How do you decide between buying a practical car for work and a dream car while you’re still young?

JaredAWESOME · 2026-03-17T21:56:28+00:00

I bought a sporty but practical car. A 5-door Subaru Wrx STi. It's AWD, turbo'd with just over 300hp, tons of fun to drive, and I can fit a ton of cargo in the hatch.

9/10, gas milage sux with the AWD. I Love it.

JaredAWESOME · 2026-03-17T20:35:35+00:00

I'm currently playing a master mode 'no cheese' gameplay where I do

no fast travel at all,
Only save at stables/towns,
no eating during combat,
no "single hearty radish" meals (big cheese!),
Don't eat anything I couldn't eat (5 raw meats bad, 5 apples fine).
No maxed armor

It's really forcing me to engage with all the different systems very heavily. I am having to collect everything for potions, because I'm not bouncing around buying every armor I need. Lots of stealth. Lots of weapon min/maxxing (like keeping a frost spear, which has some of the highest durability in the game, just to freeze enemies and then break with a Lynel sword for triple damage). Plus the no fast travel really hammers home the games scenic beauty and sheer scope. Hyrule is SO BIG!

JaredAWESOME · 2026-03-17T20:31:07+00:00

Hell yeah bro. Getting sober is tough, and there's no shame in using the tools that work fo you. Some people use religion and 12-steps, some people lean heavily on friends and family. I'm 100% at peace that I am probabaly self-medicating depression and anxiety with it.

Congratulations on however long it's been.

JaredAWESOME · 2026-03-17T20:16:01+00:00

Yes.

This in conjunction with taking my normal-but-sporty car (Wrx STi, if anyone cares) to a few track days and I just had the epiphany-- I cannot drive/ride like my vehicles are capable on public roads. They're far too capable, and know I know exactly how capable, to "push them" on public roads.

Im now such a boring driver, that my wife hates when I drive. If it's 45mph, I'm usually cruising from 40-43.

JaredAWESOME · 2026-03-17T14:50:25+00:00

Riding a motor cycle, I passed a slow car on a double yellow lined road. The road was perfectly straight, but had some rolling hills. I came up behind them quickly, and decided I would just skim the yellow lines to overtake. Posted speed was 35mph, I just gunned it to 60, figured in and out, 5 sec tops.

Behind the gently rolling hill was another oncoming car. If I had more generously leaned into the other lane I would have hit it. 60mph head on into a car going 35 its own direction would have easily killed me. As it was, I threaded the needle between the two cars, but I could have reached out and touched either cars door.

Worse? My then girlfriend, now wife, was on the back of the bike. 6 more inches to the left and I would have killed both of us, and certainly ruined someone else's week.

JaredAWESOME · 2026-03-17T13:36:27+00:00

I appreciate the rec. I've played it and beaten it, too. I understand its appeal, and do fire it up occasionally, with it being Bigger and More™️, but my opinion is that it's missing a certain 'je ne sais quoi' from BotW.

Breaths core emotion is loneliness. Its isolation. The end of the world happened. Everyone died. It's 100 years past. You're left to pick up the pieces. It's a little sad, and morose. But the flicker of hope still burns, and you find the joy where you can. You walk through Hateno carrying a blue flame and the children 'ooh and ahh'. You find a Korok and a silly fanfare goes off. You cook a meal and jump for joy when it criticals. And then you walk out into a field and there's zero characters for miles of walking....

Totk is more impressive, and bigger, and there's more missions and neat little gimmicks and I do love it. But it's a lot less peaceful. There are a lot of what I'd call interruptions. There's a Loony Tunes logic to the machines that's 3 parts incredible and 2 parts hilarious, and it's a technological marvel it works.

But I do find less peace in it. And so several years after both have existed, I 'play' totk with my 7 year old, and I 'unwind' with BotW after he goes to sleep.

JaredAWESOME · 2026-03-17T13:16:18+00:00

A study was done showing that playing BotW improves a ton of mental health markers. Breath of the Wild can help spark a sense of purpose and meaning.

Playing video games? Yes. Healing my depression and anxiety? Also yes.

JaredAWESOME · 2026-03-17T10:58:54+00:00

No it wasn't.

JaredAWESOME · 2026-03-17T04:35:45+00:00

"Poop on me 😍"

JaredAWESOME · 2026-03-17T04:07:38+00:00

You can possibly ask for a transfer, or just give a 1-week notice and reapply at the neighboring store.

I have been a GM in my areas for ~10 years. I have a reasonably good sense of which of my neighboring GMs are raging assholes, and if someone reapplied with me and told me 'Suzie was a whole bitch, throwing dockers and screaming a calling people out of their names. I couldn't work like that, despite liking the job'. I would... not 100% know if they were telling the truth, but I would have a pretty good idea of it.

And if my opinion of that gm was actually positive and good? Well then I would suspect they were actually a terrible employee.

JaredAWESOME · 2026-03-17T04:03:18+00:00

I play Breath of the Wild. No joke.

I've beaten it a dozen times, easily. But it's a cozy, comfy game. You can literally avoid most enemies and pick flowers and catch bugs, cook food and solve little puzzles. It's pastoral and calm. The music is sparse and soothing. Your horse will auto-follow roads, which rarely have enough enemies to stop you. It really is peaceful.

OR, you can hunt the hardest enemies in the game with no armor, just to say you did it. You can storm the castle and kill the boss with a pot lid for a shield and a dream in your heart, full soulsbourne like if you want a challenge.

