Jolt Country

Do you feel this statement is true?

"Most of the dialogue in his books consists of character 1 asking character 2 what Paul wishes people would ask him, so character 2/Paul can give their opinion about it."?

Do you? DO you? DO YOU?!

Tdarcos wrote:it might turn out to be a decent novel.

There aren't enough mind control devices in the world, "Captain".

I hope everyone else got the Doug Adams reference, though.

Funny, I missed that spell check. Oh well.

Plot Holes wrote:

AArdvark wrote:I would take the easiest course of action and use it at fast food drive thrus where I could blip the cashiers to hand out my order and all the money in the register. Eight or nine stops and there would be a similar amount in hand as would be in an average bank robbery. Plus all the McNuggets you can eat. Not as exciting as bank robbery though.

Or you could just stand at the end of a drive-thru and convince the first driver of a Cadillac to hand over the keys and title to their car. That would net you both a $50,000 car AND some McNuggets.

Exactly how do you get the title to the car? (1) Most people lease cars that expensive, they don't own the car and they don't get the title; (2) Most of the rest are financing their car if they're buying it, and thus they don't have the title either until it's paid off; (3) If someone does actually own their car, they are not going to have the title in the car, it's most likely at home in their important papers file (that's where I kept the title to the cars I owned).

Here in Virginia and Maryland the title looks like a birth certificate or other official document with raised edges and seals. When I was in California, the title looks almost the same as the registration card, except it's pink and the registration is white. (This is why most TV shows and films, which are made in California, refer to the title document as the "pink slip") On the pink slip is the notice "DO NOT KEEP THIS DOCUMENT IN THE VEHICLE."

Yeah, I know it was probably a rhetorical question, but you need to be better at rhetoric if you want to seriously question someone's ideas.

Then convince them to mail it to you when they get home.

Better yet, take the first car that comes along, drive it to the nearest used car dealership, and use your mind control device to convince the salesman that it's a $50,000 Cadillac and the napkin you just handed him was the title.

Plot Holes wrote:Then convince them to mail it to you when they get home.

And again, how do you get them to mail you the title which they do not have? The vast majority of cars are leased, not sold, and the person never gets title because they turn the lease vehicle in at the end of the lease. And to get the title means the lienholder has to release it, and the release of lien has to be recorded with the DMV. So now you have to visit some city in South Dakota (because a credit provision crossing state lines ignores any state limit on usury, and South Dakota eliminated caps on interest rates to encourage banks to move there), get the correct clerk to release the lien, then go back and sell the car to a dealer.

In fact, there is a provision for a title never being issued because the lienholder simply has the title information kept with the DMV until the lien is released, then at that time the title is issued. It's called "electronic title" and it means the information has to clear through the DMV computer (which is where the true title information is held) rather than on paper, and is never issued on paper until the lienholder is satisfied.

Plot Holes wrote:Better yet, take the first car that comes along, drive it to the nearest used car dealership, and use your mind control device to convince the salesman that it's a $50,000 Cadillac and the napkin you just handed him was the title.

Now, that's an interesting idea. But as I see it, if he's going to steal, it's either from large companies or from very wealthy people. He may be wierd, but he doesn't want to hurt little people who are scrounging to make a living. Make it a car dealership that cheated people, and that's a different story. Actually, that might work.

But then you get other problems. What's the serial number of the title? You'd have to actually have one to fake it. Why won't the DMV computer accept the transfer request so the dealer can issue temporary tags when they sell it? Now you've got more people to try to convince, and the first rule of a good scam is you want to manipulate as few people as possible lest someone figures out what's going on.

I am going to get rid of the entire scene, as I said, and either drop it entirely or make it a kind of dream sequence where he's thinking about what to do, and then realizes - for the reasons discussed above - the dye pack scenario won't work, but having the guy rob an armored truck might work, The guy reads the crook's mind and discovered he's committed other crimes including a couple of murders they didn't know he did, so the guards are told to remember the wrong getaway car which the crook loaded the money into before they shot him, but they missed the car.

If I do that, I may just drop the robbery idea altogether, the story doesn't require it, it's a filler in part and while it can give more insight into The Takeover Man's character, it can be left out with no loss to the story.

I wonder if this story would work as an IF game, put the robbery in as an option which you must not take because no matter what you choose it ends up badly.

Tdarcos wrote:The vast majority of cars are leased, not sold

Citation?

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:Do you feel this statement is true?

"Most of the dialogue in his books consists of character 1 asking character 2 what Paul wishes people would ask him, so character 2/Paul can give their opinion about it."?

Do you? DO you? DO YOU?!

Answer the question please, Commander.

Flack wrote:

Tdarcos wrote:The vast majority of cars are leased, not sold

Citation?

With car leasing on the rebound from a low of 12 percent of financing deals in August 2009 to 26 percent as of March 2011

26% < the vast majority

That was kind of my joke. Thank you for not getting it.

I got it; TDarcos wouldn't. I was reiterating it for his sake.

Thu Mar 08, 2012 9:39 pm

Flack wrote: Thu Mar 08, 2012 7:39 pm

Tdarcos wrote:The vast majority of cars are leased, not sold

Citation?

I happened to notice this from eight years ago that I never answered. And I was wrong in that I said "leased" when I should have said "financed." According to Experian, 85% of New Passenger Vehicles Are Financed, 54% of used vehicles are. I think that qualifies as "vast majority"
https://www.experian.com/blogs/ask-expe ... ebt-study/
I seriously doubt there was a sudden increase in the percentage of people financing cars.

Tdarcos wrote: Thu Aug 20, 2020 12:45 pm Thu Mar 08, 2012 9:39 pm

Flack wrote: Thu Mar 08, 2012 7:39 pm

Tdarcos wrote:The vast majority of cars are leased, not sold

Citation?

I happened to notice this from eight years ago that I never answered. And I was wrong in that I said "leased" when I should have said "financed." According to Experian, 85% of New Passenger Vehicles Are Financed, 54% of used vehicles are. I think that qualifies as "vast majority"
https://www.experian.com/blogs/ask-expe ... ebt-study/
I seriously doubt there was a sudden increase in the percentage of people financing cars.

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