Anthony Bonner

Raise rates Ueda-san

The best you can hope for as a visitor to Japan is "respectful buffoon". You will screw things up and everyone kind of expects you to. Just smile and own it. You'll drive yourself crazy trying to remember exactly which chair in a room you are supposed to sit it.

It used to be that if you were going to more than two destinations in Japan (I e. Tokyo + Kyoto + Somewhere else) your best bet as a foreigner was a Japan Rail Pass which needs to be purchased in the US before you go. I don't know if that math still works but worth investigating. Assuming you aren't flying to Kyushu or Hokkaido Even casual/ kid friendly places will require booking. Not necessarily days in advance, but walk-ins are hard. Tokyo is wonderful. But a lot of what makes it amazing are things that won't appeal to teen boys (dining, bars, walking neighborhoods checking out local retail/cafes etc) Make a list of what sights you actually want to see and figure out how many days you need. 7 days might be a lot. If you did 5 in Tokyo 2-3 in Kyoto/Nara and then 2 more some place else you'd have a pretty great first time trip.

yes - truly wild. tho I gotta tell you paying the same price for a massive pile of sysco chicken/beef/pasta in the burbs isn't actually better.

What is the point of having a time when you make reservations live if there are no reservations? Resy says they book 2 weeks out at 9AM. I literally refreshed the website at 9AM and there were no four tops before 930 PM.

Middle school French trips: MoMA and La Bonne Soupe. So I can torture my children too.

I find his death this week deeply ironic.

I think its even the same font!!

the market line no longer exists

torst isn't good anymore? I ended up at treehouse brewery between youth soccer games last weekend. place is total factory and treehouse is like the opposite of what I like to drink these days, but I have to admit one 12 ounce pour of some 8% super hazy NEIPA went down pretty nicely. Pretty amusing setup tho. They have two bars - one that is IPAs and Stouts, one for Lagers and Crispy beers. I'll let you guess which one had a twenty minute wait for a drink and which one you could just walk up to.

Speaking of old friends. Rodenbach on Nitro tap in Antwerp.

United launching nonstops to Bilbao May 31 2025

I called an aunt expecting to hear she was at my cousin's in Atlanta only to be told their entire assisted living community just south of Sarasota was going to ride it out. Not great

That was always the rumor that her dad was so pissed about the divorce and how he treated her that the Bull Gators would never let an AD hire him.

Layla's dad is dead so it's possible!

It begins

eater had an advertorial for fall openings early this week. I think there was one place on the list where I was like "I would try that" without even the curve of "oh - I live in the suburbs" it was shocking. Also I think its entertaining reading the Reddit FoodNYC and seeing a few people get to the emperor's new clothes stage with some of the favorites there.

So Sunday and Monday are very closed, but in the back half of August the real answer is "almost everything interesting both shopping and eating is closed" Before the 15th things are better. It was a good trip, tho the only non-"Toulouse as a base to see famly" thing we did in France was Dordogne which was lovely. We actually spent the second week in Begur, Spain - which was great but it was the highest of the high season.

Lol. Well no. Seriously tho. Usually it's hot ambiant temps and poor case design paired with behaviours (multi-tasking, computationally heavy actions like photo editing) that put high demands on the chips and the batteries. Basically you are using it too hard - especially as the batteries age.

I believe the dress code is fleece vests. The food was always better than it needed to be. I dont think many of the people eating there are actually paying the bill.

It's true. "The Glove" is the greatest defensive point guard in NBA history. And a hell of a smack talker.

doing what?

I think its kind of hillarious she's in her 30's.

see more evidence the nyt is woke (if its not clear that was a joke and a 'people always use any excuse to complain about the times' one not a political one)

Looking at the picture it looks like no.