Assassin's Creed/Contentment/Great Backlog Burning

That's what's on my brain.

Just finished the second Assassin's Creed, ordered the next in the series for dirt cheap, and while I wait I'm having to practice right now what I'll be preaching in a few weeks as we start the Summer Of Free: contentment.

It's been good for me lately. As is usually the case, my personal "Summer Of Free" begins before I start promoting it, while I'm searching for free stuff and developing ideas for it. A change this year will be to replace the focus on retro-games to a focus on what I will call "The Great Backlog Burning". For me, The Great Backlog Burning of 2017 began about a month ago, when I got on a roll with Horizon Zero Dawn and finished it. Then I got on a tear with Dragon Quest Builders, which I think I may finish in a month or so. Made lots of progress, though. And then over the weekend I finished Assassin's Creed 2. Of course then I immediately ordered the next one. So, two steps forward, one step back, I guess. But I'm probably just one or two nights away from finishing Far Cry Primal, and then I might even be able to finish Dragon Quest Builders before Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood arrives next week.

All that to say, I'm back to a more healthy pattern of actually FINISHING the games I own. And yet I still have many more to go. Lost Odyssey (after some level grinding), Shadow Hearts: From The New World, SLeeping Dogs and Wolfenstein: The New Order are all more than halfway finished, with one near the end. Then there's God Of War 2 (need to find a walkthrough for this dumb puzzle stage), Castlevania "something of something" on my DS and Elminage Original, all of which I'm not as in to as the first group of games, but are still fun and I haven't finished yet.

My hope is that (apart from a sale I'd be foolish to not conservatively take advantage of) I won't be buying any more games between now and July 11th. And after that I will be completely cutting myself off from all entertainment spending for four weeks as part of the Summer Of Free (details on that later).

Anyway, Assassin's Creed, contentment, and the workout I've been stalling to get started although I can feel myself typing faster as the caffeine kicks in so I should probably get started now.

THAT'S "what's on my brain".

Paeter wrote:That's what's on my brain.

Just finished the second Assassin's Creed, ordered the next in the series for dirt cheap, and while I wait I'm having to practice right now what I'll be preaching in a few weeks as we start the Summer Of Free: contentment.

It's been good for me lately. As is usually the case, my personal "Summer Of Free" begins before I start promoting it, while I'm searching for free stuff and developing ideas for it. A change this year will be to replace the focus on retro-games to a focus on what I will call "The Great Backlog Burning". For me, The Great Backlog Burning of 2017 began about a month ago, when I got on a roll with Horizon Zero Dawn and finished it. Then I got on a tear with Dragon Quest Builders, which I think I may finish in a month or so. Made lots of progress, though. And then over the weekend I finished Assassin's Creed 2. Of course then I immediately ordered the next one. So, two steps forward, one step back, I guess. But I'm probably just one or two nights away from finishing Far Cry Primal, and then I might even be able to finish Dragon Quest Builders before Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood arrives next week.

All that to say, I'm back to a more healthy pattern of actually FINISHING the games I own. And yet I still have many more to go. Lost Odyssey (after some level grinding), Shadow Hearts: From The New World, SLeeping Dogs and Wolfenstein: The New Order are all more than halfway finished, with one near the end. Then there's God Of War 2 (need to find a walkthrough for this dumb puzzle stage), Castlevania "something of something" on my DS and Elminage Original, all of which I'm not as in to as the first group of games, but are still fun and I haven't finished yet.

My hope is that (apart from a sale I'd be foolish to not conservatively take advantage of) I won't be buying any more games between now and July 11th. And after that I will be completely cutting myself off from all entertainment spending for four weeks as part of the Summer Of Free (details on that later).

Anyway, Assassin's Creed, contentment, and the workout I've been stalling to get started although I can feel myself typing faster as the caffeine kicks in so I should probably get started now.

THAT'S "what's on my brain".

I'm kind of in the same boat with a lot of games i'm playing and trying to get Plats for I'm grateful that there isn't any more games coming out anytime soon that I want (with the exception of Crash Bandicoot but that's already preorder and paid for)
So will you be doing a Backlog stream?
Also what puzzle are you stuck in on God of War 2?

