Will

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.

That really sucks, @Josh64, I never really understand employers that aren't flexible with regards to their peoples needs. Hope you find something quickly. We've decided to restructure our company so that the individual offices have more autonomy to do whatever they want. Up until now we've been divided by function, so people in multiple offices reported up to one person dependent on what they did. Now we'll have people in one country report up to the head of that office and effectively run as independent units. Most of the offices have a head, or at least a clear person to take up the role, but our Manila office doesn't. The CEO asked me if I'd be interested in taking the role in addition to to my current one. So I've spent the week in the Philippines talking to all the department heads about a plan for the rest of the year and beyond, potential office moves and various other issues related to the office and all of the staff. It's been insanely busy but super insightful as to how they work, the things that motivate them and potential for the future. If I take it I think things will be insanely busy, I'll still be on the board of the HQ and running planning for the entire group, which will mean one week a month in Singapore. Then the rest of the time managing all of our functions in Manila and trying to grow that office from the current 50 or so employees to something around 4 or 5 times that. It will also be my third relocation in three years which is always a huge hassle and really I only got properly set up in my current place in the last few months. On the plus side I'll get away from Singapore for the majority of the time and career-wise it's exactly where I want to be headed. Need to pull everything together from this week into a plan and then make the decision as to what I'll do. Hopefully he gives me a few weeks to decide on what's best to do.

Flights back to the UK for my best mates stag do. Can't wait.

Well, last years goals were as follows: I failed at both. For the first one I didn't make enough time to run 10k's and it's so hot and humid here I'm not sure I could have done it anyway. Since the start of December last year I've been doing 5k most week nights and have got my time down to just under 24 mins. The the second I'm basically where I started at right around 12st. I'm drinking less due to the horrendous quality of beer here, but this is offset by how unhealthy the god-awful food is. This year I'm going to go with similar goals but ever-so slightly tweaked to be just a bit more realistic. Get consistent at running 5km under 22.5 minutes Do one 5km under 20 minutes (this will need to be done somewhere else I think, hence just one time) Do a 10km under 50 minutes Generally eat better and lose the belly/bulk out to a place I'm happy with Hopefully those are challenging yet achievable, I'm feeling much fitter recently so hopefully that trend continues.

I quite enjoyed this and holding the new trilogy away from the rest and on their own, I think it's a decent series so far. What I find hard to understand is why these films exist in the first place, and quite how they are relevant as 7, 8 and 9 of an ongoing series. To me, you could make these episodes 107, 108 and 109. Or equally, they could be a trilogy set many years before Episode 1, were it not for the inclusion of some characters we already know. Really though, if Han, Luke and Leah were completely different people it wouldn't have any impact on the story whatsoever and that makes this trilogy weaker and less enjoyable for me. I was expecting VIII would tie them all together a bit more, and while IX could still do that, I think it's too late to make enough of an impact while still allowing them to finish off the series in a neat way. I think this is getting to the crux of the issue, for me this needed to feel like 8 of 9, and we're just a few hours from the end of something epic and I can see the full story arc, where it's all been leading to, and can't wait to get there. Instead, it's starting to feel like a TV show that should have ended a few seasons ago, but they just can't stop themselves.

Well, I have many thoughts about this. Can't wait for more people to see it so I can discuss them.

Got my tickets this morning, pretty excited!

The developer/publisher will get a % of the sales dependent on their agreement with Nintendo. So it will be less if the game is being purchased from a storefront with a lower price. The split between the developer and publisher (where applicable) could also factor in on the final amount. Say, if there are different publishers in different regions, or special agreements in place dependent on location sold.

Didn't they cover your travel expenses? I'd ask them to if they haven't.