Dispatch from the Razor's Edge, the Blog of Michael Stephen Fuchs
2002.09.18 : Random Smack!
(From the American Highway)

Dateline: Spartanburg-ish, South Carolina
"Quality Hotel" [sic]



FACTOID: The state of North Carolina built its Vietnam War Veterans Memorial as part of one of its Interstate Highway 85 South rest stops. It has multiple sand-filled ashtrays built in to the outlying arms of the structure.


SOME ALTERNATE METHODS OF SPEED LIMIT ENFORCEMENT – OTHER THAN, BUT NO LESS INTIMIDATING THAN, "BY AIRCRAFT" – THAT WE'D AT LEAST LIKE TO SEE SIGNS FOR:

  • Speed Limit Enforced By Dragons
  • Speed Limit Enforced By Artillery
  • Speed Limit Enforced By Spiked Pits With Trap Doors
  • Speed Limit Enforced By Physical Constraints Inherent In The Standard Model Of Particle Physics
  • Speed Limit Enforced By Vikings
  • Speed Limit Enforced By Normative Standards, Peer Pressure, And Basic Modern Western Acculturation
  • Speed Limit Enforced By Flamethrowers
  • Speed Limit Enforced By State Department Of Corrections Inmates, Guys Up On 20-Year-Plus Bits For Unspeakably Violent Acts, Specially Transported Out To Our Nation's Highway Shoulders, And Armed With Shivs And Brickbats
  • Speed Limit Enforced By YOUR MOM! ("Arrggh, your mom!")

QUIZ!: Which of the following are North Carolina Attractions (according to the wall displays in the Visitor Center at the above-referenced rest stop), and which are Bowel Disorders?
A. Crohns
B. Carowinds
C. Colitis
D. Hanging Rock
E. Loose Stool
F. Roaring Gap
answer key


FACTOID: Huge Cigarettes are (evidently) widely available at numerous Outlets throughout North Carolina.

TRAVELERS TIP (1): If you're broken down on the side of the highway in rural South Carolina [sic] waiting for a tow truck, and you've maybe been slugging away quite a lot of bottled water while bopping down the road, it is possible, at least if you're of the convex gender, to open both passenger-side doors, and – hidden between them – pretty discreetly urinate right from the passenger seat onto the grassy shoulder.

TRAVELERS TIP (2): If you're looking to generate some really authentic and pleasingly dramatic billowing clouds of steam from under your hood, as you're pulled over on the shoulder in rural South Carolina, it appears that a broken water pump is the hands-down winning solution. But be advised – new water pumps appear to cost ~$USD350.00, and can't necessarily be installed the same day. (*).
  humour     travel     random smack  
about
close photo of Michael Stephen Fuchs

Fuchs is the author of the novels The Manuscript and Pandora's Sisters, both published worldwide by Macmillan in hardback, paperback and all e-book formats (and in translation); the D-Boys series of high-tech, high-concept, spec-ops military adventure novels – D-Boys, Counter-Assault, and Close Quarters Battle (coming in 2016); and is co-author, with Glynn James, of the bestselling Arisen series of special-operations military ZA novels. The second nicest thing anyone has ever said about his work was: "Fuchs seems to operate on the narrative principle of 'when in doubt put in a firefight'." (Kirkus Reviews, more here.)

Fuchs was born in New York; schooled in Virginia (UVa); and later emigrated to the San Francisco Bay Area, where he lived through the dot-com boom. Subsequently he decamped for an extended period of tramping before finally rocking up in London, where he now makes his home. He does a lot of travel blogging, most recently of some very  long  walks around the British Isles. He's been writing and developing for the web since 1994 and shows no particularly hopeful signs of stopping.

You can reach him on .

THE MANUSCRIPT by Michael Stephen Fuchs
PANDORA'S SISTERS by Michael Stephen Fuchs
DON'T SHOOT ME IN THE ASS, AND OTHER STORIES by Michael Stephen Fuchs
D-BOYS by Michael Stephen Fuchs
COUNTER-ASSAULT by Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN, Book One - Fortress Britain, by Glynn James & Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN, Book Two - Mogadishu of the Dead, by Glynn James & Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN : Genesis, by Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN Book Three - Three Parts Dead, by Glynn James & Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN Book Four - Maximum Violence, by Glynn James & Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN Book Five - EXODUS, by Glynn James & Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN Book Six - The Horizon, by Glynn James & Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN, Book Seven - Death of Empires, by Glynn James & Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN, Book Eight - Empire of the Dead by Glynn James & Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN : NEMESIS by Michael Stephen Fuchs

ARISEN, Book Nine - Cataclysm by Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN, Book Ten - The Flood by Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN, Book Eleven - Deathmatch by Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN, Book Twelve - Carnage by Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN, Book Thirteen - The Siege by Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN, Book Fourteen - Endgame by Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN : Fickisms
ARISEN : Odyssey
ARISEN : Last Stand
ARISEN : Raiders, Volume 1 - The Collapse
ARISEN : Raiders, Volume 2 - Tribes
Black Squadron
ARISEN : Raiders, Volume 3 - Dead Men Walking
ARISEN : Raiders, Volume 4 - Duty
ARISEN : Raiders, Volume 5 - The Last Raid
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