This week I lost my Aunt to lung cancer and COPD.

Over the last year, she had been struggling with breathing and surviving in general. She was dependent on oxygen and CPAP to breathe. On Yom Kippur eve, she exhaled for the last time in the hospital, surrounded by her close family.

Her death broke me. Other people in our family died before, but nobody this close to me since my grandmother passed nine years ago. I miss her so much.

So, to honor her, I want to tell you a bit about her and how much she meant to me. Later, we will talk about the beginning I alluded to in the title, I promise.

Farewell, Aunt Ilana

My first memories of Aunt Ilana are all set in her old home - a house I spent my childhood in. Her home stood next to the elementary school her daughter and I attended. So, naturally, I spent a lot of time there after school and in the summertime.

Aunt Ilana made amazing schnitzel. It was so thin, salty, and you just didn’t want it to end. She served it with her famous spaghetti.

In the last seven years, Aunt Ilana was also our neighbor so I saw her weekly. We would give her food for the weekend. Especially in the last year when she struggled with cancer. In a matter of months, we saw her transform from the once confident, head-held-high woman she was into someone so frail she couldn’t stand on her own and had to use a wheelchair. My brothers and cousins all cried at one point or another. We all loved her.

About a month ago, she was hospitalized for the same breathing problems that ultimately took her life. She survived it that time. I wrote about this in issue #12. She asked each of us to promise her something. That promise is always on my mind now that she’s gone.

Farewell, Aunt Ilana. I love you so much, and will never forget you and what I promised you.

When I learned she had passed, I wrote a post on Facebook that came from the heart. It wasn’t outlined or planned. Apparently, that post reached farther than anything I’d posted this year. People who didn’t even know Ilana shared our pain. Almost 800 people reacted to it, which was pretty insane to me.

What stayed with me wasn’t the number itself. It was that something I wrote without outlining, optimizing, or overthinking reached people more deeply than almost anything else I’d made this year.

I think there’s something in that.

A new era of content begins

One final update for this issue is a change I’m making to my videos. I’m losing the teleprompter and “sort of” rebooting the channel.

I feel like I’m in a position in my life where I want to be more expressive and less robotic. Writing down a few pointers makes that easier for me. I created an introduction video on YouTube that you can watch here. Let me know if you vibe with the new delivery or not:

That’s all I have for you this Friday.

Thanks for reading! Take care,
Oren

It’s Sunday morning. I’d usually be at the office at this time (because in Israel Sunday is a regular workday), writing code and debating designs with my co-workers. Today is different.

There are a lot of people around me. Going up and down the escalator towards the food court I’m sitting in. Some of them are here for food, others are just running errands. It’s the shortest “business day” in the whole year. Even shorter than Fridays.

In under two hours, this entire mall will close. We will all go home. It will be so very quiet. For 25 hours, imagine no cars on the road and kids on bikes in the middle of a highway.

It’s the eve of Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish year.

I want to ask forgiveness

It’s customary to ask people you interacted with over the year for forgiveness. Yom Kippur only forgives what’s between you and God, but for anything between you and another person, you have to ask them directly. So, if I wrote something that hurt you, didn’t reply to an email, or didn’t deliver what I promised, I want to ask for your forgiveness.

I also wish to thank you for being part of this newsletter journey I started. There’s still a lot to write on this website, and I’m excited for the next pieces.

Take care,
Oren

P.S. If you’re curious about the Jewish Holidays, I’ve included a list of the holidays of Tishrei and their meaning below.

What are the holidays of Tishrei?

Every year around September, we celebrate these four back-to-back holidays in Tishrei, the first month of the Jewish year:

1. Rosh Ha’Shana - marks the beginning of the year. Two days of observance. It’s also called Judgment Day, when God writes our fates for the new year based on how we behaved toward each other and toward Him.

2. Yom Kippur - on the tenth day of the year, we observe Yom Kippur. Yom Kippur is a 25-hour fast where we pray to sway God towards good outcomes this year. The belief is that Rosh Ha’Shana was when God wrote our fates, and Yom Kippur is when He signs them. It becomes final.

3. Sukkot - a seven-day celebration of the time when the Israelites lived in Sukkot, which were temporary huts. The last day of this celebration is called Hosha’na Raba. This ties back to the Judgment on Rosh Ha’Shana and Yom Kippur. The belief is that God delivers the judgment to the angels after He makes it. And during Hosha’na Raba, that judgment is being carried out.

4. Simchat Torah - This is the last holiday in Tishrei. This celebrates finishing the Torah and starting over. This is a fun celebration with lots of food and dancing with Torah scrolls.

Once upon a time, there was a younger Oren, in his early twenties, who had so many dreams. Over the last twenty years, he killed all of them.

Except one.

That dream exists within the words you’re reading right now. A newsletter. A consistent one.

So, to celebrate four months of newslettering, I want to reflect on the three steps I took to kill every big dream I had.

Step 1: Doubt the dream

Step 1 begins after you’ve had the dream. Doubting your dream introduces little cracks in that perfect image you have in your head.

One of my biggest dreams was to become self-employed from my own creative work. I dreamt of that multiple times throughout my adult life. Every few years I want to try it out, and every time I kill it. This dream coming back in new forms should have taught me something, but I’ll save that for a different post.

Doubting the dream means raising questions about it that usually get answered if you trust the process. A good example was my first “serious” nerd publishing site, Alive2Play. Through that site, I brought together a few writers who wanted to write about games and nerd culture news. And we did write for a while. We even got some free Steam keys to review indie games.

Over time, we published more articles but got no engagement from readers. And when growth wasn’t happening, my writers started to leave. They had school or jobs. I wasn’t paying them, so they owed me nothing. It was all volunteer work in the hope of making money once we grew enough. As plans shifted, more and more questions bubbled up. Can we even do this? What if we give a bad review? What if other sites decide to band together against us? What if I bring on someone who’s only there for the games but won’t actually write for the site?

Asking these questions during the low points sowed doubt in my ability to follow through. Eventually, Alive2Play fizzled out when I started my Computer Science degree and lost faith that this site would become what I hoped. I stopped following through, which is the next step in the journey all my dead dreams followed.

Step 2: Fail to follow through

Every big dream requires hard work. You can’t become self-employed from your online work if you don’t have online work.

In September 2020, I started Geek Peek, my nerd podcast. It hit 10k subscribers and a cumulative view count of over 3 million on YouTube. Before many of our videos actually got traction, I was publishing to no one. If I’d stopped publishing based on those early results, none of the 50 interviews Geek Peek hosted would have happened.

