I drive a truck for work, my company tracks that statistic for me. 7,467 miles in my truck, in the last 30 days. Not as far as I could go, mathematically speaking, and not counting the miles I’ve done in my car or on foot in that time period. Probably rounds up to 8,000 total.

I did two things on my seventy-fifth birthday. First, I visited my wife’s grave. Then, I joined the army.

• John Scalzi, Old Man’s War

For me, it’s eurobeat. But specifically, eurobeat while I’m driving my car. Ideally, doing something other than rolling down the interstate, merely holding my steering wheel straight for 20 minutes on my way to work.

It’s not exclusively eurobeat, but I use this playlist whenever I find the right road for wringing out my engine a little bit. Or if I realize I’m in a rush and I need to floor it. Sometimes both.

The Mist’s film adaptation has a better ending than the original story. King himself thought so.

29 here. Kinda consider myself between generations.

I smoke tobacco, albeit very, very seldomly. About two packs a year, tops, plus a proper cigar roughly every quarter. Never vaped. Can’t do weed, because my job is federally regulated and I get drug tested too often.

I used to drink rather heavily, especially during the pandemic - I’d put away a bottle of rum or vodka over the course of nearly every weekend. I still drink sometimes, but nowhere near as much or as often. Mostly taste-testing homemade wine batches, every couple months. It’s been about a year since the last time I got pandemic-levels of drunk.

If I’m lucky, it’ll be the fact that I died. And the reputation I’d have to build to get that headline is hopefully gonna be a good one.

“She got too close, so I farted.”

Zac Brown Band, “Knee Deep”

My town has a population of about 2,000 people. There are five dedicated car washes within a 10-mile radius of my house, with two more under construction.

Right Here, Right Now, in my ass.

Creatively dodging tariffs is nothing new - the Subaru BRAT famously has rear seats to get around the chicken tax, which is (among other things) a 25% tariff on imported trucks.

My best friend’s getting married next month, and I’m the minister.

Part of me wants to think so; I’m making a lot more money than they did at my age, even accounting for inflation. Aside from my car note, I’m debt-free. All objectively good things.

They had each other though. I’m a few years older than they were when they had their first kid, and they’d been married for a few years before that. I’m alone, and after I had some bad experiences, I don’t bother with dating. Whether that’s “better” than what my parents did or not, I don’t think it’s fair for me to decide.

I stole some bullets from my workplace once.

I was unloading a truck at work one day, many years ago. One of the items on my trailer was a pallet of rifle ammunition. Whoever loaded this trailer on the other side of the country did a shitty job of it; plastic wrap was shredded, several boxes were torn open, the cardboard “do not stack” cone was crushed under the weight of a car engine, among other things. When I managed to exhume this pallet from the trailer, the plastic gave way, spilling dozens of boxes and hundreds of loose bullets all over my trailer and loading dock. While I was cleaning up the mess, I impulsively pocketed a few bullets for myself. Nobody ever asked me about it. I don’t even own a gun. But I have a few bullets.

I was playing video games with my little brother, until about 4 AM. Made no effort to keep track of time, although we were probably setting up a heist in GTA when midnight rolled around.

After growing up with a bunch of retail workers and hearing all their horror stories, I generally try to avoid all the “classic” Christmas tunes as long as possible - the only ones I ever seek out are Christmas At Ground Zero by Weird Al Yankovic, and Straight No Chaser’s album from 2009.

Straight No Chaser - Who Spiked The Egg Nog?

Braking doesn’t even have to factor into it, I can’t stand the feeling of going on and off the throttle. Cruise control exists for a reason, people.

An avocado! Thanks…

Eight months.

The day after my 21st birthday, late September, I’d left home to go to trucking school. Went through a trucking company’s in-house “apprenticeship” program, which was somewhat predatory in hindsight.

Anyway, I went through this program, managed to get my CDL, which took several months by itself (through no fault of my own - the program was designed to take that long), and when I finally got a truck to myself, it only took me about five weeks to grow tired of the sudden isolation. I was finally allowed to go home around Easter.

After my three allocated days of hometime, I decided to quit that company, and I found a better job closer to home.

And to appease the invading forces, I also have a void: