Will

The whole thing is idiotic, and the majority of the people involved should be ashamed of themselves. He is, but it was fairly obvious something like this would happen. It's like forcing the naughty kid at school to write a letter to apologise for disrupting the class - it's never going to result in something serious that we can hold up as an example of how to do things properly. Totally stupid. It seems like no matter what happens, we're going to be in a crappy position. Go ahead with the BoJo deal, and it's done, but we're in a worse position than we are now. Extend and have an election which, as the conservatives haven't been able to get Brexit done, would probably lead to the Brexit party taking most of the 'leave' vote and having enough power to force something even worse. Or else it's a no-deal and who knows what kind of a disaster that will be. I'm not sure what we'll all do once this is over, I haven't seen anything else on the news for the last few years.

Got the Mega Drive mini plus tower add on.

I've been playing a few of the games as I now have a longer commute to work. There is a good selection, and I've enjoyed most of what I've played so far. I've been mostly focussing on making my way through Chu Chu Rocket which I feel like I've been waiting forever to play. There is a small fee to join the developer program, but you don't have to pay to list apps. Generally, iPhone users are better off, use newer devices and spend more. Some of it is down to Google's pricing system being more customizable. With the App Store you pick a tier and whatever the price is for that tier will automatically be applied. On Google, you can pick any price as you see fit. This looks awesome - I'm going to give it a go too. Right now it's completely controlled by Apple so it will probably be a few games every week throughout the rest of the year. The games are all individually agreed with their content teams rather than you being able to put whatever you want up whenever you want to so it will likely be a much smaller set of titles released on a regular timescale for at least the first six months or so.

I'll be based in Singapore mostly with regular travel to Manila.

I'm not sure if this is a good stuff, bad stuff, or this thread post as it contains elements of all three. The overall wrapping element is the job so I guess this is the best place for it. The company for the job I was offered a few months ago have taken a crazy amount of time to get my visa sorted. We're talking two and a half months vs. the usual one week it should take. This means I'm the same amount of time late in starting, which is very bad for them as the project I'm leading is due in January, and very bad for me as it is a huge pay rise which I've now missed out on for two months. On the good stuff, it's meant that my notice period is extended and I'm currently sat in an airport lounge waiting to fly to Tokyo for TGS. I have no meetings, obligations or any official business to take care of while I'm there. The last week of my current job is basically an all-expenses paid holiday in Tokyo to catch up with my friends.

Decided to join the 3D printer club: Bought an Ender 3 but they sent me the Pro version. Running the first test print now and I'm very impressed. Looking forward to making some proper stuff with it.

I used to love model trains as a kid, it was probably my main hobby. When I was in Tokyo last month I went to the Kato Hobby Centre and picked up a few things to start up the hobby again. Managed to get quite into all the different stuff available for it. I'm sure before too long more will be added to it.

Things have been going downhill at my current company quite dramatically. This has been both with my role moving into areas I have no interest in and the shockingly bad overall performance of the company. So I've been searching for something new for a while. I've just started a three week holiday and have been sent two offers - such a good feeling. The roles are Senior Director of Platform for an animation company that wants to run a casual games platform and the other is COO for a game developer startup some ex-colleagues have set up. They both come with a 50% pay rise which is great and both roles I'd be happy to do. Now I'm off on holiday, my visa should be approved while I'm away and I'll be able to hand my notice in the first day back - time to celebrate!

Once I've found someone good I just make sure that I can book that particular person every time I go for a haircut. I currently go to a Japanese Barber who doesn't really speak much English - I get a good haircut while also keeping up with my Japanese skills.

Given the current mix of the house it's really not a surprise nothing can get done. We have majority of MPs who ideally want to remain but don't want to be see to go against the will of the people to leave. There's no government majority at the same time as having just enough rebels to destroy any deal that is close. I don't know why we continue to bother with trying to get anything through based on this. The UK has a strong economy and things will be fine no matter what happens. If it was up to me I'd leave without a deal and then start negotiating as needed with Europe, we'll be in a much stronger position if that happens IMO. Short term there might be a few difficulties but I think over time it would work out for the best. It really seems at the moment that any "deal" that we do basically leaves us with too much European control yet no seat at the table to change anything - that would be the worst situation possible following all of this.

Hit my target running distance for March ahead of schedule which I'm pleased with considering I was behind target in February. Yesterday I had to tighten my belt a notch as I've slimmed down so much over the last couple of months - feels like good progress.

Don't get me wrong, it's still much better than you'll find in most other places. It's just been surpassed by a lot of the other stores in that particular area. I wouldn't worry about this at all. There are way more non-seafood places than there is seafood.

I was living in Tokyo for a few years and have probably visited more than the average person over the last few years too. Based on the geeky side and going to Akihabara I would take the electric town exit from the station and turn left once you're through the ticket gates, get to the main road and turn right. From here you want to walk up the street to the next main cross-roads and then come back down on the other side. Things to check out on the way up: AKB Theatre at the top of Don Quijote The weirdly posh Carls Jnr The toy store on the opposite corner of the crossroad and on the way back: Retro, this is a doorway going downstairs, they're usually playing Zelda music outside. Best selection of retro stuff now Trader HQ, there are a few but this is the best one, first floor has a good retro selection GoGo Curry - this is the best curry there, buy the ticket for what you want and they will bring what you order to you Then take a turn away from the main road but walk parallel to it and see: Mandarake - probably the most retro stuff, but tends to not have much unique stuff Super Potato - not a great selection of games and overpriced, has a lot of touristy "things" you can buy to bring back though Other things to check out: Maid Cafes - try a themed one and then Maidreamin AKB Cafe - near the station Yodobashi Camera - on the other side of the station, huge general electronics store Other things really depend on your tastes and budget. Are you big on eating out? I'm sure I have tons more I can share on anything specific you're interested in.

I use Express VPN. I also bought a router to go with it so that everything can make use of it. My main use is for things such as iPlayer and other services from the UK as the TV here is terrible. I had planned to switch between different regions to get other things but I haven't really done it thus far. I think I paid a hundred quid or something for a 3 year subscription. I'd definitely recommend it. The speed has been fine for streaming video and online gaming, we can watch whatever we want, and it overcomes a lot of the internet restrictions here which is an added bonus.

Never been a huge Tetris fan but I've really been enjoying this. The additional gameplay elements to make this work are quite interesting and I spent a bit of time understanding the impact of KO's this morning which finally allowed me to win a game. Feel I need to take a bit of a break for a while.

Managed to run 50km in total in January, already a quarter of the total I managed last year. Hopefully can keep it up for the rest of the year.

Realised when I was back in the UK that TV and Netflix is a million times better than it is here. Bought a new router that can be flashed with VPN software so all my devices think I'm there and I have full access to almost all UK content.

I didn't make any in 2018 either, and looking back it seems to be a year where nothing much happened. There's a few things I actually want to try and achieve this year so putting them down here so I can have something to rate at the end of the year. Job/Work I currently do two roles at work, one looking after strategic planning for the company and one running our office in Manila. To be honest I'm usually either bored or frustrated so I'm looking to make a change this year. I'm going to work towards either taking over a specific aspect of the business at my current company, doing that somewhere else, or starting my own company. Fitness I never really follow any proper fitness program but feel like I need to try and stick to something and make some proper progress. I've been jogging almost every morning so far this year and I'm planning on getting a proper trainer to work on my overall fitness. I'm also going to improve my diet and cut down on my drinking which is probably the thing most holding me back from making progress. Money I'm fairly lucky that I earn a decent amount of money and don't have any worries in this area. However, because of this I tend to not really think about spending and just buy whatever I want, whenever I want it. This year I'm going to try and stick to a budget, not buy things without any thought and try to build up some savings. Just those three, fairly clear and not too much complications - hopefully I can make some progress in each area.

I totally agree on the JLPT front, when I was studying Japanese it was really just to make sure that I had a recognised qualification in it. The GCSE/A-Level is not really to help with any study, I just think it would be funny to add to my current ones so many years later. How did you go about doing the GCSE? Any advice as to how to register and actually make it happen?

I don't think I've touched these games since they originally came out and I'm really enjoying the updates. The sound is ridiculously bad, it can't have been like that in the originals can it? I'm playing the Asian version of the game on a Japanese PS4 and there is a really weird bug whereby the buttons get swapped around during some of the QTEs so you have to press X instead of circle and vice-versa. I guess it's set up based on the PS4 system settings but the game is coded to show a particular button only, very weird. Anyway, I'm really looking forward to playing through both of these. Can't quite believe they finally made these.

I quite want thet keyboard for my Surface but never got round to trying it out. I've been in need of a home computer upgrade for a while, so I just got the 2018 MacBook Pro: I also got a Priority Pass so I can use airport lounges pretty much anywhere as I seem to spend my life in the airport now:

I'd agree with that too. If you want a job related to the language then get the relevant certificate, otherwise only bother if the work to get it actually improves your language level.

I've been looking into doing the Japanese GCSE and A-Levels, not because it would be particularly useful, just as a bit of fun. From what I've seen it's a few hundred pounds to enter the exams independently, you just need to find somewhere that will be holding the test you want to take and get booked up for it. In terms of usefulness, I'd say mileage will vary. You can't go too far wrong with the proper piece of paper if you want to use it in the UK, but may not be applicable everywhere. With Japanese at least, I'd say it's basically meaningless as there is a proper internationally recognized exam (JLPT) which gives the real working level of the language - I'm sure other languages probably have the same thing but I've never looked into it. That being said, I've found qualifications to be pretty meaningless when it comes to language, I know people who on paper are way better than I am but have trouble actually talking to anyone. I kind of go by if I can talk to someone in the language I must be doing OK.

As an individual working on something smaller like that it sounds pretty good to me. It all depends on what you're using social media for really, and this will impact the type of things you will do in order to generate what for you is "success". For example, you could be using social media to drive people somewhere else (ie. a game, youtube channel, online shop etc.) where you intend to monetize them, or monetizing through interactions on the platforms themselves, or a whole host of other reasons to be building up a fan base and feeding them regular content. It's a huge thing. Any popular brand nowadays is going to be interacting with customers on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram & a whole host of other platforms. These will all be professionally run by people who have dedicated their career to understanding how each platform works and best practices for each one. Weirdly, I'm putting together a 2018 plan for my office right now and happen to have the overview from our Community Lead in-front of me. To give a little context, he's requested 16 people to run our social media for the year - it's definitely something we take very seriously.

We have that role and it's called, surprisingly, Social Media Manager. There are variations on it such as Community Manager (tends to be related to a specific game) but generally that's the one we go with. If you can get into that sort of thing, and show good results with what you're doing, it should lead to some quite interesting opportunities later down the line.