The Daily Grind - Issue One

Good Morning Folks,
I am pleased to report that the new and improved "The Daily Grind" is back for business once again, for those who don't remember or are new to the site. The Daily Grind was a series of posts about my gaming time each day, I went into quite a bit of detail about everything I was doing. Of course I did find myself spending too much time writing then playing so it did start to be reduced and then eventually I just stopped altogether.

So why a new improved version and what will it cover? well this year as been one big kick to the teeth and it's been getting me real down. No doubt you have noticed my rants when I do my weekly general posts since it's been effecting my game time. Yesterday I was writing the post for last week and it was pretty much just one big post of ranting and whining, after two attempts at the post I gave up on it.

But it then came to me it was a brand new week and think it was time for a new start, my pile of shame as got to the worst I've ever seen it. Just looking at the pile by my desk I'm counting roughly 57 Xbox 360 games, 35 PC games, 2 Wii Games and around 15 PS3 games, that's just pile one of many. It's coming to the point that I've been thinking about just grabbing the games that I would not keep after finishing and just trade them in right now since I doubt I got enough time in the year to work on all of them. But I don't want to go down that path yet and that's how this fresh start comes into play, this new series of posts will cover all the general stuff that I normally post but will also keep everyone updated on my progress on the pile. Plus it will be a great for motivating me as well, so welcome back to "The Daily Grind" and this is issue one of hopefully many posts.

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Think the best place to start this issue off is with last week gaming which you all probably know sucked a lot since I spent most of my time off in the middle of the week in bed with a bad head. But I was able to get in a good blast of gaming this weekend, while I was out I did a few more levels of Plants vs Zombies on the Vita. Love that game to bits but I did forget how hard it can be sometimes if you not prepared, especially the night times with a pool.

Sunday I was planning to get some jobs done but in the end I spent the afternoon and evening doing a giant Gears of War 3 marathon, started off with Act 5 on Insane complete. Felt very proud watching the final boss die on insane although most of the palace guards did not show up and after all that hard work to get the Vampire Mutator to help us. Anyway after that we just had a big session of Beast and Horde mode, nothing special to report there other then picked up a few achievements and grinding a few stats towards the Seriously 3.0 achievement (very long way off still).

On that note time to update the stats of my challenge:

Week 14 - This week
Starting Total: 134,699
To Earn: 1,820
Achieved: 0
Difference: -1.820

Week 13
Starting Total: 134,359
To Earn: 1,778
Achieved: 340
Difference: -1,438

Total So Far -
To Earn: 20,266

Achieved: 8,420

Difference: -11,846

Dang! I'm way off target for the year and to say I'm only a few months in the challenge that's crazy. Going to be a lot hard to get that 1,800 a week right now, pretty much two games fully clocked a week plus need to crawl back that 11k.

Not sure on how I'm going to do but if I played the games that I do have I probably could smash this challenge, speaking of that I might as well write out what I want to do this week and how I'm going to get through my pile of shame. I do read a lot of gamer blogs and follow several friends who have the same problem when it comes to games, I love seeing their solutions to their problems. Everything from playing one game at time until it's fully clocked up to having ten games on the go with new ones replacing completed ones.

Personally I've not decided on what I want to do yet but I do have the start planned out and it's based on three games. First one is Mass Effect 3 which I've put 28 hours into so far and I'm ashamed of myself for not finishing it by now, well I can understand why I had a late start but the last few weeks I've had plenty of time to work on it. I call myself a fan boy of the series and yet I'm letting the Reapers win. Second game is my rental from Lovefilm, Marvel Superhero Squad Infinite Gauntlet, it's not a bad game and it works a lot like the Lego games. So far I'm three or four levels into the game so about halfway through of course once the story is finished need to do all the collectibles, challenges etc.

Finally the last game I had completely forgot about until I was watching a trailer yesterday and that's Batman Arkham City on the PC. I was half way through the game earlier this year and I got no clue on why it was shelved, I want to say something came out but I cannot for the love of money remember what. Anyway these three games I want to finish up before I even start to think about doing anything else, after that then I can come up with a plan.

Speaking of pile of shames, what about you readers? do you giant piles of games to complete and how do you cope with getting through it.

Just remembered I will be playing my handhelds on the weekend still since I cannot take my main consoles with me, but I will be doing the same with those in the ways of I need to finish Plants vs Zombies before I even think of doing anything else. Maybe after that work on Pokemon Rumble again or start Dr Lautrec, ohhh dang! I just remembered Uncharted on the Vita needs finishing and I started Pokemon White. See what I mean by needing to get my ass into gear, it's going to be a interesting few months.

Anyway I'm going to head off and start playing some games, I will be doing some more posts later so keep your eyes open for that.

Have a good one folks and hope you liked the first issue
~Iznic