In a way, I’m following through with this newsletter right now. Four months in and I’m not trying to sell anything. In the past, I would give up pretty easily on other projects. One to two weeks in, I would decide it’s not working. It was even easier to give up when I had money problems. Then I would see the creative project as the “thing” that would save me. That is probably the worst mistake I made in some of my early projects.

When you’re in survival mode, you don’t care about anyone but yourself and your loved ones. It’s a bad place to be when making something for others because then all you can think about is the sale, and people smell that from a mile away.

Then Step 3 comes in and acts as the decisive blow to the dream.

Step 3: Move on to the next big thing

They call it Shiny Object Syndrome. Is your blog not getting traffic after you posted five blog posts in the last three months? No worries! Just start a new one. See how excited you feel. Have you started a NaNoWriMo draft to write the fantasy book you’ve been dreaming about, and your word count is falling behind? Just give up! Try next year. Let the calm wash over you.

There’s a behavior in our brains that I can’t quite name. It’s like this relief that washes over you when you decide to give up on doing something hard. But why? Why do we feel like this? Because doing something hard might lower your chances of survival. That would be our lizard brain’s answer. So when something like this happens, it tries to get you off of doing the activity.

Our built-in behaviors are not a cop-out. We are still responsible for our actions. Nobody can fulfill your dreams for you. And I know it firsthand after celebrating 39 earlier this month. And yet, slowly but surely, I’m turning things around.

What changed with this newsletter?

I recognized a simple pattern in myself: I tend to overthink things.

So I took productivity advice you’ve all heard before and made it literal: Make it dead simple.

My habit for this newsletter is simple. I told myself a 300-word issue is acceptable. I don’t try to reach a word count. The process of creating it is very forgiving too. I usually write these at a local book shop because I like the atmosphere. But what if I arrive late? What if I don’t have enough time? I still tell myself: Write the title. Write the subtitle. The worst that can happen is you’ll finish it at home.

And that’s what I did for 16 weeks. This newsletter’s streak is growing and slowly becoming important to me. It’s like Duolingo. Sometimes you’ll do a lesson just to keep your streak. Not because you’re genuinely interested in learning more Japanese or chess.

Thank you for reading! What dream did you kill, and at what step? Hit reply and tell me about it.

Take care,
Oren

Last Monday, I celebrated my 39th birthday playing video games. It’s not that I didn’t want to go out or celebrate with friends; it just didn’t pan out. It doesn’t pan out. Every year. I’m not here to make you feel sorry for me, or anything. I’m just describing a feeling many millennials, especially male ones, will resonate with: Loneliness.

I’m sitting in a mall right now. I had chicken nuggets for dinner, and I’m sipping on Coke Zero while I write you this letter. My regular readers will notice I’m not in the book shop writing you this letter this time. And the reason is simple: Tomorrow is the Jewish New Year’s Eve. There will be simply no time to sit down in a coffee shop and write. So I’m writing this letter a day early, on Thursday evening, to be sent on Friday while I help prepare for the holiday and to meet family at my brother’s house.

That is the height of my loneliness because both of my older brothers are married with children, and I’m not. And you know how family gatherings are - “How are you doing? Are you in a relationship? Are you even looking? At your age, I did so and so...”

I’m just so tired of it all.

I guess I’m telling you all this not just to vent, but to show you that you’re not alone if you feel like me.

I’m looking for a relationship, as I’m sure some of you do too. But people around us don’t experience the multiple rejections a week on dating apps. Those stay on your phone. Our family members just see us at home on our computer or our phone, and think we aren’t doing anything.

This week was rough, and the weekend will be the climax, but over the past few days, a little gem has been keeping me sane before bed. A little gem called Blood of Dawnwalker.

Blood of Dawnwalker is my new favorite game

Blood of Dawnwalker has surprised me on so many levels.

I’m playing at the Fair difficulty. Even so, the combat system has been challenging to learn. I spent the better part of one of my streams fighting against soldiers in a camp, and they kept killing me over and over until I defeated them. I was bad. I didn’t even try to suck blood out of one of them during the fight.

The game also didn’t make it too difficult for me on that difficulty. But I still failed. Tonight I’m returning to fight a boss that has already defeated me multiple times. I just stopped because it was 1 AM.

The story itself also reminds me a little bit of Mass Effect 3‘s War assets. If you’re not familiar with them, it’s a sum of everything you did for people around the galaxy, each one scored by how much it helps in the final battle to save Earth. You have 30 days to defeat Brencis - a vampire playing at being a ruler - before he drains your family. You can disrupt his court by doing quests directly tied to his vassals. And you can gain allies to defeat him, both humans and vampires around the world. I’m close to finishing some quests for one of his vassals, and I’m only on day 3 or 4.

The game world itself is vast, too, but the game gives you tools to traverse it quickly. I can become a wolf during the night and run very fast between locations.

(Editing Oren here on Friday: I can tell you I have defeated not only that boss, but also a very challenging one that was one of Brencis’s three vassals in a stream that went for almost four hours last night)

Playing Dawnwalker also helped me understand something fundamental about my publishing strategy.

Publish the experience, not the aftermath

I was stuck in the old publishing strategy: play something, review it, and share it around. These days, old-school reviews are way too common. And I’m not much of a reviewer anyway. When I play, read, or watch a thing, I don’t look at it holistically, like a reviewer should. I usually focus on one or two things I took away from the experience.

For example, if I had to sum up The Witcher 3 in a single sentence, it’s “Geralt of Rivia finds his daughter and learns to be a father to her.”

But The Witcher 3 is a huge game. A “proper” reviewer would have so much more to say than to talk about one single thing.

Now that I’m playing Blood of Dawnwalker, I want to document the experience. I don’t want to finish the game and then talk about it afterward as a singular experience. I’m playing the game almost every day these last few days, and every time there’s something new to talk about.

I’m still refining my updated strategy, but one thing I’m certain of: I’ll give myself permission to publish shorter, more concise thoughts. Not every essay needs to be thousands of words.

I used to think nobody reads my random thoughts about a game. “What good does it do?” Today, when much of what you see around the web is not written by a human, that kind of writing resonates. I’m done self-censoring. The worst that will happen is people won’t read the piece. I wanted to write it anyway.

Thank you so much for being here!

That’s all I have for you today. I can’t believe this is issue 15. I have been writing these letters for 15 weeks straight.

Soon you’ll start seeing more content pop up in these letters and even on other days of the week.

I hope you enjoy your weekend, and Shana Tova from me to you.

Take care,
Oren

I still go to my day job on the days I don't want to. So why does content get a free pass but my day job doesn't?

For years I've been trying to build a community, and I realized I'm not putting in the right amount of effort. A podcast I listened to recently made that painfully clear.

