Slow News Day
As you may have noticed, I’ve finally managed to get back into a semi-regular posting / writing habit. Sometimes, though, life is just boring, with nothing n...
Posts by Tag
- personal 39
- japan 23
- writing 18
- gaming 15
- tech 14
- books 4
- tv 4
- movies 4
- music 3
- life updates 3
- blogging 2
- teaching 1
- stationery 1
- linux 1
- podcast 1
- south africa 1
- podcasts 1
personal
Vaccination Success
Just a short post to say that I’ve managed to get my first vaccination shot today.
A Short March Update
I’ve been a bit lax in terms of blogging lately. I’ve been meaning to write more, especially with the #100DaysToOffload challenge, but life has thrown a few ...
Staying in the Dark
If you’ve been living in South Africa for any length of time, you’ll know that one of the downsides of living here is that we have frequent load-shedding due...
Forty Shades of Green and Gold
This past December I hit the big 40 with the coming and going of my latest birthday. It’s crazy to think that I’ve been on earth for 4 decades now and how my...
Good Riddance to 2020
I’m sure that I don’t need to say it, but what a crazy year 2020 has been. I’m sure that for most people, 2020 was a year to throw out any plans that you may...
Future Site Plans
So after the last update I posted I thought it might be good to try and write a bit more about what I want this site to become and my other writing plans.
In With The New
With 2020 being a year that has seen almost everything normal being turned upside down, including our lives, I thought it might be high time for me to make g...
A Year in Turmoil
One of the few posts I get around to writing regularly, other than my countless Hobonichi planner posts, is my yearly recap and outlook for the year that pas...
Hello 2019, Goodbye 2018!
I’ve taken some time in the past to try to reflect on how my year is been and what the upcoming year holds in store. So with New Year just having passed us b...
Insert Grumpy Winter Comment
The coldness of winter is now a reality and my mornings see me desperately clinging to my blanket and wishing that I never have to leave from its warm embrac...
Falling Into Autumn
Another long break between updates to the site! That must mean that the intervening time has been chock full of awesome and ventures and exciting tales right...
A Stitch in Time Saves… Sixteen?
A couple of weeks ago I had to go into a local hospital for a small operation and the entire experience reminded me why I am so in love with the Japanese hea...
Some Tom Bihn Goodness!
I’m a huge fan of the Tom Bihn company, in fact almost all the bags I use are from their Seattle factory!
A Good Couple of Weeks
Seeing that it’s Friday and that I’ve finished teaching my classes for the day I thought that it might be a good chance for me to post some quick updates on ...
An Ode to Being Lazy
A few weeks ago I could feel the first onset of a cold, which was not surprising as this is the time of year that my body decides to just give up any semblan...
Bye Bye 2016, Hello 2017!
Gah! It’s already 2017! It feels like just yesterday that a bright and shiny 2016 arrived at my door with promises of awesome things to come, but now it’s go...
Back in the Saddle
So after a long break that started at the end of July when JET contract ended, I’ve had to finally get back into the groove of waking up early and going in t...
Spring Cleaning My Fitness
My recent trips to Canada and South Africa as well as a pretty great Christmas have seen me come to the not surprising revelation that I need to get out of m...
That Time of the Year
If there is one constant in Japan, it is that you will somehow end up getting the flu here at least once. And I don’t mean the flu as in a rather bad cold th...
The Snow Cometh
Its that time of the year again when most of Japan finds itself blanketed under a layer of pristine white snow and my Facebook feed is filled with posts and ...
Hitting Reboot For 2016
Wil Wheaton recently wrote a post about rebooting his life, which got me thinking about steps I could take to try and improve my life as well. The new year i...
Canada, Surgery and Backups
If you’re wondering what exactly happened with my last past where I talked about my Canada trip and visit to the doctor then fear not, you’re not just imagin...
Summer Grumbles
If there is any time of the year that I feel ‘meh’ then this is it. The change of the seasons means that we’re in that zone right between spring and summer w...
Back in the Jogging Rhythm
With spring and summer and all the awesome warm weather it bring (excluding the typhoons, humidity and numerous creepy crawly insects everywhere) it’s finall...
