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I am not going to get into what compelled me to go get a professional portrait taken, maybe not for quite some time, but the portrait itself I will share. Because this is the one where I looked the least like the wretched creature that I am. And I guess I didn’t consciously realize how ugly I am until I had a handful of photographs of myself in good lighting and cringed at the horrible monster in the pictures.
Sigh.
I’m sure I have something to say.
I’m not sure why I can’t say it.
I’ll keep trying, you keep reading, we’ll get there together.
The above linked file is a zip file (created on a Mac, so email me if you have trouble with it on Windows) that contains three files. One is a PDF of the actual unedited text of the ‘book’ I was working on, Untrue Tales Book Three, which was a bit under halfway done when I stopped working on it. Another is a raw text file called ‘booklog’ which is a log I was keeping of when I was writing and my progress and when I was taking drugs or eating or using the bathroom – it was created for my own personal use during the course of the weekend, so I could be sure I ate appropriately, notice if I stopped urinating or something, see how long since I took pain pills, whatever, and it may or may not be interesting and/or offensive to you on its own. The third file, the “Combined Experience” is a PDF which combines the two chronologically, so you can read the novel I was writing and the log I was making of non-novel activities as they occurred in the text (approximately; I did not do the integration until yesterday, and the log was not quite complete enough to be 100% accurate) and get the full picture of my first Single-Sitting-Book attempt experience.
The PDFs have been formatted in a faux-galley layout. If you print them out as they are, single-sided, you can read all the pages in order as though you were looking down on an open book. The pages are numbered for your convenience. Unlike some of my previous PDF-book releases, this one should be easy to print out and read on paper.
It’s important to realize that this is NOT a finished work. There’s a lot more to come, not the least of which is the duel between Trevor and Satan and how Trevor and his companions cope with the unexpected result. Since I never intended for there to be a sex scene in this book, and am not 100% clear on what the future implications of what happened in the one that wrote itself into my mind against my intentions…. I may think about removing that and completely re-writing Nirgal’s experiences. But that’s hard to say. Another thing I’ve considered is re-arranging things, so Nirgal’s comes first, to create a different sort of dramatic tool than irony, but it depends on how things come together in the 1k-2k words after where I stopped. Anyway, there could be major changes to what has already been written, or none at all (save for spelling and basic sentence structure, perhaps making dialogue punchier and more realistic in places), this is the untouched first draft, poured straight from my head. I recommend reading it combined with the booklog.
Also, if you haven’t read Book One and Book Two, you may want to do so before attempting this one. I don’t bother re-explaining everything.
Ugh. I ought to be sleeping.
The MDI Air Car runs on compressed air, and it’s exhaust is air cleaner than the air it takes in as it drives to combine with the compressed air, because it filters it. The car’s air tanks can be refilled by plugging the car into an electrical outlet for several hours, or at a ‘filling station’ which has supercompressed air in about 3 minutes.
I want one of the cars. I have wanted one for … probably about 6 years now. Soon, they will be in production in a way that I can buy one.
But here is the other idea: Find out what the specifications required for the supercompressed air are, what sort of compressor and tank are needed, look up how much those cost, or how much one of their pre-fab setups for selling to gas stations runs. Since the cars’ up-front cost is low (estimated between about 7k and 10k euros, depending on model and options, US pricing yet to come), adding the cost of a home supercompressor for a couple thousand might not be unreasonable.
And more than that, since I could have just plugged it into the wall to recharge it at home anyway, look up what the power requirements for the supercompressor setup are and/or can be adjusted to with the idea of solar power in mind. Also, look up that OTHER kind of solar cell, and its specs. Can I supercompress my own air without burning coal or natural gas or creating nuclear waste somewhere else? (That is, by using electricity.)
If I can, then after production and setup, the vehicle would basically be free and pollution-free to dive. Vehicle maintenance costs would then seem quite reasonable, right?
If I wait for the second generation of vehicles (probably the first generation that is available domestically, they’re already well into development), the ones that have gasoline AND air tanks and which prefer to run on air, but can switch to gas and back again while you’re driving without any trouble at all, and refill their air tanks while you’re driving with gas as your fuel… the car would run for free and pollution free anywhere within it’s air capacity, but its driving range would be significantly extended – not just by what it can do with both tanks full, but because a gasoline infrastructure is already in place. Great in the city and for commuting, but not limited to it, the alternative fuel car that can go on road trips to anywhere, even without needing 6 hours to recharge at an outlet!
I just wrote a sentence containing this, and loved it enough to share:
“… and the rest of the world was the new askew.”