Someone Say Four Day Weekend!

I had really hoped to post a bit more over the past week, but working two jobs and only having one day off a week is really kicking my butt, and getting old. That will change after today, hopefully, as I have the next four days off, including getting a paid holiday for Monday from both jobs! Woot! I am hopeful that the following week I'll get at least two days off then starting July 1st I'll be a one job man again.

It's not that I haven't had time to do stuff, but the little time I have had I spent watching some TV with the family or playing games. I went from having three days off to only one and the one thing I've known for awhile is that I am really bad at managing my time and it has shown during this past month.

I did, however, make a list of all the games I've either not played or played just a smidgen last. One thing I learned was that I've purchased very few games from a brick and mortar store over the past two and a half years. If memory serves me, I have only purchased ten PC games from a retail store since buying Fallout New Vegas from Gamestop back in October 2010. How many digital games have I purchased? Way too many.

Instead of creating a road map which was incredibly overwhelming, I think I'll use my list as a sort of bucket list for games. Once I feel satisfied I've played the game, I'll cross it off the list and move onto something else. I know that I will never play every game on my list but maybe this will help curb my spending on random games. Only time will tell.

Roadmapping The Backlog.

Wow, so it's been just over three months since my last blog post, talk about neglect. Even before that my posting history has been nothing short of sporadic anyways. I've been so inactive that I doubt I'm on any one's reader anymore, and speaking of reader, I am going to have to find a replacement for Google Reader here pretty quick.

I really hate having a backlog, I even dislike using the term as well. When I listen to various podcasts and the backlog is brought up in conversation it seems like it's a revered thing, as if it's some right of passage for the "core" gamer. I know for myself it's sales coupled with liking too many different types of games. I like RPG's, RTS's, MMO's, shooters, sports game - well you get the idea.

What I had done over the past year to alleviate the backlog pressure was break up my games into two lists: those games that I need to play and those that I wouldn't mind playing but won't feel guilty if I don't. One thing I have done to help myself was curb my spending, specially when there's a sale going on. Sure I want to play those games, but when am I going to find the time between life, MMO's and what ever other game I'm playing to play that shiny new game I bought on sale?

For the past month I've been working two jobs and have only had one day off each week, so as you can imagine my game time has been cut way down. After I finished Tomb Raider the other day (spoiler: I hated it!), I found myself in a situation where I wasn't sure what to move to next in the virtual stack. I'm waiting for Marvel Heroes in June, there's the Rift F2P coming as well on top of the few other MMO's I've started playing again and the monster that is League of Legends which eats up a bit of time. It's a time management issue really.

I'm a big proponent of the idea that you play what you feel like playing at the time, but I thought maybe creating a list, a roadmap as it were, might help me manage my time better and give me a better understanding of just how many games I have that I truly need to play. It could be way too daunting and overwhelming which might cause me to break down and cry, but it's worth a try.

This of course is just a tool to help me and things can and will probably change. A few months ago I was planning on playing through all three Mass Effect games, even started the first game again. Something came up, my interest changed and I have yet to get back to Mass Effect.

We'll see just how far I get into this project, but for now it sounds like a good idea.