Tabelogged: いろはにほへと 秋田駅前店
Tabelogged: Cafe赤居文庫
Tabelogged: 炭火焼肉 久

PSA: the "GO" app (prev. JapanTaxi) finally added support last November for account registration with foreign phone numbers, which they'd previously been using to gate the service to Japanese residents.
Strongly recommend using GO over Uber for taxi dispatch in Japan—far better coverage and availability goinc.jp/news/pr/2023/11/10/4zow9wentngt9gjmlsebyn/
Sumibi Yakiniku Kyu
This Yakiniku place in Akita was so fancy that they charge you full price if you cancel within 14 days of your reservation. It's also got a 4.2 on Tabelog. So expectations were quite high… and they were absolutely met. Every plate in the course was perfectly cut, portioned, and arranged. The quality of the meat was great. Our waitress was still in training but was some of the best service I can remember having. .
If you're ever in Akita, I strongly encourage calling and making a reservation.
Fixing bugs in production when all you have is an iPhone
Noticed an issue with Beckygram yesterday where single-video posts weren't successfully syndicating to Instagram as reels if she didn't also upload a custom thumbnail ("cover") image—which Instagram's API doesn't require.
Even though I'm in Japan with nothing but a phone, a crappy LTE signal from Google Fi (that I can't believe they charge money for), and spotty hotel Wi-Fi, I was glad to find I had the tools to fix it:
- Log into my Mac Studio over SSH using Terminus
- Run
heroku run rails c
to get into the production Rails console to reproduce the error - Clone the repository with Working Copy
- Fix the bug
- Commit & push
- Wait for it to deploy
It was a relief this whole ordeal didn't take more than 15 minutes or so to fix and it's encouraging to know that little one-line bugs won't require me to travel with an iPad or a Mac for supporting her app in production. Nice.
(Oh, and check out her little video of Akita being cute while you're here!)
Tabelogged: 自家焙煎珈琲庵
Tabelogged: ラーメンダイニング 林泉堂

I was extremely skeptical about GM dumping CarPlay and hiring Baris Cetinok from Apple, and after listening to this interview I am almost certain it was a mistake. Dude can barely string together several concepts in a row in comprehensible English. Can't imagine him running a complex software organization theverge.com/24285581/gm-software-baris-cetinok-apple-carplay-android-auto-google-cars-evs-decoder-podcast
Check out this deep-fried egg sandwich
Tonkatsu-fried layered omelette sandwich.
Greatest country on earth. 🇯🇵

Really nice interview on IndieRails with my better half about her Build with Becky product. Was fun to compare and contrast her recap of year we spent building this thing with my own perspective.
Aside: Becky's got such a great speaking voice that it's a crime that I'm the one with a podcast. Maybe she'll remedy that someday. indierails.com/47
Jikasei Baizen Coffeeann
If you're ever in the mood for a more interesting experience than Starbucks, consider visiting a high-end traditional kissaten. For about $5 out the door had table service for a fantastic hand-ground pour over and the fluffiest, most perfectly buttered toast one can imagine.