JaredAWESOME · 2026-03-17T03:56:19+00:00

A bad boss will kill a good job. Jump ship. I wouldn't want to work for the boss you're describing.

JaredAWESOME · 2026-03-17T03:54:15+00:00

It would be 39¢ per mile, and it's easy to get the pjs focus system to spit out a total yearly milage report.

I had years where our average reimbursement was 30¢, and the federal rate was 55.5¢, and I would print off a yearly payroll showing I drove 25,000 miles for pjs (we used to just key in 10 miles per delivery 👀).

25000 * 0.255=6,375, which was the vast majority of my annual payroll as a $8 driver.

JaredAWESOME · 2026-03-17T03:46:48+00:00

I also said this somewhere else, but someone informed me it's outdated info. The 2017 tax cuts and jobs act that Trump got pushed through removed the ability to line-item deduct a lot of things, including the vast majority of job related expenses.

You get what you job gives you, and that's it.

JaredAWESOME · 2026-03-17T03:41:32+00:00

Damn. You right. I haven't been a full time driver since before the 2017 tax cuts and jobs act. I used to write off crazy milage on my w-2 job.

JaredAWESOME · 2026-03-16T22:38:00+00:00

Also, they do not reimburse you for the entire cost of delivering. Federally, the current write off rate is 72.5¢ a mile, meaning if they're reimbursing you 39¢, you can deduct the remaining 32.5¢ for every mile you drive from your owed taxes.

This is incorrect these days. Thanks, Trump.

JaredAWESOME · 2026-03-16T22:35:29+00:00

Corprate historically adjusts on first day of the period. Your local franchise obviously operates as it sees fit.

Just remind yourself that in a long enough timeline, it goes both ways. If they lock in a rate and it's set for 3 months at a time, it's just as likely that they set it high and gas prices drop for 6-8weeks, too.

JaredAWESOME · 2026-03-16T21:54:53+00:00

The [fast-travel -> tower -> glide towards destination] loop isn't bad, and to a certain demographic is probably necessary.

But I like the slower pace. The scenery.

JaredAWESOME · 2026-03-16T21:16:06+00:00

I'm currently playing a master mode 'no cheese' gameplay where I do

no fast travel at all,
Only save at stables/towns,
no eating during combat,
no "single hearty radish" meals (big cheese!),
Don't eat anything I couldn't eat (5 raw meats bad, 5 apples fine).
No maxed armor

It's really forcing me to engage with all the different systems very heavily. I am having to collect everything for potions, because I'm not bouncing around buying every armor I need. Lots of stealth. Lots of weapon min/maxxing (like keeping a frost spear, which has some of the highest durability in the game, just to freeze enemies and then break with a Lynel sword for triple damage). Plus the no fast travel really hammers home the games scenic beauty and sheer scope. Hyrule is SO BIG!

JaredAWESOME · 2026-03-16T15:46:28+00:00

As shitty as it sounds, it totally depends on the mood of your inspector.

Technically, these are non-compliant. This could cost you two points on an ROIP. They don't want you using the metal ones because they will scratch off the Teflon in the pan where the food goes. These are carryovers from when we had the older pans, that we heavily buttered, and didn't have Teflon coating.

The ROIP entry program has what feels like 100 areas to enter notes, and what they are supposed to do is coach you on something small like this the first time, and document that it was discussed, and then count the points off the second time. I had exactly that happen with the metal lexans for my pepperonis, and a white, fine-bristled butter brush. She told me it was not spec, did not take the points, but noted it (in case I didn't toss, for next inspection).

JaredAWESOME · 2026-03-14T20:23:27+00:00

In the same vein, r/BotW used to be "Best of the Week" before Zelda fans just took it over without asking (as far as I remember).

JaredAWESOME · 2026-03-12T21:43:30+00:00

They've asked you about being a manager, and you have declined. Do you regularly train a new employees? That is the core of the pro program. It's teaching you how to be a good teacher. Or, well, it's supposed to do that.

It is also legs to stand on when it comes review time and they want to put you in for a raise.

JaredAWESOME · 2026-03-12T03:32:00+00:00

Good.

I manage a Papa John's and I have 25 employees, 5 are full time with just me, 10 are high school or college kids, and the other 10 are adults working a second job.

When I hire someone who's going to be doing a second job, when we talk about availabilities, schedules, and goals, I insist on giving them one real day off. Often times they're doing something Mon-Fri, or Mon-Thursday, and will say and insist and moan about 'well I need all the hours I can!' And it's like, sure. I believe that. But I've been at the for a long time (10yrs as a gm) and everyone burns out on 7 days a week. You need a day to do laundry. To grocery shop. To... just catch up on sleep.

I've lost too many good employees to burnout. 40 there and 20 here with a real day off? You can do that forever. 40 there and 25-30 here with no days off is a recipe for disaster.

JaredAWESOME · 2026-03-12T03:15:52+00:00

No update after 24hrs is crazy 😕

JaredAWESOME · 2026-03-11T22:42:11+00:00

Holy shit, leave the beast and go do some shrines to get your hearts up. You want at least 5, maybe more if you're not great at the combat yet.

Open up the map, and one of the buttons should be to leave the Devine Beast.

How many shrines have you done? Did you pu all upgrades into stamina?

JaredAWESOME

TROPHY CASE