Checking up on 2015
Now that January is coming to a close I thought it would be interesting to see if a new year has led to any changes as such in my routine. Think of this post...
Starting Off With a Bang
It’s a brand new year and if you haven’t noticed yet the site has also been revamped with the Casperion theme so that it no longer has the basic default them...
My 2014 in Review
This is the time of year that most people take time to be with their families and spend time with people they love or haven’t seen in a long time. As for me ...
Let it Snow!
For me December has always been a time of warm sunny days that are spent relaxing at home with family or hanging out with friends at the beach. Japanese wint...
Staying Fit in the Cold of Winter
One of my main gripes with the winters here in Japan is that I lose the chance to get out for regular jogs. It’s exacerbated by the longer commute I do at my...
On Being Sick in Japan
One of the main drawbacks with working in schools here in Japan is that you’ll be exposed to a multitude of germs and viruses that almost every kid seems int...
The End of Summer
With the end of August in sight, it means that in the next few weeks classes will start up, and the summer holidays will be a thing of the past.
In the Heat of Summer
I’m just about all set up in my new ALT position after a few busy weeks of paperwork, moving and what feels like a thousand other things that are all part an...
Back in Black
Well hello there! It’s been almost an age since I’ve last had a chance to grace this site with any sort of update. You can’t say I didn’t warn you though!
Hitting the Pause Button
It’s been a while since I’ve had a chance to sit down and knock out a few hundred words for this here blog. With good reason though as I’ve been rushing to a...
A Life on the Run
A few years back if you’d asked me if there was any chance of me becoming a regular jogger I’d have probably died from laughter. Fast forward to now though a...
Jawellnofine
What a hectic past week it’s been! I’ve just returned from my trip to South Africa and it feels a little bit sad to be back actually. For all it’s crime and ...
Holidays!
Another weekend is down and this is my last week of teaching before I head back home for some much-needed R & R with family and friends in South Africa.
An Unchanging Life
It’s a few months short of three years that I’ve now being living in Japan and in a week I’ll be travelling home to South Africa for a short holiday. The onl...
japan
Early Morning Missiles
What should have been a rather boring and uneventful Tuesday morning turned out to be rather eventful with my town’s emergency PA system blaring out a warnin...
Some Quick Thoughts on Glossika
I’ve done plenty of language learning posts in the past. This time around I want to just give a quick shout out to a small company based out of Taiwan, calle...
The Curse of the Middle Name
One of my pet peeves on about living in Japan is just how hard it can be sometimes to get things done when you have a middle name.
Farewell JET!
Five years on the JET programme has now officially passed with my final JET contract coming to an end at the end of July this year. Whenever you come to the ...
Saying Goodbye
April is a time of year in Japanese schools that I’ve written about before, but despite that it still hasn’t gotten any easier every year to see teachers I’v...
Mad Max Graduates
Sometimes living in Japan does have it’s perks, as in this case when students at Tama Art University in Japan decided that the best way for them to make thei...
Tales of the JLPT
For all the times I’ve mentioned that I was studying for and planning to take the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT), I’ve never actually gone through...
The Transfer Turntable
It’s been a long time since I’ve updated my blog much to my shame. There are many, many reasons why I haven’t had a chance to set aside some time to sit down...
Go Nuts for Donuts!
Coming from South Africa meant that I grew up sorely lacking in the field of donuts and coffee. We’ve got very few coffee chain stores on the scale of Starbu...
Sakura Time!
April is here (or half way done already by the time I’m writing this) and with that Japan has burst out into cherry blossom mania. The blooming of cherry blo...
Driving Trials and Tribulations
Driving in Japan is an exercise in patience. First you need to go through what seems like a million miles of red tape just to get your license. Afterwards co...
Friday Ramblings
It just struck me today that in a few months I’ll be entering my fifth year as a JET ALT this coming July.
Closing Out the School Year
Last week saw me finish off my last two classes for the academic year with the students getting ready to take their final tests and then have a short break b...
The Narrow Roads of Japan
To paraphrase Forest Gump, driving in Japan is like a box of chocolates. There’s a lot of awesomeness awaiting you as you first head out onto the road in our...
Seeing Japan Anew
It’s been a whirlwind two weeks for me recently, with my parents and two friends coming through to Japan. I’ve had to try and organize hotels, itineraries an...
