/var/log/daniel

By the end of the 1980s, my dad’s Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme was starting to show signs of aging. As a kid, I knew nothing of the mechanical problems plaguing The Great Silver Beast, but something must have been wrong if we were borrowing my grandmother’s car for a road trip. That was fine with me at the time, because it… Read more: The Little Man Will Tell You

After a brief and underwhelming sabbatical from the Church of Bezos, I’ve returned—head bowed, tail tucked, and ready to once again sell my wares in the temple. You know, the one Jeebus flipped tables over because it had become a marketplace? That one. Except this temple is digital, frictionless, and disturbingly efficient. And instead of doves and shekels, it trades… Read more: Going Narrow: A Practical Guide to Buckling Like a Belt

In retrospect, turning 45 was a mistake. Ever since that fateful day in March, bad things have been happening to me—things even Cool Daniel or Even Steven Daniel can’t seem to reconcile. There was the you have angry old man shoulder just deal with it diagnosis from my orthopedist, the now that I have you trapped in this little room… Read more: Opinions Are Like Colonoscopy Stories: Everybody Has One

Enter the Behemoth I’m pretty sure the phrase “love-hate relationship” was invented in anticipation of how I would feel about Amazon in 2025. I remember–decades ago now–being at the library on base in Misawa, asking the librarian to help me find a book. When it didn’t come up in her inventory, she said, “Wait, let me check Amazon.” That was… Read more: Ethics vs. Exposure: The Dilemma of Publishing with Amazon

The sky in Austin today couldn’t make up its mind. Half of it looked like a dingy bedsheet, bleached and stretched, and the other a bruised knuckle, blue to almost black. Rain was coming. The kind of rain that makes you reach for something hot and comforting or, in my case, cold and chemical: a Red Bull. I’d been up… Read more: What Can I Say Except Dou Itashimashite

On friendship, fate, and existential nihilism Every time I drive somewhere in Austin, it feels a little like visiting a childhood home and finding it now serves poke bowls and bespoke dog treats. The city is growing, the roads are getting wider, and what used to be sleepy two-lane drags are now roaring 75-mile-per-hour thoroughfares with exit ramps that seem… Read more: Four Hours at Jacoby’s