There are two things I'm doing wrong right now:

1. Not treating this like a job.

2. Not batching content on social media.

Before we dive in to talk about each separately, let me explain what this means for you.

The Ghost site stays up. Both will have the same content. The only new things are Substack Notes which is a bit like Twitter, and the Subscriber chat. Those two elements are exclusive to Substack. Subscribers on Ghost will receive the email from Ghost. Subscribers on Substack will receive the email from Substack.

Content-wise, everything will remain the same.

Now that that's out of the way, let's talk about those two points.

Not Treating This Like a Job

I have a full time job. It's not like I procrastinate. But I do create content mostly when inspiration strikes, or when I'm not burned out about previous content that didn't do well.

I need to put in at least more effort than the casual reader. And I need to make my life easier by starting where people already are, not on my personal website that currently receives hardly any visitors.

This is where Substack comes in. The average Substack reader is on the platform to read. So I'm going to import all of my work from my Ghost site into Substack and start being more active on Substack Notes. Perhaps I'll make some friends in the process, too.

Substack has also implemented new features that make connection with your subscribers more fun and interactive. A chat, a podcast, videos - those are all cool features that make a publication more than a simple newsletter.

Not Batching Content on Social Media

In the podcast I listened to, the guest said his co-founder has written ahead about 100 posts a week for social media.

That's SO much work.

But it pays off. Their Threads presence is 302k followers. They have over 36k subscribers on Substack, too, and they get paid from it.

I want to invest more time into short-form content on social media. I already have ideas for short-form posts I can share about the nerdy topics I love.

I have a Typefully subscription that I haven't been using that much and considered cancelling. Instead, I'll spend some time scheduling posts ahead of time. It's a grind and I think I mostly avoided it because it feels like unrewarded work, but I need to find signal and see my voice develop online.

We'll See How It Goes

That's all I have for you today, and if you're reading this letter on Substack itself, say hi in the comments! I'm a really nice nerd.

Thank you for reading.

Oren

When I was in my early twenties, I was a part of an online community called BlizzForums. I was a heavy StarCraft player at the time. I wasn't competing or playing with people online. My love was the campaign and the stories this game managed to tell through strategy missions that mostly focus on volume. I fell in love with this community so much that I wanted to build one myself. That was the beginning of content creation for me.

It didn't go the way I wanted.

Ever since that day, I tried again and again. For twenty years, I tried to build a community that would become my employer. I craved the connection with other nerds and I wanted to build things they would find valuable for them. Along the way I built many communities. Some failed, some still live on. None of them were the community I envisioned back then.

It's time to face the reality and admit that I would probably never build the community I wanted. This letter is a eulogy to that dream.

The Dream I Lost

I wake up in my own bed, in my own house, and start a chill morning. No commuting to work or working from home. I start my day with a coffee and a writing session to get some ideas off my chest that accumulated during the night.

Later that day, I go to the gym and lift something heavy. Weights will never not be a part of my future. They weren't in my original dream, but I realize after two years, I don't want to give my progress up.

After a shower and lunch, I go into my private study in my home. There are rows of books ordered by series on my shelves. The Stormlight Archive is prominently sitting on its own shelf. The same for all the Dune books. My private collection is vast. Some of them are signed, some aren't. I haven't read them all, but I love them all the same.

A few of those books are mine. They have my name on them. Something I never thought would happen but it did. I finally materialized the fantasy world that's been on my mind since my late teens.

I open my computer and put on some chill lofi beats music and start looking at analytics. Behind me there's a gold play button on the wall to indicate I got a million subscribers on YouTube just by talking about the nerdy things I read, watch, and play.

On the blog, I see much less activity than my YouTube and socials, but those people convert to email subscribers, and I keep writing them this nerdy letter. Every week on a Friday.

What a nice dream to have right? I wanted to believe it was possible. Or maybe I've been making the wrong thing all along.

My Idea of Content is Different

Have you ever read an episode-by-episode review of a TV show you've been watching? That's what I've been trying to create. The problem is nobody searches or watches that type of content on YouTube. People are more interested in specific moments than episode recaps that AI can generate in seconds.

For Google, it's a lost cause. Most sites today are either visited by AI bots to use them for answers, or they are lost between all the slop that's generated and uploaded daily.

And yet, I still want to keep writing thanks to a lesson I learned from my late grandmother.

Today is My Grandmother's Memorial

Nine years ago, my Grandmother Yona, or Hama'me in her Yemeni name (which means pigeon in both languages) left us at the age of 105.

I loved her so much.

Grandma Yona always said to give to other people without expecting anything in return. After her death we discovered from numerous people who came to her funeral how much she gave in secret. My grandma was by no means rich. But she was living alone and she didn't need much for herself.

I tried to keep this dream of making money from writing afloat. But the world has moved on while I stayed behind. I do still want to write because I enjoy it and I know someone else will too, but it's time to grieve this dream.

In a way, thanks to her, something in me wants to keep writing this thing even though I know it would only reach a handful of people. If those people enjoyed it, I succeeded.

Thank You For Reading!

This is all I have for you today. Thanks for sticking around with me. What's one dream you have that you think won't happen? Let me know by either replying to this email, or commenting below if you read this online.

My aunt almost died this week. I didn't think I'd "celebrate" the three-month milestone of this newsletter with such somber news, but here we are.

So today, I want to reflect on Life and Death, and tell you a little bit about my aunt. By the end, I'll also share a few nerdy things, don't worry, this is still called my nerdy letter.

Let's dive in.

My Aunt Was a Prominent Part of My Life

I remember her old house, the one before she moved closer to us, very well. It was almost my second home. There was an entry way into the row of building entrances covered with bushes. It was like you almost entered a secluded secret area of the neighborhood. Her house was in the third entrance and I had to climb three floors by foot. There was no elevator.

My Aunt's house always had a faint smell of cigarettes. Both she and her late husband were smokers. And not like once in a while or even daily. They smoked whole packs. I remember the schnitzel that she used to make me and my cousin when we would come back from school. I often stayed at her house. My cousin and I would watch movies, or just play board games and do homework. These memories are from my elementary school days. It's been over 25-30 years since.

My uncle died almost three years ago. She wasn't the same since.

Diabetes was hard on my uncle. It got complicated even further when he didn't really follow the advice he was given about his diet. They wanted to amputate his foot that became gangrenous, but he refused. Without this amputation, his system was overloaded with the septic shock that the gangrene caused, and he died a painful death.

Since that day, my aunt was deeply depressed. For months she was grieving his loss, but she was healthy, even though she's celebrating 79 next week.

