Arm and a bit of a leg

I just bought tickets to see Joe Bonamassa in April next year in Antwerpen.

:D

bloody expensive...but 2nd row...I should get some sweat dripping on me, which if I can catch it I might be able to make into a potion that gives me some of his skills???? no?

oh well I'll still have a great experience, though I honestly feel the cost of the tickets, over 224euros for a pain, is absurd... He's a great star no doubt, but a few years ago his prices were under 50 euros...now its silly money... But ...gotta go see the new crown prince of the blues.

Next step, finding a nice woman to go with me,....maybe if I advertise the tickets I'll get them running?

Ahthankyew

Solar payback

In case you had forgotten, last year I fitted some solar panels up on my roof, a pair of sizable 250w ones. And have been eagerly waiting to see what the results would be.

Its hard to actually measure, as I also made some other small changes in the way I use electricity in the house. I swapped out a lot of my bulbs for LED's and put a 15min on-15 off timer on the air circulation system, as well as a few other things.

I was a bit annoyed that after fitting my panels last year, my leccy bill was actually set higher than the previous year, so I am almost certain I've been overpaying @144 a month it was around 126pm before that.
Well the years invoice came in today, and 3 things caught my eye.

1st a massive rebate of 373 euros :D
2nd a reduction of my bill to 111 pm....
3rd a very small payment for my contribution to the grid, only 1.26 euros, but considering I have something in the house drawing power most of the time, any contribution is brilliant.

I looked up the graph on the company site  to compare past years usage and I seem to be using about 10-20euros less electricity pm...which is the real benefit of the panels. The overcharge amounts for the bulk of the rebate I am sure, but the very fact I get some payment for my electricity means my panels are contributing something to my power usage. I'm estimating about 1/3rd to 1/2 is due to the panels.

Quite pleased by that, in 3-4 years the panels will pay for themselves and still give 6 more years at least of generation, and that's a better investment of the cash spent than a bank account interest would give.

Green is good.

Ahthankyew

Vari focals, a new way to simulate being drunk!

Ok,. so I have my new vari focals...and they take a bit of getting used to, when you quickly change view, you have to move your head to bring what you are looking at into focus.

This is really not at all unlike the sensation of being drunk and trying to focus on the policeman to explain to him you are more than capable of driving!

It also is making me a little light headed. Apparently that wears off after a few days.

Its odd, though, and they do work I am able to read and look across the room all in clear focus, but it is odd...very odd... can't describe it any other way.


Ahthankyew

95kg start

Well am home, a bit jetlagged, going to bed at 8 and waking up at 3 or 4, though today I managed 6.

I had my last pizza when I got home, simply due to there being no food in the house, and a need for stodge..

But thats it, I've annouced to the world, I am on a diet.I weighed myself and I'm 95kg... shiiiiit I've never been 95kg thats immense.

So the Diet starts.....

Yesterday I had.

Small bowl of museli, with semi skimmed milk

Small/medium sushi from AH

And a medium, portion of Bami Nasi at Ed's when  I picked up Harvey I would have had less, but Ed made an effort to make dinner so I had to eat.

No snacks, no sugar in my coffee at work...

I am working up to going to the gym, maybe tongiht, I plan a cardio regime for a few weeks, then I''ll try to up the pace a bit.

Not sure I'm going to give an update every day, but we'll see how it goes.

target is 70kg...no excuses, 70kg...even that is a little above my ideal weight for a short slim build bloke, which is what I am under this sumo outfit,  but its 25kg...25fucking kilos to lose!!!!

Bring it on.

Ahthankyew

Who's that fat dude!

Oh, its me.

So upsetting to see so many pics of me, while at TGS and shit I am a sumo wrestler.. Its kinda pathetic. I have been piling on the kilo's the last few months, and this is the result. I really really have to focus and fix myself on losing 25kg, no excuses now, I have had to deal with being totally out of breath going up subway stairs, struggling to suck in the humid air, sweating like an afore mentioned sumo, and the sight of me on the toilet, in my crampped hotel room, staring at the wardrobe mirror as the door was open........it was beyond bad.

I seem to have gotton over the folds concern, but now I'm becoming a bhudda, and not a very wise one.

The food here is amazing, and healthy and filling, Though even there I am noticing I can eat 3 portions....clearly thats nonsense.

When I get back, its going to be a proper healthy food kick, and....gym...yes I know I hate it, but there's no way this beer barrel of a belly is going to go down to even close to a 2 pack until I get some muscle tone back.


I was around 94kg when I left, my heaviest ever...so going to aim for 70...and this time I will get it done by christmas!

Ahthankyew

we survived

Well thats the Tokyo Game Show over and done with, it was quite a blast, and an eye opener for sure.

Things we realise now...bring games...the TGS attendee's want to play game's not listen to a nice graduation reel.

English, is really not commonly spoken at all, they all study it, but have no practical ability to use it, this creates issues for any students who want to study in Europe and equally for any europeans who want to go  there.  This is the biggest hurdle.

The market is, utterly utterly different, the style of games, the type of games, the target platform of games, all are different. This makes no great difference to coders like myself, but a Europen artist or designer would need to learn a totally differnt set of criteria to survive here.

Demand for education is sky high, they had a whole section of a hall dedicated to universities and games acadamies in Japan, and the work was pretty impressive. I can't honestly say it was better than our work, but the art and design styles were clearly for the japanese market

If we are going to make inroads into Japan, we need to partner up with one of these schools, and see where it goes. Its' going to be a long process though.

A few meetings to do today and a trip to Kyoto tomorro to see a company, then heading back on Wednesday morning....

Will we be back next year? maybe, but not with  the same tiny section and lack of content, lessons have been learned.

Ahthankyew

ouchie

The damage I did a few days ago walking to the Dutch Embassy with unbroken in shiny funeral shows, has taken its toll. further walking around at the TGS has resulted in my blisters getting blisters, and on bboth feet at the same time whch I have to say is a bit of a killer when you consdier how much we have to walk around at the show, and getting to and from stations.
Even with my trainers on, I ended up hobbling around as we tried to find somewhere to eat on our return from the 1st day....both feet look like this

Not my idea of fun.

But the show is going well, we have collected a couple of interesting contacts with universities and with companies, which I hope we can convert into new business dealings between them and NHTV. Its very hard to do sometimes, there is a massive language barrier to over come.

Many Japanese do actually study english and have a basic understanding of it, but almost no practical use, so they can handle a few words, but not a whole sentence or even any confidence to respond in english. Its actually worse than my Dutch, I do understand quite a bit, and can make a good attempt at saying things but no, the Japanese struggle. Thats going to be the single biggest hurdle we have to overcome if we want to attract students to us.

Today I've been given a free day for my feet to recover, our stand is very small and after the 1st day its clear we don't need all of us there even if we were doing rotation shifts. So each has taken 1 of teh days to chill and regroup.

Here's a video I did of a quick tour of the halls on day 1, which is a business day and not as crowded as it will be at the weekend.

Ahthankyew

Found a bar!

We went to a "networking" event last night, which was basically a very large, very loud party...not my idea of fun at all, but there was free booze, which somehow seemed to improve my feelings about the place. ;)

However the sound of screetching drunken japanese girls gets to be a little annoying after while, and Martin and I left to go hunt for a sensible bar..

Which we finally managed to find, with Cider or Cyder, on tap, and even more wonderful, they took my credit card.

pity they closed at 1am but was good night.

Ahthankyew