August 2010 Recap

You know the drill. It's time to see how well we did at clearing out our backlogs this month and set goals for the upcoming months.

The good news is that we had 44 posts, our best total since April and our third-highest on the year thus far. The bad news is that the first three and final three posts of the month weren't really any actual logging progress - or, as Sweeney has dubbed it, "logress." I made 17 posts, but only 11 were actual loggings as I knocked off two games, two TV seasons, two movies, and five books. Sweeney wasn't far behind, with seven postings: four games and three books. Webber had four posts and evenly dispersed his talents across a book, a video game, and two movies. Trevor logged a video game and a TV season. (His recent book posting came just an hour into September and sadly does not count!) All of this accounts for 24 of our 38 postings (excluding recaps and retro-postings), leaving Marissa - Marissa! - responsible for 14 posts and top honors on the month. Six books, six movies, and two seasons of television. Can we get an MVP chant going? No? Okay, fine.

Now it's time for more self-loathing from me. I came out even on the month in gaming terms (two acquired minus two beaten leaves a net change of zero), but the goal is progress and not stagnation. With fall, the biggest video game release season of them all, upon us, I'll really need to step up my gaming game. But by making short-term and specific goals I worry about ruining the impulsive and whimsical gaming selections that are innate to the hobby. Maybe as of this writing, for example, I think it'd be a great idea to knock off all the remaining games in my Sonic Mega Collection for GameCube. But who's to say that when I get home from work tomorrow, I won't be craving some Infamous instead? In lieu of specific titles I'll give you a long term goal instead, and it will merely be one number: 20. You see, according to my own self-tracking statistics (thanks, backloggery.com), I've beaten a grand total of 230 games to date. Why not up that to 250 by 2011? That comes out to four games a month, and frankly, this being game release season, I'd be happy if I achieved that number while still making just ten games' worth of progress in my overall backlog. But, hey. That's life.

What's even more ridiculous is that I went -6 in the DVD department. I blame no one but myself for making so many silly impulse purchases due to $5 sales at Best Buy and Target. My movie count, which stood at one as recently as this past Spring, has ballooned all the way back out to 18. And though I only have four TV shows waiting in the wings, it's that time of the year when all the TV shows returning this fall are releasing their DVDs right now. It may be challenging, but I aim to gain back ten points in the movie department this month; breaking even would be fine with television.

Finally, my lone bright spot on the month was in books, where I took five steps forward and just one step backward. The bad news is that I've still got 38 books left to get through. Let me aim for reducing that total to 35 by the end of the month, a task which demands that I read three more books than I acquire this month. Sounds simple enough. Now it's time for me to go forth and do it.

By the way, as always, fellow bloggers, feel welcome to post or comment with your own monthly goals. Marissa, I'm looking at you!