Upload Complete: Short Stories

I'm happy to report that I've finished uploading all the short stories I care to share to danielverastiqui.com/short-stories. These include selections from The Sum of Memory, Destination Okinawa, and later stories that never made it into a collection. While I'm happy to

Repost: Breaking Up With Amazon (2014)

Cool Daniel doesn't cotton to companies kowtowing, bending the knee, kissing the ring, or otherwise putting profits over morals to appease the human equivalent of a rotting Arby's roast beef sandwich.

This Workout Could Have Been a Cake

Cool Daniel believes in physical fitness and has decided to return to the only fitness option that doesn't technically promise it works: Orange Theory Fitness. Granted, it's a decent, colorful theory: spend an hour lifting, running, and rowing three times a week and just see what

Protector of the Faith

Cal Emerson was in bed, lightly treading the border between wake and sleep, when the call came in.

My God, It's 2025

Who would have ever thought we'd be here, am I right? We are about to enter a period of unbridled chaos that will likely not end until 2029, assuming it ever ends. The summers are too hot, the job market too volatile, and social media too soul-sucking. The

What to Read in 2025

Hello! It's time for another monthly newsletter, but instead of making it all about me, me, me... I'm giving you a few recommendations on what to read in 2025. Some of my friends have launched newsletters, some established tech nerds already have theirs running, and despite

Burning for the Ancient Heavenly Connection

"We gave everything to the machines. Our calendars. Our email. We let them listen in on our conversations with customers and take notes. They wrote marketing posts that other machines summarized for us. We all believed the lie. Nobody wanted to be left behind. The ROI was too attractive.

Consumer In Training

They built a new HEB on the edge of our neighborhood and we’ve been going every few days just for funsies. They’ve got these tiny indoctrinating shopping carts to help teach Rainbow how to be a good consumer. It was fun watching her push the cart until she

Christmas Was the Case They Gave Me

Ain’t that Santa over there? That old man with the red coat on? Yeah, that’s that fool. Roll up on side of him, man. Roll your window down. Hand me my Glock give me another clip. ‘cause I’m gonna smoke this fool. There he go. You Santa?

Cue the Gritty Voiceover

House of Nepenthe (2025)When Kenneth Barnes takes a business trip to his old hometown, he finds himself on the wrong end of a gun. Now in the hospital in a coma, Kenneth’s life begins to flash before his eyes in the form of the House of Nepenthe, an

That's a Future Daniel Problem

Wellity, wellity, wellity… if it isn’t the bridge I said I’d cross when I came to it. Admittedly not my joke, but it is one of the three funniest things I read on the World Wide Web this year. The other two were: 🤣 “I can count on one

How To Use Your Website as Your BlueSky Username

I always thought the BlueSky usernames were a little strange, and recently, I've thought about running my own instance just so I can have a more custom username. But then I tagged Novlr in a post and noticed they had novlr.org as their username! What was this?