Highlight of this week was prepping and giving a presentation to kick-off some work I've been doing since June, the thing I've referred to as the "product coexistence" problem, or as we've been calling it, "extensible frontends". The main thing I wanted to get from the kick-off was getting alignment, and I think we did it. Also I designed a timeline chart which I'm weirdly proud of.

My mid-year review was on Wednesday. On the whole, really nice feedback. Some feedback came up about how I do (or seem to do) too much, which I need to ponder a bit: My strategy has been having no more than 3 big things in-flight at a time (they tend to run on, so, you know) - and Alice suggested that I may have the Rocks, Pebbles and Sand problem. I think she's right.

Weirdest thing I did this week was find and buy a single Macbook key. The minus key. A few months ago I damaged one of the keys, and it has slowly come loose. I managed to find one online and after swapping out the assembly my keyboard is as good as new. (Screen still needs a clean!)

Don't know if you've clocked it yet, but next year marks between 2 and 4 elections. That's quite a lot. I had a few conversations/meetings about what to do for them next year. There's not much more to say yet, but I'm excited.

Thursday marked Mo's leaving drinks and a large contingency of people who came to say goodbye. It had everything: Mystery, Intrigue and Drama. I learned a lot about FreeNow.

Assuming a cylindrical penguin in a perfect vacuum...

Randomly over the week I played (and finished) two re-releases of Nintendo DS games: Ghost Trick and Zero Escape.

• Ghost Trick (by some of the same people as Ace Attorney) I'd played a long time ago, but long enough ago that I'd forgotten the story, so I got to experience it again, in HD. I had a great time and I love how novel the gameplay elements actually are. It's a shame they never made a second one.
• Zero Escape escaped (sorry) my attention when it was first released and it blew me away: Very reminiscent of some of my favourite visual novels (you may know what they are) and without giving anything away, I loved how the story unconventionally worked around the fourth wall. Slightly graphic, but nothing compared to Corpse Party (which I think, on reflection, relied on shock to cover up that it was just plain silly).
• As a bonus both had absolute bangers of soundtracks. You should check them both out.

Sunday we grabbed lunch in Brick Lane for lunch (mine was takoyaki and what I think was some kind of cursed fried sushi?), followed by a slow walk via Spitalfields (and Chai Guys) to the Barbican. We ended in Tooting for dinner and ate too much Dosa. I now understand why people eat with their hands - it's so uncomfortably ... liberating. But there was no other way. There was no other way.