Earlier this week, after months of battling lung cancer, presumably from the cigarettes she smoked for decades, her COPD seems to have gotten worse. That prompted a visit to the hospital. The news I got from my parents and cousin about her was that things were getting worse. On Monday, I came over to help with a BPAP machine. It was probably the only time in my adult life that I was ok with someone treating me like I'm a technician. If it helped my aunt, I was all in.

On Tuesday, my father called me at 13:30, the middle of my workday, and told me to come to the hospital. We all came. We all said our goodbyes. She whispered things in my ear that I would never tell anybody. I promised to do what she asked. We went home thinking that she wasn't going to survive the night. But she did. She stayed up all the time, because she was anxious and delusional from the oxygen deprivation.

Now, she's at home. Last I heard she had a mostly good night's sleep with an oxygen mask on her face.

This is the thing that infuriates me the most. We are dying every day from car crashes, terrorism, wars, and medical complications. Many of these deaths could be prevented.

My maternal grandmother died about 20 years ago when doctors made a mistake and gave her two medications that shouldn't go together and it crashed her system. Her death was preventable too.

I don't know what the future holds for my aunt. I hope her COPD symptoms could be managed in the same way her lung cancer is.

With my aunt in the hospital, I announced I was stopping streaming, but two days later, when I came back to it, I realized it's relieving my stress.

I'm Half Way Through Mass Effect 2

The Mass Effect Series is really important to me. I started replaying it on my YouTube channel a few months ago, and it's been so fun to come back to these games, and relive all of the moments that made me fall in love with this series all over again.

This week, I got to do the Collector's Ship mission which is halfway through the game. I still have a lot of loyalty missions to go through until I can do the suicide mission. And even then I still have some DLC to finish like Lair of the Shadow Broker and Arrival before I import the save to ME3.

My ulterior motive is to capture just gameplay on my PC itself. I want to create essays about Mass Effect at some point so capturing just the gameplay helps with clean b-roll.

Outside of video games, I also bought a few new books today.

New Fantasy Series Acquired

Not much to say about this but there are six new books in my backpack now waiting for me to take them home to my packed shelf: The Poppy War trilogy and the Jade City trilogy.

I heard good things on both but I won't judge them until I read them.

And finally, I took some time to republish one of my popular guides.

I Published My Dropout Beginner's Guide

It's a guide I wrote about the service as a veteran viewer. I hope it helps anybody wanting to start with series like Dimension 20 and Game Changer.

You can read it here:

Beginner’s Guide to Dropout.TV

That's All For Today!

Thanks for reading! What nerdy thing you did this week that you're proud of? Hit reply and let me know, or comment below if you're reading this online.

See you soon,
Oren

Yesterday I was walking on the beach when I noticed a father taking pictures of his baby sitting on the grass. This father did not have any other family with him. I don't know what came over me in that moment, but I stopped my walk and my podcast and came over to him.

"Do you want a picture of you both?" I asked him. In that moment I knew I was trying to do a good thing but my brain was filled with a million negative scenarios racing. "leave me alone" was the least of the horrors my brain produced in that moment.

And yet, reality was way different. "wow, yes" the man said. I took three pictures. And when I was done I showed them to him, he was genuinely happy when he thanked me and we both left on our separate ways.

It was such a small moment but it stayed with me. I kept thinking about it and smiling long after that walk ended.

The thing is, that small blip in time wasn't a fluke. A once in a lifetime bravery. It's one instance of a pattern I started noticing in myself lately.

Small changes have been compounding in me. Like offering a picture or adding an extra workout. This issue is about that.

I've Been Talking to Strangers Lately

Every time I go to this Tel Aviv mall on a Friday, I always eat a slice of Pizza with mushrooms. Today I took a lightly different pizza because they didn't have my regular and I didn't want to wait. Today's pizza had thin slices of purple onion, extra mozzarella and sprinkles of parsley on top of the usual cheese and tomato sauce they put on every pizza as a base.

This pizza was delicious.

Anyway, as I'm munching on it while doom scrolling on my phone, I was approached by a french dad and his son asking me if the kid can sit. I said yes. There's no reason for me to hold up three extra seats when I'm alone.

The father was grateful, the son ate his pizza, and I kept scrolling on my phone while munching on this heavenly doughy triangle I held in my hand.

It's only after they left that I realized how silly I must be to immediately allow someone to sit at my table while also never asking to sit at tables that had open seats in previous times I've been here.

I should try to do that the next time I'm waiting for a table to clear.

I think the reason I've been more open to strangers lately is directly tied to my self esteem which has been rising slowly but surely with my gym progress.

I'm At My Lowest Weight in the Last Decade

I weight 105.0 this morning. This is the lowest I weighed in the last ten years.

I also started noticing that I'm slimming a bit more. It's been rough to keep to my diet but I'm not hungry, I'm just giving up on some treats and going on walks. I do still need to reach my macros for the gym which means I have a specific intake of protein and such.

But lately it's been easier to see progress. One change I made lately was that I raised my workouts to three times a week instead of just two. This morning I finished the second week on this new schedule and I guess it compounds.

Keeping it to just two workouts a week has been draining since my body would be in this twilight zone where one workout would benefit from a rest of a few days, and the next one would be after only one rest day. I would arrive to that workout completely drained and sore, and usually fail my PRs.

For now at least, it seems I'm on the right track. And progress in the gym has spilled into something I thought I had given up on.

I'm Back Streaming The Mass Effect Trilogy

Over the last few days, I've been feeling more energetic. I used to feel so worn out by the end of the day, and something has changed over the last week or so. I was ready to give up on streaming yet another time and something in me said, we'll do one mission. That was on 22.30. And I did one. I played until midnight and recruited another companion. The next stream, I recruited Two more.

I don't have a lot of people joining these but I also record them separately without my voice over and camera just so I can have b-roll for when I do essay videos on Mass Effect. I plan to play The Witcher 3 next after the trilogy.

The shorts I've been sharing from these streams also got a decent amount of views. Like a thousand each. They don't go viral or something, but I enjoy making them.

At this pace, I have a dozen or so streams before I finish Mass Effect 2.

That's All For Today

Thanks for reading. What's one small thing you did recently that surprised you? Hit reply and let me know, or comment if you're reading this online.

Talk soon,
Oren

The best cure for burnout is the satisfaction of a completed project. I learned this lesson thanks to four videos and 130 total views.

The Clock I've Been Racing Isn't Mine

All my life, I've tried to achieve more with less. Be more productive, don't waste time, realize your dreams fast. I felt burned out more times than I can count, because I tried to do so much all the time. I hustled because I feared it would be too late.

Too late? For who?

