... It's a pizza place, where you make your own pizza!

Or as Oscar Wilde definitely didn't put it, "life imitates games!"


This begs a mention: A game about running a games development studio. Doesn't that just blow your mind?


What could possibly be next? A movie about making movies, or perhaps an opera about a singer or even a book about an author? 


You know what the worst bit is? Admitting my mother was right all along: "Stick to what you know!"

What has optimism done for me lately? Overrated, I say...

(The sticker, along with the happy yellow/red vibes, was thrust onto me at a Nokia event. Said optimism culminated in angry shouting matches and large parts of the audience walking out... optimistically, of course!)

I was clearing out in my mother's basement, when I came across this little scrap of historic evidence: A seemingly innocent collection of signatures on what looks like a petition of sorts. 

Upon closer inspection this proves to be a document of a much more mischievous nature! A remnant of a long gone past, where my irrepressible antics and star spangled jacket earned me the nickname "Captain America" in the snowboarding community. Terrorising the slopes, accommodation area and dance floor at a summer camp in Norway, I hooked up with several snowboarding stars, who kindly lend their support to my letter of recommendation (Stine Brun Kjeldaas went on to become world #1 and took silver in 1998 winter olympics in Nagano).

On that trip to Norway, I even managed to give myself a black eye (landing a jump and the impact made me crouch down so deep my knee met my eye).

Completely hooked on snowboarding, I was trying to pick up a sponsorship - so you need a portfolio of photos or videos of you riding.

Didn't have a board, so what do you do?

Well, I climbed my ironing board. Somehow I figured it would hold. I hadn't even put one foot on it before the legs broke off. So I had to mount it on my trusty Samsonite + a chair. This is of course the Stalemasky trick. Just close your eyes and add the snow...

I also found my original snowboarding sponsorship collage anno 1996. Notice the incredibly complex between the legs double grab tricks, the endlessly graceful inverted tricks and my lovely old Williams pinball machine in the background.

Second page of my snowboarding shots: Including 2 images from an article in the European Onboard magazine, August 1996 edition. These printed collages I would send out with elaborate cover letters to companies I targeted for sponsorships. To make sure I would get noticed (as if...), I would post them in bright red "hazardous item" envelopes, which I would collect on plane rides (I used to bring squirt guns on air planes for entertainment. Don't ask!). Upon reflection, I suppose I was afraid to blend in with the crowds of other ironing board surfing sponsorship applicants...

The jacket against a backdrop of stale snow in the Dolomites, Italy.

And what of those sponsors? 

Japan-o-rama! 


or


Eastern delights from a far faraway place

Welcome to Japan, the land of big ear lopes, small lips and blue scalps!

It took me a while to realise that in Japan, there is no reason to smile - you got letters for that.

Less lenient is the Japanese approach to dress code. Here are a couple of Japanese boys in uniform (the one on the left with the black jacket is expressing his individuality - sticking it to the man!).


Don't believe me? Dressing influences everything in Japan! Take for example drinks...

Apparently the primary market for a cool pint of lager are demure and conservative looking women wearing traditional kimonos.

Don't believe me? Here's another one!

Want a drink? Wear a kimono!

Poor girl just want a cuppa...

Guy got caught kimono less trying to sneak a bottle of coffee and out comes the punishment by public bear costume.

A thrilling prospect.

Alternatively, you can rehydrate with a bottle of Pocari Sweat.

The Japanese say, that you live one extra day, every time you try something new. Suggestion:

Sashimi... from horse.

Yep, raw horse. That was a first for me! Horse, not to mention raw.

If raw is a tad too fresh for you, Japan provides a thrilling alternative. In fact, how can you trust the quality of a restaurant, if they are unable to accurately reproduce their menu in plastic?


Bonus round for reading along so far:

‎3 things as Japanese as middle partings and reliable trains:

Slogans on clothing, which makes little or no sense.

Girls with knees touching in the classic X-legs pose.
People trying to sporadically handle their cell phones while in various states of sleep.

My daughter Jamila drawing my portrait. On the right side, she has conveniently provided a selection of different noses. A little help for the ones, who don't know how to draw noses. So there.