I don't mean smoking. (Though the same friend & boss just did that. I'm pleased & impressed.)
No, I'm talking about kicking the habit of keeping game records. I'm on the verge of giving it up. Should I? I've never kept extensive records, just a month-by-month listing of the games I play and the groups I played them with (Santa Clarita Boardgamers, SoCal Games Days, my kids, etc.). Around 2000 or so I felt like it was becoming too much, and stopped halfway through the year. . .
. . . then at year's end I was sorry I didn't have the info to compare to what I'd collected since 1996. I ended up fudging the data to the best of my memory.
I've been letting my 2004 records slide for past month or so. From emails and such I can reconstruct it easily enough, but I'm wondering if I should just let it go. I've been pretty comfortable about dialing back some other parts of this hobby/obsession (mailing lists, BGG, etc.), why not just forget about these lists?
Aw, who am I kidding--I'm going to update the list soon. :-)
P.S. Candy played Die Fugger with me today. I think she even liked it. I've been hoping to expand the 2-player games we play infrequently (hoping they'll come out a little more often, too). I'm re-acquiring Canal Grande soon, hoping that might work, too. Certainly the theme helps.
The only records I keep now is for the purpose of writing session reports (Westbank Gamers, Gulf Games, Gathering, etc.) I do keep a database of the rankings supplied by the Westbank Gamers members, but that's it.
I gave up keeping annual or monthly records of games played, winning percentages, etc. many years ago. I simply found it way too time consumming and not fun. I'd rather play the games then keep records.
That being said, if you enjoy it and it isn't taking up too much of your time, then keep doing it.
Posted by: Greg J. Schloesser at September 13, 2004 08:35 AMThe only records I keep now is for the purpose of writing session reports (Westbank Gamers, Gulf Games, Gathering, etc.) I do keep a database of the rankings supplied by the Westbank Gamers members, but that's it.
I gave up keeping annual or monthly records of games played, winning percentages, etc. many years ago. I simply found it way too time consumming and not fun. I'd rather play the games then keep records.
That being said, if you enjoy it and it isn't taking up too much of your time, then keep doing it.
Posted by: Greg J. Schloesser at September 13, 2004 08:36 AMThe other thing to consider is that it might be worthwhile to re-evaluate what info you are collecting. Do you use all of it? Are there items that you never end up looking at? Maybe you can pare down to just the essential (?) data. That might make the task less onerous.
Typically I just log what I've played. It's useful to me to see, for example, what hasn't come out in a while, and that I should therefore push to the table or consider trading. And that's an easy update to the spreadsheet on my Palm.
Posted by: Dave Wilson at September 13, 2004 02:36 PM