One random Tuesday, on my way to work, a realization dawned on me: I have time. I have lots of it. I'm not even forty yet, and I'm lucky to be healthy and active. So why does this notion haunt me that I don't have time? Because some people around me don't. Namely my parents. And it's important to me to cross off the goals they care about. Family, kids, house, etc.

So I hustle. But the imaginary clock is not mine.

Burnout Leaves a Stamp

A state of burnout, for me, feels like I want to lounge and not do anything. It feels like resistance when I want to edit a video or a blog post, or work on my favorite things.

Every time burnout passes, it leaves something with me. A little caution stamp. It makes me less likely to start working on something, and it extends my recovery.

I Said Focus Then Sprinted Anyway

Last week, I decided to focus on one thing instead of chasing my entire list at once. One such thing is talking about Neon Genesis Evangelion.

The focus was good, but I did the thing again. Instead of publishing once a week, I cranked four episodes in one week to start the series with a bang.

My Best Work Got 62 Views

It's a little discouraging seeing your best work getting ignored. The highest amount of views any of these videos got was 62. I know I can't be picky. My YouTube channel has only 268 subscribers as of writing these words, but still.

Here's the series so far:

The EVA Chose Shinji Before He Ever Piloted It | Evangelion Episode 1

Shinji Didn’t Win His First Fight | Evangelion Episode 2

Shinji Has No Reason to Pilot | Evangelion Episode 3

Shinji Finally Has a Reason to Stay | Evangelion Episode 4

So I'm Finishing It

This series will be weekly from now on. And I will finish it no matter the amount of views, because the best cure for burnout is the satisfaction of a completed project. Who knows, it's YouTube. Evangelion is evergreen, so maybe over time this series will find its audience.

I've recently started coming back to Pat Flynn, and in one of his recent episodes, I got reminded that the only thing I can control is my uploads. So I'll keep uploading.

That's All For Today

Thanks for reading and being part of the journey. What's one obstacle you just overcame? Hit reply and let me know.

Enjoy your weekend,
Oren

So I’m re-reading The Well of Ascension, slowly but surely, and I came across a funny tidbit somewhere in the early chapters in a conversation between Vin and Elend where she says Kelsier was ancient. Elend says 38 is not ancient, but Elend is only a couple of years older than Vin herself. Vin turned 17 in book 1.

And it struck me that I didn’t even think about this line when I read this book for the first time over ten years ago. But now I’m reading it at… 38. In fact, I turn 39 next month.

As I age and re-read books from my younger years, I realize that books are good or bad to the person I am while reading them. And that person is changing.

Vin would say this is ancient people's thoughts, and I own that. So let’s prove to her that even an ancient like me can still get shit done.

I Went to the Gym Despite My Millennial Aches

I spent this entire week with aches in my right foot. It’s like a pulled muscle right in the middle of my heel. So I skipped the gym most of the week. I assumed that doing deadlifts and squats while my foot hurts would just make it worse.

Today my foot felt better, so I figured it’s time to go. I also didn’t do my usual weights, so I didn't advance my PRs, but at least I’m not regressing.

In the same way I didn’t give up on my body, I also didn’t give up on my environment.

I Can See My Floor for the First Time in Months

For the longest time, I had a plastic box and some bags on my floor. Like constantly. These are items I procrastinated sorting. It was kind of embarrassing when, on one WFH day, I was double-checking that my Teams settings blurred my background. It was a genuine mess.

This week I cleared it all. I even got rid of a stack of drawers that I cleaned up months ago and had only a few items remaining. Now there’s only a small desk where my laptop rests. I may turn this into a writing desk or use it to film shorts.

And if we’re already talking about writing, let’s talk about some blog news.

I Gave the Blog a New Face and a Lead Magnet

One of the things I wanted to do for a while was to change how the blog looks. I know it’s probably the least useful investment of time because what brings people to my doorstep is the content, not how it looks. But it didn’t take much time to upload a new theme.

In addition, I finished writing a list of 10 foundational Science Fiction and Fantasy books that shaped my taste and will do the same for you. This will be given as a gift to anyone subscribing to my blog, and I’m also attaching it here for you. Enjoy and let me know what you think about it!

Thank You for Reading

This is all I have for you this Friday. Thanks for being with me on this journey and listening to me prove to Vin that old people are still useful. What have you been up to this week? Hit reply and let me know.

Thanks,
Oren

Here's the PDF:

Download PDF

My first thought starting this newsletter today was that I failed. This week I had no progress in my reading at all. I'm only a few pages into The Well of Ascension. I also worked out only one time this week.

And yet.

I did publish two YouTube videos this week. And a blog post.

It's so easy to let ourselves slip into negativity. If I had not taken the time to think a bit more on what I did this week, I would only remember what I didn't do.

Take your wins. Here's mine.

I Wrote an Open Letter to Felicia Day

This week I supported The Guild's Kickstarter. Felicia Day is one of my inspirations, and backing the project got me thinking about everything her work has meant to my creative journey. So I wrote an open letter to her. You can read it here:

The Power of Making Something

In the same way I supported Felicia, I also supported Worlds Beyond Number. They are doing an amazing thing right now with their Kickstarter. I didn't write an article for them, but I intend to import all my episode reviews from Geek Peek sometime in the near future.

The next topic is just as close to my heart as Felicia's influence on my creative journey: physical media and its inevitable death.

I Made An Ode to The Dying Publishing Industry

I still remember Shonen Jump and how I would wait for it every month. Sometimes it would contain an Ultra Rare Yu-Gi-Oh! card, which I still have today somewhere.

This came to mind after I watched The Devil Wears Prada 2 on Apple TV and realized how sad the state of publishing is. Most of us consume our content on the internet now, and because of that shift, many of those old magazines simply vanished. The ones strong enough to digitize did, and in so doing lost their soul.

I especially love how Miranda frames it by the end of the movie to Andy: "Runway is just one of the last wood pieces floating next to the Titanic." And it's true. Magazines are vanishing or going online where they are so easy to miss or forget. You don't stack emails like you stacked old magazines and saved them like a small intellectual treasure.

So I made a video about it. A bit spontaneous and different than what I usually make. Here it is:

So now that we're done with the sour stuff, let's finish this issue with some fun news. I'm back to reviewing Min-Maxed episodes!

I'm Continuing My Min-Maxed Review Series!

So Min-Maxed came out to say that Season 2 has wrapped up filming and confirmed that Season 3 will be filmed too.

I lost track of the season's schedule somewhere along the way and thought Episode 10 was the last one, but apparently Episode 12, which hasn't aired as I write this, will be the last one.

When the episodes just started publishing, I reviewed each one and made it to episode 4 until I took a break. Now that I know there's more coming, I want to finish what I started. I published episode 5's review on Sunday and Episode 6's review on Tuesday. More to come this upcoming week.