Full Throttle
After a long and hard 3 years of trying, I can finally join the ranks of the driving elite here in Japan after successfully having passed my driver’s license...
Giant Robots & Japan
One of the first things that students learn when I introduce myself to them is that I’m a fan of the Japanese animation series, Neon Genesis Evangelion.
Golden Week Adventures
The end of April and the start of May in Japan is always the best no matter what your job or where you are. It’s a glorious period know as Golden Week, which...
Spring in Japan
Spring in Japan is one of the most beautiful seasons anywhere in the world. Every street and park is filled with cherry blossom trees in full bloom and famil...
Of Parties and Fish
So after all the movement of teachers and students during the end of March and the start of April it’s finally gotten a bit more settled at school with only ...
The Annual Teacher Swap
Every year at the end of March there’s a lot of important events in schools around Japan. Not only are the students finally coming to the end of the academic...
Japan is Cold!
One of the biggest shocks to my system when I first moved to Japan as just how cold the winters here can be. Now those of you who come from the US or Canada ...
Graduation Day
This week was the graduation ceremony for the third years at my main high school. It’s the main event of the school year and all the staff and students try t...
writing
Cool Hobonichi 2022 Covers
Just a quick follow up from my previous post to highlight two covers that have immediately caught my eye and might be worth your hard-earned money if you’re ...
Hobonichi Techo 2022 Preview Calendar
With August halfway through, it’s that time of year when the preview for the 2022 Hobonichi planner is released. I’ve blogged numerous times before on my obs...
Cleaning House
Part of the reason I haven’t been too productive recently in my writing has been that I’m working my way through my backlog of posts and importing them into ...
Writing Inspiration - 27 Days 27 Stories
With more time on my hands due to being between jobs and having to stay at home due to lockdown restrictions in my country, it’s been a good time for me to s...
100 Days to Offload
One of the things I want to accomplish in 2021 is to write more. and just by luck I stumbled on a rather cool initiative on Mastodon the other day: #100DaysT...
My 2020 Hobonichi Planners
This year I’m trying to buck the trend and get my annual Hobonichi post out way ahead of the new year! So if you’re keen to see what I’ve opted for this year...
My 2019 Hobonichi Planners
2019 is a few weeks old now so it’s a good time for me to post about my latest batch of Hobonichi purchases and give a run-down of how I’m planning to use th...
Long Time No Write
After what seems like an eternity I’m finally getting around to posting again. It’s been a whole year that’s passed since I’ve updated this site. I’ve been f...
My 2018 Hobonichi
2018 will see me opening up my new Hobonichi Techo for a third year after falling in love with it a few years ago. The brand has always provided excellent qu...
Bloggiversary!
Yeah, I know. Bloggiversary is not a real word, but I feel justified in using it to celebrate the fact that this blog has been up and going for just over th...
Hobonichi Weeks 2017 Thoughts
I’ve already written two posts about my experiences with the Hobonichi Techo planner and while I’ve covered both the A6 Original and the A5 Cousin versions, ...
Another Year, Another Hobonichi
Whenever September rolls around I scramble on the first day of the month to be one of the first people to order my Hobonichi Techo for the following year. No...
Hello Old Friend
So as you may have noticed Ive gone and swapped over to WordPress after running Ghost for most of the last year and a bit.
A Look at the Hobonichi Techo
This year I’ve started looking at journalling on a daily basis. The first two years I lived in Japan I actually used a hardcover Moleskine pocket notebook th...
Going Analogue
In a previous post I talked about how I’d discovered the world of Japanese stationery. This time I want to talk about how that new found interest of mine has...
Publish by Day One
Before starting up this blog I’d had a break of about 3 years when I did no writing on the web. My previous blogs all went the way of the dodo and due to my ...
Moving to Octopress
So the first thing you might notice if you’ve been here before is that the site looks vastly different from before. Previously I was running it on an instanc...
My Writing Workflow
One of the things I do most frequently on my laptop is to type out notes and documents. Whether it’s a draft blog post or a few paragraphs of fiction, I’ve e...
gaming
Escaping to JRPGs
With more time on my hands, I’ve been enjoying a resurgence in my gaming time. I’ve already talked about the huge amount of time I’ve sunk into Rocket League...
