Townsend's Blog, page 9

Why Does Car Exhaust Sound so Good?

A while back I was watching a reel on Facebook of a Shelby Daytona replica running. Not moving, just sitting there idling. And the sound of its V8 engine was... almost erotic. I loved the sound. Then I watched another reel of what looked like a Shelby Cobra accelerating.
And it got me wondering: why do I love the sound of a car engine and its exhaust. And I know I'm not the only one who does.

In fact, I feel sorry for future generations who will only have the hum of electric motors coming from their cars.

I have a theory about why some people, such as me, like the sound of a car's exhaust and engine noises. We associate the sound with good times we've had in cars: accelerating, cornering, braking. For example, when I drove on a racetrack. Doing those things for some people releases dopamine. And that makes me love the sounds associated with them. Such as engine exhaust.

And that's why, I think, some people love the sound of car exhaust and engine noise. I know I do. 

For a lot of exhaust and engine noise, watch this.

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

I Was a Victim of Censorship

I remember watching a few episodes of Star Trek (the Original Series) in first run. The one I remember most is "The Changeling." I would have been six at the time. I didn't get to watch Star Trek a lot because my older siblings didn't like it.

But then when I was a teenager, a local station started showing reruns of Star Trek in the afternoon, right after I got home from school. They showed them every weekday. And I watched them, every weekday. There are 79 TOS episodes (of varying quality). But I only saw 77 of them. 

(If they only showed 77, it must have only taken 15 weeks to show them all. I know I watched them all multiple times.)

A kid moved from the Los Angeles area to the small town I lived in in Idaho. Don't ask me why. We became friends. And one day he said "What are Little Girls Made Of" was one of his favorite episodes. And I had to admit that I'd never seen it. He was shocked. I was shocked. I didn't know that episode existed.

Apparently my local television station wouldn't show it. They finally decided to show "Turnabout Intruder" at some point but only once or twice. 

I was mad that my local station decided to censor my Star Trek watching. Admittedly, I grew up in a pretty conservative part of the world (southeast Idaho). But why should a TV station decide what I can and can't watch? It might have been what Sherry Jackson as Andrea was wearing (see above photo). I don't know.

How do you feel about others making decisions about what you can read or watch? Let me know in the comments below.

The above photo is being used under Section 107 of the Copyright Act: fair usage.

A Little Story

Sometimes (well, often) being a writer brings some fun to the world. For example:

Since we've remodeled our shower, my wife has decreed that the last person showering in the morning will squeegee the glass doors. And most of the time, that's me.

So to entertain myself, I made up a little story about it. And here it goes:

"Here's the brave, world-famous window washer thousands of feet above the street. One false move and he'll plummet to a gruesome death on the asphalt below. Or worse, the windows will have streaks."

And that's it. I find that entertaining while I'm squeegeeing the glass doors.

Appliance Hell

Recently my appliances have put me through hell. 

First, the freezer seemed to be going too high a temperature because I was finding ice in the ice bin that looked melted and refrozen.

So I bought a thermometer that recorded temperatures. And I was right. Temperatures ranged from 29.7°F to -14.3°F. I called my appliance repair guy and told him about it. He said he'd look into the cost of the new thermostat but he thought it might be as much as $400. And since the fridge is old, we might want to consider just buying a new one (which would be about $1,000). 

The day after I talked to him, that fridge stopped making ice (and I love my ice). So I called him about that and he said let's figure out if we want to replace it or not. So we were buying ice and keeping it in our other, older fridge which seems to work fine.

Then, about the same day, our dishwasher wouldn't drain and smelled like something plastic was burning. I didn't call the guy this time. I decided to wait until he called back about the fridge. But I was worried I might have to buy a new dishwasher now

The broken pumpSo he shows up and puts a new thermostat in the fridge. Then he discovers the water line to the ice maker is frozen (likely happened when the temp in the freezer reached -14.3°F). So he cleaned that out too and now the ice maker is working.

And then he found the dishwasher's drain pump is not working so he's going to order a new one and put it in.

So a few days later he brought in a new pump, installed it. And everything worked fine... for about two weeks.

Then the dishwasher wasn't filling. Repair guy came and ordered a new filter because junk in the recirculation pump wasn't letting the dishwasher fill.

A few days later he returned and put in the new filter and the dishwasher is working fine (and more quietly). So far, so good. Let's hope that stays.

Have you had problems with your appliances? What was the outcome? Let me know in the comments below.

February Wasn't That Bad

At the beginning of February, I posted on this blog how that month is the worst month of the year.

Except this year. While January had frigid weather (down to -5F at night once), February was rather mild. Lots of rain, however. In early February, highs almost reached 50F. In the middle of February, highs did reach the 50s. Amazing. 

It snowed once but it melted off fast. 

The biggest problem with this February was fog. It seemed ubiquitous, especially in the mornings. We did have a few days of sunshine, but dang few.

Toward the end of the month it got cooler but sunny. Which is much better than foggy.

How was your February? Let me know in the comments below.

Five Thursdays

This is the fifth Thursday in February. February only has five Thursdays because this is a leap year and it's the 29th of February.  I started wondering how much that happens. And I think, it happens every four years to a different weekday. So I investigated.

In 2020, February had five Saturdays, and the last one was the leap day.

In 2016, February had five Mondays (groan) and the last one was the leap day!

