01 November 2011

What's in a Name?

This will be my last post on this blog, so I thought I'd make this last post about the reasons why.

It's no great mystery, really. I just don't feel like the name is right? Yeah, I'm being picky about the title, but it's a little more complicated than that, if not very.

Dave Dynamo as a blog title was always sort of a make-do, something I put at the top of the page when I couldn't think of anything better. The origin of the first part should be at least somewhat obvious, and the second part is from a favorite character of mine in the Champions tabletop RPG.

I've used Dynamo as an Internet handle in various forums and games, but apparently it's not original enough to be available in a lot of places. That's led to variation such as Dave Dynamo and Dynamo Dave, and that's where my discontent begins.

Once I mix a completely fictional name with my real name, it feels to me like I've set expectations. Maybe nobody else feels like that, but I start feeling like I should be a more... say... energetic contributor to the digital incarnation of the noosphere. That's pressure I don't need.

Then there's the matter of using a handle at all. It used to be cool to have a short handle that everyone recognized, but I think that's been lost in the current environment of handles like junkpunchpvpkilla or much more poorly spelled examples.

I don't know. Written out, my objections seem kind of dumb, but there's no getting around the fact that I don't like it anymore. Maybe it's also that using even a variation of my name/handle as the blog title feels too narcissistic.

So I started monkeying around with the Blogger interface. Yes, it turns out I can change the title of the blog, but not the URL, so I'd still be stuck with davedynamo.blogspot.com, so I figured the best solution would be to change both the title and the URL, but that can only be done by starting a new blog, starting fresh.

Still... what to call it? A few months ago, I was joking around with some friends about how nerd girls are hot, and I drawled, "Oh baby, talk nerdy to me." That idea stuck around in my head, and I ended up playing with the lyrics to Talk Dirty to Me to fit Talk Nerdy to Me. So obviously, I like the phrase, and it describes the content of the blog so far.

Next came the URL. Let me tell you, every variation of Talk Nerdy to me was taken, talknerdytome, talknerdy, nerdytalk, nerdtome, nerdtalk, all taken. Grumble.

So I figured, why not decouple the title from the URL from the outset, so I can change the title in the future without starting fresh again. That would work, but then what should I should for the URL? That turned out to be pretty easy. I came up with Dynamitochondria about a year ago. Too long for a handle, too long by one character in the case of Twitter, but it should work here.

So go check it out. I'm starting off with a month-long project of posting my Nanowrimo novel as I go, so there should be plenty of terrible text to laugh at.