And finally, I have some news about this very blog. The home of the newsletter you're reading right now.

I'm Documenting The Growth of This Blog

Later today, I'm publishing on YouTube the first episode in a new weekly series, also published on Fridays, where I document my journey to grow this blog into a real home for a community. I am not trying to monetize right now, but I am trying to grow a place where nerds feel comfortable talking to each other about the things we all love.

It would be my absolute pleasure to witness a conversation between two strangers about Mass Effect grow into a friendship. Or maybe theorizing about the Cosmere. Doesn't have to be video games. I also crave human connection. What is an online community without making new friends, right?

It could be a failure. Maybe all the big names have taken all the community growing opportunities. Maybe I'm wasting my time. That said, I want to find out for myself instead of assuming.

Thank You For Reading

That's all I have for you today. What have you been up to this week? Hit reply and let me know, or comment below if you're reading this on the web.

Talk soon,
Oren

Felicia Day doesn't know me. She probably never will. This blog and the content I make online exist largely thanks to her.

I always had an entrepreneur's spirit. In my early twenties (almost twenty years ago), when everyone around me was playing StarCraft, I was making maps for it. When everyone wrote on forums, I wanted to start a forum.

And then, one day, Felicia came into my life through Dragon Age II. As a whole, I wasn't in love with that game as much as I loved Inquisition or Dragon Age: Origins, but I still played all of it and the DLCs that came out for it.

One of those DLCs was Mark of the Assassin, which introduced Tallis, Felicia's character.

Out of curiosity, I started Googling Felicia and discovered a lot of essays she wrote about building community locally. I don't really have citations for those anymore. But I do remember one where she wrote about renting space in a local community to create real-life events. She spoke about their importance. About the human element of making something instead of just being online.

Not that online is bad; it's just that real-life events have more impact.

That inspired me so much, and I carried that with me for years. Not because I had some grand plans to start a community, but because I wanted those human connections. Felicia talked about physical spaces, but a digital community is better than no community, so that's what I chose to build. Life is way more fun when you have someone to talk to about your latest mission in Mass Effect, or the latest book in the Cosmere. Or how shitty PlayStation is behaving now that they want to get rid of physical discs.

I kept going. First I started other blogs. Those never paid off. Then, in 2019, I started writing on Medium, which taught me a lot about publishing, but never gave me the community I wanted. I did build a community of writers called Medium Dreamers on Facebook, which is still active today. That group has 2700 members now.

In 2020, when the pandemic hit, I started a YouTube channel, which grew into a nerdy podcast that carried on without me. And now we're here, on this blog. This is my personal space where I write things like this that someone may find one day. Something in me that sounds a lot like Felicia says Keep going. So I do.

So, thank you, Felicia! You'll probably never read this, but I want you to know there are many of us you inspired over the years. You've always been such a positive light everywhere you go, and I'm sure you'll keep going so much further.

Sending love from the other side of the globe ❤️

First, let's address the bold claim I made in the title. I had this book in me since my early twenties. I have a few characters, the world mostly fleshed out, and a vague sense of the story I want to tell.

So why now? Because in less than two months I will turn 39. My forties are closing in, and I still carry this world. It's an open loop in my mind that I must close or give up on. And I don't see myself giving up on that story. This morning I posted on Threads asking for advice from authors with full time jobs, and they told me wild stories about how they wrote their books during drives, in the night, or even by dictating while breastfeeding. Authors around the world have lives much more stressful than mine and they still published multiple books. It's like I'm not even trying compared to these people.

More to come about the book in later emails. I'll create a separate newsletter for the book updates that you can opt into and write alongside me if you want. If you also have a book in you and you were waiting for the right time, this is my formal invitation to write that book this year. There's no better time coming.

In addition to the book, I also had a good breakthrough Fitness-wise this week.

I'm Adding a Workout to My Week

Sunday, Tuesday, and Friday. I used to do only two workouts a week. And in a way I felt like I wasn't progressing fast enough. So I started adding another workout and I'm sore, but not that sore. It feels doable.

I'm approaching 18 months of working out with gym weights. It's time I progressed further.

This week I did both shoulders and chest in every workout instead of separating them. I feel the difference in my arms because each muscle used to get one session a week - now it gets three. The biggest change was waking up at 6 am for gym days and going before work. Those are office days so I'm limited in my time and that makes me more effective.

One more thing I did this week was finish Mistborn which I'll talk about next.

Mistborn Just Turned Twenty

In truth, when I started re-reading Mistborn last week, I didn't realize its 20th anniversary was coming up. So when I was done, I only discovered it while working on the article and video. Thankfully, I didn't miss the opportunity to include it in my content so it feels a little bit more celebratory.

Here's the Mistborn review:

There’s Always Another Secret: What Mistborn Teaches About Heroic Death

That's all I have for you today. Thanks for being here!

Talk soon,
Oren

I bought a Switch 2 this past week. It's been brewing in me for a while, ever since Nintendo announced the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake. Ever since that trailer dropped, my TikTok feed has been filled with an increasing number of millennial content creators reacting to the news. It always begins with something like "No! No, no, no!" when that initial ocarina sound is played, they go crazy when they realize the game is what they thought it was, and in most cases it also ends with a teary-eyed "this year?!" when they realize Nintendo is mostly ready to get this game in our hands.

I get sucked into each one of them. Not just because it's fun to see a dream come true for a fellow human, but because I'm resonating with the reaction. I would be among them if the remake was for, say, Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons.

Truth be told, I played many Zelda games in my youth, starting with the very first one. But Ocarina of Time was not one of them. I never owned a Nintendo 64, which is where I believe it originated. I played the first game on a console called Megason, or at least that's what we called it at home. It had those cassettes you had to blow into if the game got stuck. Those were the days.

The first thing I did when I unboxed my Switch 2 was redeem the Mario Kart game that came with it, but after that, I imported all of my Switch 1 games into it. My Switch 1 had been sitting unused for a while because I was only really playing it for the gym-and-league Pokémon games, and it's been a while since the last one of those. It seems like now it's all about Pokopia. A bit of a hot take from my side: I don't really see the thrill. It's the same reason why I don't play The Sims. I did my 1000 hours in that game a decade ago and I am done.

But playing Oracle of Ages on a bigger screen was an immediate dopamine hit. I can replay that game many more times.

So far, I'm enjoying the experience, but I know I could be doing so much more with the Switch 2. Give me time and I'll get there. I even have a docking station if I want to stream the games I play.

The Switch 2 hasn't been the only thing feeding my inner nerd this week, though.

