It only took twenty years, a few formatting meltdowns, and one deeply philosophical debate over the plural of "bone yard"—but Bartering Nola is finally here. Originally written back in the early 2000s, this novella has spent the better part of two decades loitering in the weird space
Author's Note: This selection is from an attempt at a longer version of Bartering Nola that never quite materialized. In addition to molding it into a full-length novel, I also tried to tie it back into the larger Vinestead Universe. Obrego, for example, has an Ayudante biochip, which
Strapped into a go-kart, heart pounding, helmet damp with someone else’s sweat, all I can think is: please, not again. I'm in Group 2, tail end of the lineup, listening to a teenage attendant deliver the safety speech with the enthusiasm of a bro-skibidi-rizz TED talk. He&
My content calendar insists today is for a personal update, so here we are, broadcasting another Weekly Uplink straight from the Verastiqui neural stack. Let’s get into it before the system times out. Going W̶i̶d̶e̶ Right Back to Amazon I still don’t know what to
How convenience, compromise, and capitalism is breaking the indie dream. 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,
May 2, 2025 – Austin, TX 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
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
Date of Notification: April 25, 2025 Dear VNet Account Holder, Thank you for choosing Vinestead International’s Virtual Reality Network (“VNet”) as your platform for immersive digital experiences. We are committed to safeguarding your personal information and are writing to inform you of a recent security incident that may have
Perfect protest. No notes. Preserving for posterity. As seen on Reddit.
Let it not be said that I have a problem with the English. I don’t. They’re a lovely people—clever, polite, and adorned with delightful accents that sound like they were born in velvet robes and Oxford libraries. I find those accents hilarious, not in a mocking way,
At my last job, I built a web app called Central, and I loved it like a firstborn. It was a sleek, efficient, under-documented monstrosity that pulled customer data from disparate sources and unified it into a single, moderately coherent interface. Sales could use it to figure out why people
For the longest time, Amazon was all a self-published author really needed. Upload your book, let them assign you an ISBN, and boom—you're published. Simple. Easy. Almost too easy. But now that I'm stepping outside the walled garden and going wide, I'm running