Snatcher
Recently, I’ve been enjoying quite a few retro gaming videos on YouTube, and it’s helped to rekindle my desire to play older games, especially as I’m quite c...
Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars (The Sequel)
Rocket League, the sequel to Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars, has proven to be one of my favourite gaming experiences in a long time. I haven...
Getting Back Into Gaming on the Switch
Despite having been stuck at home during the past year with COVID-19 restrictions in place, my gaming backlog stayed on pause. Simply because my gaming PC an...
The Dark Souls of Blog Posts
Throughout many years of gaming the one genre or style of game that has passed me by is the brutal style of gameplay that Demon souls, Dark Souls and Bloodbo...
Maxis and the Allure of Sims
The first game I ever got on my first PC was SimCity 2000 and I soon lost count of the hours I would lose trying to make the perfect city. It was the perfect...
The Kojima-P.T. Conspiracy
You remember a while back when I wrote about my frustrations with Konami?
Oh Konami…
Ever since Pro Evolution Soccer 2 back on the PlayStation 2 I’ve been an avid supporter of the folks over at Konami when it comes to their stellar soccer ser...
A World of Games
Trying to play too many games at the same time is the main reason I hardly ever finish any game in my substantial backlog. It’s also the reason that I got se...
Games Streaming and YouTube
So hot on the heels of my last post about the viability of streaming for the games industry in which I remarked on the popularity of Twitch it has now been r...
Is Streaming Good for Gaming?
With PC gamers long having had multiple ways to capture and stream gaming footage it’s still taken a rather long time for streaming to become popular, but re...
Adventures in Broken Age
I jumped on the Kickstarter bandwagon at the same time as most other people, with the news that Tim & Co. at Double Fine were going to head back to the c...
PS4 Impressions
With the release of Sony’s PS4 system in Japan on 22 February I decided to pick up a console for myself. Since moving to Japan I’ve moved to Sony’s platform ...
Fond Farewells
As I was walking to the local convenience store this morning it struck me that this weekend will be my last official weekend of gaming on my old PS3. After t...
A Gamer’s Delight
The longer I sit here trying to type out a long and complicated analysis of Spelunky the more it hits me: Spelunky is at its core the ‘Ultimate Game’.
tech
Hello Debian 11
For the last few years, I’ve been using Linux as my main OS on almost all my PCs, with some brief dalliances with FreeBSD and macOS. Recently, my ancient des...
Returning to WhatsApp
Towards the start of this year I made the decision to leave Facebook and part of doing that meant I had to also move off of WhatsApp to Signal Messenger. A c...
Typing Joy
I recently picked up a Keychron K2 mechanical keyboard that was on special, and I’ve fallen in love with the tactile feel of typing with mechanical switches.
Thoughts on WriteFreely
I’ve always viewed myself as something of a good writer over the years. It’s up for debate whether that is objectively true, though! One of my favourite past...
Experimenting with Mastodon and Pleroma
This is just a quick post to give some brief thoughts on my experience using Mastodon and Pleroma. Hopefully, anyone who stumbles on this and is a Twitter us...
Trying Out The Self-Hosting Lifestyle
With 2021 slowly going by, I’ve tried to keep myself busy by experimenting with new things. And one of those experiments has been with the fediverse. This me...
Leaving Facebook
Recently, on Mastodon someone posted a link to a blog post by Aaron Parecki that dealt with how he left Facebook. Taken into consideration along with the rec...
On Mastodon
Back when I was living in South Africa I was an avid user of twitter. The idea of short form messages and being able to follow friends and sites without all ...
Social Starvation
One of the habits I wanted to break in 2016 was the large amount of time that I wasted using social media sites. Day after day I would keep on checking Twitt...
Do You Still Use Your Tablet?
Recently my friend Craig posted over on his blog how he’d stopped using his Android tablet after a while and was wondering whether other people have experien...
Testing the Jawbone Up24
About a year ago I took to using a Fitbit Flex in the hopes that being able to see the raw numbers behind my daily activities would spur me on to exercise mo...
Thoughts on iOS 8
With September and October each year comes the arrival of the latest and greatest phone/s from Apple, and of course that also means that there will be a new ...