I'm Deep Into Mistborn: The Final Empire

Thanks to the mix of listening and reading, I'm almost halfway through The Final Empire. Just today I listened to 5-6 chapters alone on my errands.

And it also seems the video I made at the beginning of the week about Warbreaker is picking up, too. It has crossed 400 views today. If you missed it, you can find it here:

I'm Having Rebel Thoughts

When I walked among the aisles of books today, before sitting down and starting to write this letter, I had a rebellious thought.

What if I also wrote a book?

The idea is not new. I have had a book floating in me for years. I'm just not really doing anything about it.

But standing there today, I kept seeing all the author names on the spines. Some of those books are so thin. You can be the author of a book that changes people's lives, and it doesn't have to be a huge tome. Not everybody needs to publish Sanderson-like 1000s of pages novels.

I'm dreaming of a future where I wake up to freedom in the morning. Coffee, and then write, or make a YouTube video. No contract with a company, any company, that takes your best years and the best hours of your day. And a place to call your own.

I dream of bookshelves upon bookshelves in a personal library. Some of the books in that library are signed by authors, just like three of the Stormlight Archive books I own are signed by Sanderson himself.

I dream of making videos and publishing essays about the things I love: technology, gaming, nerd culture. Engaging in comments and voice replies, and flying to conventions to meet fellow fans of the people I love. One day I'll have a picture with Mark Meer.

It's a distant future. I don't believe it's an impossible one.

Thank you for reading my rambling. I'll see you next week! ❤️

Oren

I made it to Chapter 47 in Warbreaker today. Remember how last time I told you I was worried I'm not advancing fast enough? Well, this week I figured out how to keep reading without sitting down. It all comes down to a bookmark.

Let me back up.

To Read or to Listen?

For a long time I only ever chose one or the other. I never realized that combining the two would make progress so much faster.

Last Saturday, I spent around 6 or 7 hours reading. I observe Shabbat, so there isn't much else to do but read. That took me to page 280 or so.

Then I did the math. If I wanted to physically read more, I'd have to give up my current fitness routine. I've been walking almost 20K steps a day, and I started seeing progress on the scale and in the mirror.

Should I give that up for a reading project?

I was almost ready to when an idea flashed in my mind during a walk.

It All Depends on the Bookmark

Whenever I finished my reading for the night or for Saturday, I would move my bookmark to the new spot and close the book.

So what if I listened to a few chapters on my walk, then moved the bookmark to the page where the audio stopped?

It seemed like such a small thing. Something so silly.

But it worked.

My Walks Became Reading Time

I went to Audiobooks.com and bought Warbreaker there. (Why not Audible? Because of #SaveStargate, of course!)

So this week I spent my walks putting in the steps and putting in the pages at the same time. Last I checked, I was past page 400.

I listen at 1.5x speed because it makes sense for this book. Today I got through several chapters during my workout and even on a grocery run. When I get home, I'll move the bookmark to the new position and continue tonight during Shabbat, back in the physical book.

It's Still Going to Take a While

Even with all this listening, the app says I have 5.5 hours of book left. I don't know how many pages that is, but we've reached the Sanderlanche. All the pieces are falling into place.

It gives me hope I will be able to cover books for this blog and YouTube every two weeks. We'll see how that works for me.

The Veilguard Is Mass Effect 2 in Dragon Age Clothing

Aside from that little reading adventure, I also revisited a piece I originally wrote for Geek Peek and gave it a new angle, both as an article and as a new video. My take: Veilguard was trying to imitate Mass Effect 2, and it failed on multiple fronts.

Here's the full article if you're interested:

The Veilguard Is Mass Effect 2 in Dragon Age Clothing

Thanks for reading! What did you read or play this week? Hit reply if you're reading this in your inbox, or comment below if you're reading this online.

See you next week.

Oren

I read 65 pages of Warbreaker this week. Slower than I wanted, and a couple of weeks ago I'd have called that a loss and moved on. This time it left me with a real question instead.

If a book takes me weeks, what does that actually do to the project? It could mean a blog post and a video once or twice a month, which is slower than I pictured. But I'm not sure slower is the same as worse. Maybe the pace just is what it is, and the thing to do is build around it honestly rather than pretend I'll suddenly read faster. I'll read a lot more tonight and tomorrow over Shabbat. Even so, I wanted to sit with the question rather than rush past it.

I also had some genuine wins this week, so let's get into those.

Nerdy takes on the stories I love — games, TV, books, movies, and everything in between.

My Scale Shows a Number I Last Saw 10 Years Ago

I have been struggling with my weight ever since I was in my early twenties. I had always been bigger. And while I did try to diet and exercise more, my body seemed to work against me and I'd either gain back everything I lost or just keep climbing.

About 18 months ago, I started working with a personal trainer and have reached heights I never thought I would. That meant looking more muscular for the first time ever in my life. And it also meant working on my diet. There I kept struggling. We tried changing my diet a few times but it didn't seem to help.

Lately, I decided to take matters into my own hands and try just adding more steps into my day. That meant raising my step count to somewhere between 15k and 20k steps everyday.

The way I did this was simple: I'd walk for an hour before work in the morning, and another hour after I finish my workday. That also helped clear my head.

Yesterday morning, after almost two weeks of this, I stepped on the scale and still saw there a 3-digit number, but one I haven't seen for over a decade: 104.8kg

I was struggling to go down from 107 back to a two digit number and it seems I'm on the right track.

And the other positive signs are that I feel it in my clothes. This isn't just a fluke water weight spike. I actually feel it in my fit.

If that's not a win, I don't know what is.

Our #SaveStargate Posts Keep Making Noise

Another win which isn't directly mine to share, but I want to report it anyway is about my #SaveStargate posts. I have been sharing a daily Save Stargate post and those are pushed out to people who like and repost them on X. It's not easy to keep the hope up that Amazon will change their minds, but I'm doing my best.

We have been waiting for stargate for so long. It's just unfair that some pompous executive can cancel the dreams of an entire generation like that. There are so many threads to explore, too! I have been writing about them on X.

I also keep liking and reposting other Save Stargate posts by other people. I love this fandom so much. It feels great to know I'm not fighting this digital fight alone.

I Have Too Many Books

I'm sitting here, writing this letter from the same book-store-turned-library that I told you about last week, and last week I told you about books I bought. Well, this time, I have a plastic bag with the four Eragon books waiting for me to take them home.

I have no idea where I'll put them but I still wanted them. It feels weird to buy something you know you want to own and read, but at the same time not knowing where you'll put that thing in the long-term. I'm reaching that age where I want to own a house and put all my stuff in it. A space to call my own. That's a dream for another day and another newsletter.