In 2012, February had five Wednesdays, and the last one was the leap day.

So apparently this is how leap days work: they are always the fifth day of their weekday.

I'm in my 60s and I never noticed that before. That's amazing.

What about the world did you not notice until late in your life? Let me know in the comments below.

And why do leap years have to be election years? Another day of campaigning. That we don't need.

Errors in the Lord of the Rings Movies

I love the Lord of the Rings movies. They are among my favorite movies. I watch them every few months, it seems. I have the extended versions on 4K Blu-ray so the picture looks amazing.
Even if I come across them while channel flipping, I'll stop and watch them.

I'm more of a science fiction guy, but I still love the Lord of the Rings.

But as I keep watching them, I have noticed some... errors. Not deviations from the novels (lots of those), but errors in the movies themselves.

For example, big cities such as Minas Tirith will be full of people (and horses), but there's no farmland around the city to provide food for them. Same with Edoras, the capital of Rohan. I'm not sure if Tolkien talked about farmland around those cities (it's been a while since I've read the books). The Shire seems to be, in the movies, the only place growing food.

There are other errors. For example, in The Two Towers, Frodo, Sam, and Gollum are on a ridge overlooking the Black Gate of Mordor. But in Return of the King, when Aragon leads an army to the gate, the ridge has disappeared. Also, in that battle in front of the Black Gate, Aragon and others ride there on horses. But when the battle starts, the horses disappear. 

Speaking of horses. When they reach the Mines of Moria (Khazad-dûm), they let the horse Bill go because he can't go through the mines. But that horse has never been with them before since leaving Rivendell. In the novel, Bill is with them after they leave Bree.

In The Two Towers, a Uruk-hai climbs up on a big boulder to start the battle. But later when Gandalf leads the Rohirrim against the Uruk-hai, the boulder is gone.

Have you noticed any other errors in the movies? Let me know in the comments below. There are probably a lot more (see here, here, and here).

The above photo is being used under Section 107 of the Copyright Act: fair usage.

Character Names

Someone posted in a writers' group on Facebook "How do you select the names of your characters?" 

That's a tough one. Coming up with character names is one of the most annoying parts of writing for me. My seven book series Chumba of the Intelligence Corps/Treasures of Space/Death to the Emperor the main character's moniker is "Titus Chumba."  I have no idea where I came up with that. But in Treasures of Space and Death to the Emperor, he uses a lot of pseudonyms since he's hiding from the Core Empire. The main one is "Rick Bailey." How did I come up with all those names? I have no idea nor memory of doing it. When it comes to main characters, I tend to make up a name I like.

But then there are the secondary characters. For those, I will often use a random name generator. I like the one because of all the options. Or sometimes I just want a quick one, so I'll use .

In Rock Killer, the main character's name was Alexander Chun. I decided I wanted a Korean-American name (I'd just graduated from the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, CA, where I studied Korean when I started writing it). But other names, I just made up (I wrote most of this book before I discovered the internet in 1994).

How do you come up with character names? Let me know in the comments below.

 

Husky Heartbreak

The week of January 8th was a heartbreaking one for fans of the University of Washington Huskies football program. Such as myself.
You know I love my Huskies. Even when they went 0-12 in 2008. 

Then, this season after an amazing year where we went 12-0 in the regular season, won the Pac-12 championship game (against Oregon!), and won the Sugar Bowl to go 14-0, we lost badly in the CFP championship game to Michigan. We were so hoping to bring back a football championship to the Pac-12 in its last year of existence as a Power 5 conference. (The fate of the Pac-12 is still in the air as all but two schools left it). 

After losing the CFP championship game, our coach, Kalen DeBoer, announced he was going to Alabama, who had just had their coach retire. That was almost too much to bear. I was literally depressed for at least a week. And a lot of players announced they were going into the NFL draft or were going to the transfer portal.

We went from the highs of winning the Sugar Bowl on January 1st to the lows of January 9th.

In addition, Pete Carroll announced he's retiring as head coach of the Seahawks. That didn't upset me a lot (I'm sort of a fair-weather Seahawks fan), but it did add to the devastation for the community.

The Huskies have named a new head coach in Arizona's Jedd Fisch. He was, in my opinion, a good pick. Not a great pick, but a good one. He did turn around an ailing Arizona team.  He'll have a big job at Washington as most, if not all, of the good players have left. 

I was so looking forward to next year when we might do better than this year (that is, win the championship) with DeBoer as our coach. But now I'm just hoping we have a winning season and beat Oregon and Washington State. I'm hoping,

February is the Worst

In my opinion, February is the worst month of the year. There's almost nothing to look forward to and the weather is usually awful. Some people say January is bad. But to me, it's February that's the worst.

Sure there's Valentines Day, or as two of my sons call it, "Single Awareness Day." Or "Mandatory Romance Day."

There's George Washington's Birthday, which if you work in some businesses or government, you might get off. But most don't. And there's no Christmas or New Years to look forward to. Just bleak, cold days.

Bleak because February is usually the coldest month. I'm not sure why because the solstice is in late December. You'd think as daylight hours increase, it would get warmer. However, in February, the snow is deeper and the wind is more cutting than any other month.

It's like August is the hottest month, usually, but the solstice is in June. Maybe the Earth retains heat and it takes until February to dissipate it all. 

I don't know.

Do you know why February is so bad? And how do you feel about February? Let me know in the comments below.