cat cafe

Today I put a pin down randomly in the middle of Tokyo on Google Maps:

Then I hopped on a train and went there.

I guess they can’t all be winners.

Anyway, the title says “Rakuten Tech Conference,” which I attended yesterday. Had a great time, and most of the talks are on Youtube. I gave a “lightning talk” about successfully implementing process changes on your team. In lightning talks speakers have a strict 4 minutes to talk on their topic, so I had to rush, but it was a good experience.

Afterward I got to hang out and talk with Nathan LeClaire of Docker (super smart guy working on and showing off some really neat things for a cool company) and the accomplished Jim Coplien who’s been in the software biz for decades, is well-read, and has strong and intriguing opinions on many things from scrum, kanban, & agile in general to organizational patterns and international politics, all of which were extremely fun to discuss with him over beer and Japanese food.

Now for some images and videos I’ve made recently.

The look of horror as this train realizes he’s about to kill some people.

OH GOD NO NOT AGAIN

Finn, Jake, and the Ice King keep me company at work.

Indian Prime Minister feels a 40% success rate = “near impossible.”

This atrocity is Burger King’s limited-time only black burger. The black is mostly food coloring but the cheese has squid ink in it. Try one today! hlgrk…

Open mic at Ruby Room

I probably drink one of these per day. And now you can get them from the vending machine hot!

Ate some delicious Italian style pizza here at Massimottavio.

To our customers who have food allergy and can only read English: fuck you! (At least now you know there’s something you don’t know about our food.)

My latest cat cafe visit

Me and Cope had a good time drinking and eating and talking

Walking off the train, I have to take these baby steps and get knocked around by other commuters. Watch and feel my pain.

A kitten at a cat cafe wants to chew my phone cord (of course).

A man fights sleep outside of a McDonalds and loses. I have been this dude so many times.

Thanks to this walk to Doofles, the neighborhood arcade, I’m sort of OK at Tekken Tag Tournament 2 now.

It gets hot in Tokyo.

Before you dismiss that picture above as just a screenshot of a weather app, please, read it. Look at that stuff:

There is 62% humidity and no chance at all that it will rain.
It’s 91°F (33°C) and it feels like 99°/37°.
It’s only July.

And I can vouch for that “feels like” bit, too. In the train station (where you don’t feel that 17mph wind), it literally feels like a sauna.

But enough about the weather. Speaking only an idiot’s version of the language and knowing practically no one here, it gets lonely in Tokyo too. I’m an introvert, and something of a loner too, but I’ve surprised myself by how difficult that level of alienation can be at times.

So today I’m treating myself to 3 hours at 猫の居る休憩所２９９ (neko no iru kyuukeisho 299, or “Rest Area 299, Where There Are Cats”).