"About the title of this blog" or "Happy New Year!"

Like a lot of other people since the Babylonian Empire was a going concern, I've been in the habit of making several New Years Resolutions every year.  And, like a lot of other people since the era clay tablets represented the best available storage medium and communication mechanism, I don't even remember having made them a few months later, let alone actually succeed at any of them.

This year I decided to do something different.   I created a fairly short, entirely mental list of tiny goals I was reasonably sure I could keep, such as "Nag my daughter harder about going to Karate lessons and finishing her book reports ahead of time"  or "Get the mini-poodle a haircut before one of the Siamese's claws  gets hopelessly snagged in his fur again".  

But I did set one semi-big, pain-in-the-posterior goal.  No, No.  It was not, "I will start an unread blog long after that fad had peaked and doing so has become an indication of how out-of-touch I am."

It was "I will not buy another Steam game, no matter what it's price, until I have played every Steam game I have ever purchased for AT LEAST ONE HOUR.  That may seem like it belonged on the list of tiny, easily-kept resolutions.  But I have discovered over the past few days it is going to be a little bit more difficult than I originally thought.

First, when I actually examined my Steam library a few days ago, I began to realize out that the commitment was a bit bigger than I had realized.  I appear to have 105 games in my Steam library, half of which have never been installed, let alone played.  Apparently, I made a 60-70 hour time commitment, not the 10-20 hour commitment that could be completed over a long weekend.  60-70 hours is more like a full-blown New Years Resolution such as "exercise 3 hours a week" or "repair and refinish the deck".  Those are the kind of resolutions that usually fail.  Trying to avoid failure was the entire point of assembling a list of tiny resolutions.

The second issue is that some of these games are...ummm.....uh, well, to be blunt:  I just do NOT want to spend an hour playing them.  Some appear to be awful or unpleasant to play.  I find myself  hitting the "play" button and wondering a few minutes later, "Why was this game made?"  Sometimes I look at the title or go to the game's community page and find myself wondering "Why the #$%^ did I buy this?"  And I've already found that I just cannot bring myself to start playing one game in particular, for reasons that have nothing to do with the quality of the game itself, but because of an odd personal neurosis.

The third issue is, perversely enough, that some of these games are extraordinarily difficult to turn off after just one hour.  Some are difficult to stop playing after a few afternoons.  They are a joy to play.  They tickle parts of my gamer psyche the way a fine meal seduces a gourmand, maybe the way a piece of sushi from Sukiyabashi Jiro  appeals to a connoisseur.  (Or maybe just the way a jar of meth appeals to an addict....) But games are a lot more time-consuming than food. When a game tells a good story,  the gameplay and graphics are terrific,  the tone and feel, the balance of humor, or seriousness, or both, come together just so , its easy to spend dozens,  apparently even THOUSANDS (coff coff Skyrim) of hours playing.  If I start lingering over one or two, I'll never get through them all before some unbelievable offer appears on Steam and overcomes my pathetically small reserves of self-discipline.  Hence, failure becomes almost inevitable.

None of that, of course, answers the question "Why a blog?"

I guess I've kind of wanted to start a diary, or journal, or blog, for a long time.  But a diary always seemed too feminine(**Please read note at end before commenting**), a journal too self-indulgent and/or neurotic,  and a blog seemed to require an actual theme of some sort besides "stuff I want to rant about".  Various advice I've read the last few years about starting a blog uniformly advises newbie bloggers to write about things they care about passionately.  I do care about video games (even if I'm not sure its a "passionate" sort of caring), but I've always felt as though there were enough decent blogs about video games already, and I had nothing original to say, at least that anyone might be interested in...

...until a few days into this unplayed-Steam-purchases project.  I cannot recall stumbling over something like this before online, which means it will be original,  at least to me.  I admit I'd actually be mildly surprised if nobody anywhere has ever done anything like this before.  But since I do not really expect anyone to read this blog anyway, my personal, entirely subjective perspective is the one that's important.

And contrast to the "got-nothing-original-to-say" feeling I had previously, I also feel like I cannot STFU about my thoughts and feelings while playing some of these games.  I've been chewing off the ears of my wife and daughter about these games the way a coin collector with Asperger syndrome talks about the various aesthetic qualities of the different images on the backs of the various state-themed quarters.  Perhaps that's a valid  functional test for being "passionate":   Does one feel compelled to keep ranting long after its obvious everyone else has stopped listening?

Sooooooooooo, I guess this blog is an effort to make life a little easier for my wife and daughter.  Living with me is enough of a trial all ready without being trapped with a ranting, half-crazed, obnoxiously loquacious video gamer every time we drive to Baker's Square for breakfast.  This should provide a better outlet for ranting.

My focus is going to be completely narcissistic.   I come here not to provide criticism or reviews of these almost forgotten games.  Anyone can find a dozen reviews of the least-played flop ever coded with a quick Amazon or Google search.  Who needs more of that?

No.  This is going to be primarily a series of rants about my entirely subjective emotional experience playing through different games.  I'll describe my feelings not just about the games themselves, but also such widely varying topics as my purchase decision and the broader thoughts about the game as a product of our civilization . (Question:  Is a video game a product of our civilization as a whole,  or more properly thought of as a product of the semi-overlapping subcultures of developers and gamers?)

Like all hopeful but somewhat realistic new bloggers in my age category, I  also expect to go off on utterly unrelated tangents such as the latest "Gungam Style" parody, struggles to raise my children, growing  misgivings about the state of youth today, and complaints about the latest flu strain.  But it will mostly be about how I feel about different games I'm pretty sure I should have never purchased from Steam.

**Note about diaries as "too feminine":
I aware this sort of statement is an example of male chauvinism, sexism, anti-feminism. etc.... and am mildly ashamed of it in consequence.  But the statement that "a diary seemed too feminine"  is a completely accurate description of my internal, completely subjective emotional response to the idea of keeping a personal diary.  At some point in childhood I apparently internalized an "Archie Bunker"-like persona that never fails to cause intense, shame-inducing psychic earthquakes if I even consider doing "girly stuff" like playing with dolls, wearing dresses, buying comfortable underwear or keeping a diary.  Why keeping a diary is on his list of taboo "girly" activities is as unclear and shrouded in personal mystery as his origin.  But "diary" is definitely on his list of things I am not permitted to do without shame.  And Archie (for want of a better name) is too deeply rooted in the dark core of my subconscious for me to really get rid of him.  So if it bothers you, feel free to leave a hateful comment.  But don't expect much in the way of either soliciting an apology from or inducing any sort of enlightenment in the author.