January After-Action Report and February's Monthly List

Well, the monthly list idea went... ...so-so. I was doing well for the beginning part of the month, but then I remembered that Mass Effect 3 is coming out in March and Mass Effect 1 and 2 have swallowed a huge amount of my free time as I've played through them in preparation for that. Here's the results for January:

Short Games: Bastion (cleared), Rage (cleared), Homefront (cleared) - made it through all of these.
Long Game: Dungeons of Dredmor (cleared) - Made it through all of that.
Nonfiction Book: The art of Manliness: Manvotionals - Not cleared. I'm about halfway through and am enjoying taking it slower. Because it's a collection of shorter things, its not really suited to plowing through, at least if I'm going to get any sort of real value out of it.
Fiction Book: The Alloy of Law (cleared) - Made it through in just a half-dozen sittings, I think. But Sanderson is one of my favorite authors.
Movies: Midnight Chronicles (cleared), Seraphim Falls - didn't clear Seraphim Falls, but I may watch that in February.
TV Season: The Walking Dead: Season 1 - I completely fell down on this. I just didn't watch it, or rather didn't watch beyond episode 1. I don't think I'm going to, either, despite how much I keep getting told I should. This has been on and off the list a lot, but I just can't get into it. I'm kind of tapped out on gruesome and depressing, no matter how well it's executed.

For February, I polled the Fear the Boot community and came up with some interesting results. This list is not entirely based on the polling results, but most of it is. In particular, the non-fiction book is based on my wife repeatedly asking me nicely to finish it and seeming a little hurt that I put that one to a poll, so I'm going to go with her preference there.

Short Games: Orcs Must Die!, Portal 2, and Bioshock 2
Long Game: S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl (Secondary long game: Avadon: The Black Fortress. I'm going to attempt to get through both of these, because I mentioned to someone I'd try to get them an impression of Avadon at some point in the near future.)
Nonfiction Book: A Theology of Inclusivism
Fiction Book: American Gods
Movies: Cowboys & Aliens and Salt
TV Season: Jericho, Season 1

The New Idea: Monthly Lists

So now that my Backlog has grown to an absolutely TITANIC size, I'm looking at it for this year and thinking: "What can I do to get this pared down?" Here's what I thought of. Each month, I'll pick 2 short games, a long game, a fiction book, a nonfiction book, two movies, and a TV season. Those items will become the focus of my efforts for that month. We'll see if this bears fruit or not, but here's my set of picks for January. Long games may take multiple months of hammering on to get through - some RPGs are LOOONG, so I'll pick a new one when I finish one. If I punch something off the list for the month, I may replace it with something, or I might just focus on other stuff - If I've learned anything doing this blog, it's that I need to keep it somewhat informal if I'm going to have any success.

Short games: Bastion, Rage
Long game: Dungeons of Dredmor
Nonfiction book: The Art of Manliness: Manvotionals
Fiction book: The Alloy of Law
Movies: Midnight Chronicles, Seraphim Falls
TV Season: The Walking Dead: Season 1