Thoughts on FastMail
Recently I’ve been looking to move away from Google’s free services to solutions that, while paid, might be a better fit for me as well. There’s also the fac...
Saying Goodbye To Google
Leaving Google seems almost the hipster thing to do these days but the more research I’ve done the more it seems as though the power users and geek users out...
books
Learning to Embrace Tsundoku
2020 has made me realize that I have a book hoarding problem. My shelves are groaning under the weight of accumulated books and pages and words of literature...
Back in the Books
One of my childhood passions was reading. I would take part in my local library’s reading contest every year and read as much as possible. And I could find n...
The Roads to Sata
One thing I always get asked is why I chose to come to Japan and my usual answer is that I came here because I wanted to try my hand at teaching and because ...
Changing With The Times
I recently read an article detailing the decrease in the number of books read by the average American adult but rather than finding this something to be sad ...
tv
First Image of Amazon’s Lord of the Rings Series
Just this past week, the first image of Amazon’s Lord of the Rings series came out online, and I thought I’d give my initial impressions as a fan off the boo...
An Endless Cycle of Reboots
A few days ago I read the news that the television series Frasier would be returning to screens along with Rugrats. My first reaction wasn’t excitement, but ...
See You, Space Cowboy
Nowadays I don’t watch much anime which is pretty surprising given that I live in Japan and used to watch epic amounts of anime as a college student and youn...
The Return of Agent Cooper
It’s hard to believe that a show such as Twin Peaks is now a quarter of a century old when it feels like just the other day that I was enthralled in the live...
movies
The Spice Melange
For the last two years, I haven’t had much of a chance to go to the movie theatre, but if there is one film that is high on my list of movies to watch, it’s ...
On Movies With Mikey
Whenever the weekend approaches the first thing I always think about is what movie I can watch. There’s just something soothing to me about unwinding after a...
The New Deadpool Movie
One of the things that I wanted to take advantage of on my trip back to South Africa was the chance to watch the new Deadpool movie that released 14 February...
My Thoughts on Star Wars Episode VII – The Force Awakens
On December 18 I was one of millions of moviegoers around the world that headed off to see the first showing of Star Wars Episode VII.
music
The Magic Behind Tool
I don’t buy much music these days, hardly anyone does it seems. But I’ve always made an exception for Tool. From the day I bought their album, Lateralus, I’v...
The Pieces Fit
One of my enduring loves is music. I’ve always been fascinated by music’s ability to change your mood, whether it be lifting you up out of sad times or bring...
Thoughts on Apple Music
Music is my entire life. Its the only thing that I’ve been good at. I love it. I feel like its been my best friend. Its something that has always given me...
life updates
On Voting and a Quick Update
Today was the national election in South Africa, and I’m proud to say that I did my duty, and voted after standing for over an hour in a queue. It makes me r...
A Few Busy Years
The frequency of posts has certainly taken a hit over the last two or so years, and for those of you wondering what exactly has been going on, and why I’ve b...
Hello World
Well that was a bit of a break from writing now wasn’t it!
blogging
Transitioning my Blog
Currently in the process of moving my blog posts over from Wordpress to this Jekyll blog hosted on GitHub with Netlify.
And Back to Ghost We Go
There’s two types of blog posts in this world:
teaching
To New Beginnings
With the end on March finally here the school year is now officially over and us teachers have to get ready for a new group of students to arrive and try our...
stationery
The Wonderful World of Japanese Stationery
One of the first things that comes to mind for many people when you mention Japan is the vast array of crazy inventions that come out seemingly daily.
linux
Moving Back to Linux
Twelve years ago on this very day I took a leap of faith into the wonderful world of Linux.
podcast
John Carpenter’s Apocalypse Trilogy
It’s been a while since I last managed to get out a video and podcast as part of our Miskatonic Alumni Association side-project, but your patience is rewarde...
south africa
Gqeberha, and the Importance of Language
This week, the South African government announced that the names of several towns and public infrastructure. One city in particular, Port Elizabeth, got many...
podcasts
The Adventure Zone
Quite a while back I made a list of my favourite podcasts, and with the ever-changing landscape of podcasts in the interim, I thought it might be worth highl...