Rickster wrote:
So will you be doing a Backlog stream?
Also what puzzle are you stuck in on God of War 2?

YES! I'll be announcing that date on the podcast and channel this week!

And I can't remember which puzzle. In fact in part it's not so much a puzzle as not knowing what the game wants me to do next. I plan on doing some goolging and youtubing to get it straightened out in the next month or so.

So, my take on the great Backlog Burn is gonna be a 'Read Your Kindle' type thing. (Man, I'm coherent tonight!)

I'm sure all you readers out there know what it's like. You first get a Kindle and you fill it with free books. After a while you can't possibly read htem all, so you concentrate on the ones you actually paid money for.
Next thing you know, you're having trouble getting through even those that you paid for.

So I'm going to go and read through a bunch of books that have been on my to-read list for too long. (I haven't been reading well this year. Too much temptation from Netflix)

So, here's what I plan to read over the next 2 months-ish
https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/5752180-adam-collings?shelf=backlogburn2017

It even includes a book by one of our own.
The list does contain one book that I plan to buy tonight (after I get paid), but after that, I don't plan to buy any more books until I'm done.
Of course that's not really a big problem for me. I tend to be the kind of person who agonises over every purchase. I'll spend months deciding to buy something for myself. Drives my wife mad ('cause she's more of a spender).

For me, it's less about money, and more about getting back into a good reading habit.

There are too many good books in the world - and I have to eat them all!

AdamCollings wrote:So, my take on the great Backlog Burn is gonna be a 'Read Your Kindle' type thing. (Man, I'm coherent tonight!)

Sweet! I was hoping to hear from someone with a book backlog to burn through! Have fun!

Well, yes I WAS thinking of getting that one day.
Ugh. I'm such a bad person.
I guess I've failed. lol.

Paeter wrote:Sweet! I was hoping to hear from someone with a book backlog to burn through! Have fun!

Definitely having fun so far.

I'm not sure how I'm going to handle my Great Backlog Burning. The thing is, I don't spend a lot of money on entertainment as it is...

• For books, I mostly download temporary copies for my Kindle from my hometown library's website, or I jump on free Kindle deals when I hear about them.
  

• For movies and TV shows, my folks back home have a Netflix subscription that they let me use.
  

• For music, I get a lot of free stuff from Noisetrade, Bandcamp, and another part of my library's website (helps that my parents let me use their library card numbers).
  

• And in general, I usually get digital Amazon gift cards for birthdays and Christmases, and I tend to just sit on them until something on my wishlist goes on sale. This lets me stretch them out for quite a long time.
  

Before I heard about the GBB, though, I did make a plan to do something similar with my DVDs. My wife and I occasionally pay for a month-or-so-long subscription to a domestic Chinese movie streaming site to watch stuff, but after our most recent subscription ended last month, I vowed not to subscribe again until I've gotten through all the DVDs I have that I haven't watched. So you could say my Backlog Burning started then, but we did pay to go see Wonder Woman yesterday, so I guess I have to start over.

Like Adam, I do have a TON (or even a TONNE) of Kindle books I've never even started reading, so maybe I could commit to not buy or checking out anymore books and just working my way through that backlog for a month. But I don't think I'd be saving any more money than normal.

AdamCollings wrote:So, my take on the great Backlog Burn is gonna be a 'Read Your Kindle' type thing.

That sounds like something I should do... I have huge tbr piles, both physical and digital, awaiting attention. Most of my kindle content is also cheap/free books, so maybe I'll start by narrowing that down to a manageable list of those I'm most likely to enjoy!

Elsewhere, I have a stack of 80s games I've picked up while collecting old computers, many of which I haven't played since the 80s - and some I've never played! That should be an interesting diversion on the inevitable rainy days this summer

Reed Benson wrote:I'm not sure how I'm going to handle my Great Backlog Burning. The thing is, I don't spend a lot of money on entertainment as it is...

Sounds like you've got some good habits on your side! Could be an "easy win" for you!

UKSteve wrote: That should be an interesting diversion on the inevitable rainy days this summer

You have "inevitable rainy days" in the summer?? So jealous! (Said the boy who lived in Arizona most of his life.)