What's with the blog title?

I probably should have addressed this in my first post, but I didn't. So I'll address it now.

"The Omega Man in the High Keep on the Borderlands," is a name I settled on back when I was trying to create a unique title for what I thought would be a themed podcast and blog combination. I had a concept of a character, a hermit of the post-apocalypse, reveling in nostalgia and memories of the joys of media of the past. The podcast and blog were going to be focused on covering movies, animation, games, books, comics, and other bits of media. The title was a combination of movie, book, and game titles which have all meant something to me over the years. I make no apologies for the length of it.

I abandoned the podcast idea right after creating this blog because, even though I have done a podcast in the past (under the title the Nerd Closet Podcast, on YouTube back in 2011, which I have since removed), I have no desire to add another to a world which has far too many. I didn't want to spend time creating something that would just end up getting lost in the great and noisy sea of mediocrity. Also, I hate the elevated status that is given to assholes with a microphone and a website on which they post their mostly pointless recordings. I could go on about how depressing it is to see convention panels hosted by almost exclusively podcasters, the most pseudo of pseudo-experts, but I'll spare you the disgust and frustration.

Anyway, that explains it. I like the title, so I have kept it for this blog. The blog exists because I enjoy writing, and while one can argue that my criticisms of podcasts could also apply to blogs, I feel that my time would be better writing and doing so for an audience intelligent and focused enough to spend their time reading it.

Maybe some day I'll do something as a companion to this blog. Who knows. Maybe I'll change my mind about a multimedia approach, but that's unlikely.

About Myself and the Chase, Plus a Bit on Writing

I have been struggling to decide on what to write for my first post since I started this blog. It has been almost two years since I paid for the domain, and it has sat empty, inactive, ever since. I'm fixing that, starting today. 

I have been writing since I was a little kid. Much of it was heavily influenced by the writers I was reading while growing up, as seems to be the case for most people. I filled notebooks with odd stories and snippets. Mostly snippets, which I define as short disorganized idea documents which read poorly by most standards. 

As I've aged I have found myself mostly writing pieces from the heart about the things I care for, in sort of an essay-like format. Though, I do still write stories. Short fiction is something I enjoy writing and will probably always enjoy. 

My feeling and thought writings, these essays and random postings, have focused on media which has affected me, nostalgia, memories, and identity. I rediscover myself through them and share who I am. It's a way to recover bits of me and a way to bolster myself for the days, months, and years ahead. Without getting these things out I become frustrated and lost. 

I have this compulsion to meditate on the things which made me happy throughout my life. These meditations lead me to joy, but they also cause me a considerable amount of trouble. Nostalgia will drive me to seek out whatever I can find through various means, oftentimes leading to unnecessary purchases, confusion, and regret. I get caught in a cycle of buy-sell-trade to chase nostalgia and find that in the end I have nothing but the memories I had before I went off. There's never an end to the emptiness, if it was emptiness that I was actually feeling.

Anyway, my goal here is to write. I hope that by writing here, and at a regular rate, that I can control the urges to chase memories and nostalgia. Maybe this will be my way to reign things in and actually give myself something meaningful to show for having had those memories and feelings. 

Also, my father recently passed away, a few days before Christmas. That was a bit of a wake up call, and it forced me to consider where I am in life and what I need to do to not lose myself or the time I have left. In our last conversation he called me a writer, told me that he was proud of me, and that I should write. So, I'm going to write. 

Thank you for reading this ramble. I hope that you'll return for future posts and stay with the blog. As far as what you might get out of these posts, I think you'll be able to find a connection with another person and maybe some entertainment along the way. I'll be writing reviews of media and experiences here, from time to time, so these might be appealing to you as well. 

Until next time.