I Refuse to Give Up Streaming

I haven't been streaming Mass Effect in the last couple of weeks. On the one hand, I'm annoyed with myself because at this point in Mass Effect 2, each mission could be a 90 minute stream in a similar manner to what I did in Mass Effect 1. Doing so makes it pretty straightforward to finish the game and reach Mass Effect 3.

The problem is I'm finding myself getting ready to stream too late in the evening these days especially because of all the walking. Where I would start a stream in 20:30, now I usually come back from my evening walk by then, needing to eat and take a shower first. So by the time I'm ready to stream it's almost 22:00 which is way too late to start a stream.

I'll have to think about a solution for this. For now I don't have a good one to share.

Thank You For Reading

I'm enjoying writing these letters because I know I'll be able to look back and read them and see where my headspace has been in particular points in my life. I don't share my whole life here, of course, this is not a journal. But hopefully, the bits I do share do resonate with you.

I appreciate you taking the time to read these and invite you to hit reply if you read this in your inbox, or drop a comment below, and tell me what are you reading these days, what's on your mind, and whether you have any wins or losses to share. This is a safe space.

I'll see you in the next one!

Oren

Have you ever had a day that slammed you so hard that you just needed it to end? For me, this was today.

I took my mom on a bit of a trip to Northern Israel this morning on my vacation day. We took public transportation for about 3 hours to reach our destination, stayed there for about an hour, and then I took her to lunch in the area. The food was good enough. Not what I'm used to, but you can't really expect anything from a restaurant that operated essentially in the middle of nowhere with no real infrastructure around it. We had Chicken Tender Pita and some French fries.

After lunch, we started our journey home to Tel Aviv at around 15:30 and arrived at 19:00. The trip back took us by bus, train, and some walking and waiting in between. So exhausting. My head still hurts.

And yet, I told myself I wouldn't give up on writing this letter because I needed to do it on Friday and had delayed it until today. I have to stop doing that. So here I am, writing to you at 23:32 at night before going to bed 😄

My main highlight from last week was this Open Letter I wrote and published on X/Twitter, which got some attention. You can read it here:

An Open Letter to Amazon: You Didn’t Just Cancel a Show - You Ignited the Entire Fandom

This article got shared hundreds of times. It made me happy to see it making waves because I truly care about this community and want to see the show reinstated with Martin Gero's vision.

I'm keeping the #SaveStargate flame alive with more posts that seem to get some attention now, too. I'm grateful that people see my posts and help share them with others who might not know Stargate as my generation does.

That's all I have for you today, buds. I hope this week will be more productive on a few projects I've been putting off. You'll find out in your inbox 😄

Thanks for reading!

Oren

I'm writing this from a bookstore, having just made a decision about this site. But first, the scene: this place acts more like a library. There are tables where people sit and read, but none of the books around us can be borrowed, only bought. I bought five before sitting down, two nonfiction and three novels: Yumi and the Nightmare Painter, 1984, and A Language of Dragons.

So here's the deal. I tried to make this site "an archive," but that language made me go too long without actually publishing anything here, because an archive isn't supposed to be timely. But I do want to write about timely things, like Amazon's cancellation of the Stargate revival. I'm furious.

So I'm returning this site to being a normal blog again. My path forward is to write about the things I love, and also about timely things. Just a normal personal blog. That's the news.

Outside the mall I'm at, a full-on Pride parade is going on near the Tel Aviv beach, and there's festivity in the air, even though the fun part of the Israeli calendar is behind us. From here on it's just heat and no excuse to go on vacation. Which makes it a great time to put in some work toward your dreams. One of mine is this website. I don't fully know what I want it to become yet, but I do know I want to build a community of nerds to talk to about all the amazing things I watch, read, or play.

I recently finished watching Foundation on Apple TV. It was SO good. I don't know if I'd feel this way had I read the books first, but I have a feeling it's different enough that I would. The Jump ships reminded me of Mass Effect's Mass Relays, except the relay is built into the ship instead of staying put.

The Geek Peek migration is still slow going, but it's coming.

And finally, I'm streaming Mass Effect 2 online if you want to come hang out.

That's all I have for you today. Thanks for reading!

Oren

Hi there,

I hope this nerdy letter finds you well. Sounds so official, starting a letter this way, doesn’t it? I promise I’ll include more fun, nerdy intros in the future!

Welcome to the first letter in my nerdy archive project!

Let me explain what my nerdy archive is. I’ve always dreamed of creating a blog where I could share my nerdy thoughts, reviews, essays, and more. I love playing video games and nerding out over books and movies. As someone who loves writing, it made a lot of sense to write about my experiences. That lets me share them with others online, while also preserving what I was thinking as I experienced each story.

I host the archive on a Ghost website and publish this letter on all my socials. You might be reading this on X, Ghost, Substack, or Medium. Wherever you are, I’m glad you’re here and I appreciate you taking the time.

So, what kinds of updates will I be sharing in these weekly letters?

- New Entries: When I read a book, watch a movie, or play a game, I’ll write about it.
- New Categories: When I start a new series, I’ll create a hub for it so all related posts have a common home.
- Personal Updates: From time to time, I’ll share with you life updates.

You can reply to these letters wherever you read them, and I’ll see your reply and respond.

I’m currently importing all my past work from the Geek Peek blog into my personal blog. I’m no longer hosting on Geek Peek, but I don’t want to abandon the writing I shared there. I’m publishing updated versions of them to ensure they stay relevant.

One of the most important pages I’m working on right now is my No-AI Content Commitment. Everything you read on my blog is human-made and will stay that way. As a software engineer, I find AI tools incredibly useful in my day job. But as a creative person, I refuse to let AI replace human creativity. That’s why I’m not allowing it on my personal blog.

I’m also watching two weekly D&D series called Min-Maxxed and Venture Forth. Their episodes come out weekly, so I record and publish my reviews after watching.

For more consistent content, I’m re-watching Stargate SG-1. I’ve reached season 5. I’m thinking about creating horizontal videos for season 1, especially since I plan to do the same for the new show coming in 2027. My brain likes going “completionist” on series. So far, I’ve only published vertical shorts for season 1. 

The next project I want to start is re-watching all of Dimension 20. I already have some series published on the blog, but I’ll probably do it slowly to avoid burnout.

I also maintain a YouTube channel. It’s where I post my reviews, which I embed on relevant blog posts. From time to time, I also share unrelated nerdy videos there. YouTube is where I expect most of the community to “live”. I have no illusions of thriving blog comments in 2026 (but I still give you the ability to post them!)

That’s all for this update. How about you? What’s going on in your life right now? Hit reply and let me know.

Thanks for reading!
Oren