We just made up thousands of these Modern Pet flyers in order to get the word out on the streets. Counters at vets, pet grooming shops and lifestyle stores, letterbox drops and dog park handouts. Standard postcard size too so we’ll cheekily fill up some Avant Card racks at a cafe near you!
The 27inch monitor is massive.
16GB ram upgrade.
A week ago I ordered a new iMac to replace my dead PC (virus + dead motherboard). I couldn’t justify spending close to $6k for a fully loaded all in one mac so I opted for a basic configuration. After doing some research I realised that the $1k extra Solid State Drive (SSD) was an expensive option but one I really wanted. 4 times faster than a normal hard drive and dead silent too (no moving parts). I was too late to get Apple to edit my order so I had to refund the mac I initially ordered, get TNT to pick it up (Apple paid for this!) and then order my new mac with SSD.
I did even more research and it turns out that Apple overcharges for their ram upgrades. Apple charges $1400 for 16gb of ram. My research led to many people having problems with cheap aftermarket ram in the 16gb configuration (read up here) so I went for Apple factory ram (Samsung ram) but I bought it from OWC in the USA for $384.70 delivered (via FedEx in 1 week). $1k cheaper. That’s a massive saving huh?! Basically I’m getting my SSD for free. What’s more the Samsung ram I bought is made in Korea, the ram inside my mac was made in China.
A few things:
– Starting up is ridiculously fast. Never seen a computer start up so fast in my entire life. I’m thinking it might slow down once I bog it up with more applications? We’ll see.
– This new Apple mouse is retarded. You go back and forth through web pages by putting 2 fingers on top of the mouse and swiping the surface like you do with an iPhone. I can just imagine the apple guys sitting around the office in a creative meeting about trying to avoid having to put 2 more buttons on a mac mouse. Silly!
– The monitor and resolution is massive. I’m a 2 monitor fan (one for work, one for email) and I think 21inch monitors are nice in terms of being just big enough and having better legibility but I’m pretty sure I’ll get used to this set-up pretty quickly.
– USB ports on the back are a little annoying to get to and when you plug something in or out the entire monitor tilts (too heavy for the hinge on the stand).
– I’ve been told to be sure to eject discs. That means digital cameras, external drives etc. If you don’t do so macs will corrupt shit.
– MSN 8 for mac crashed within 2 minutes of operation.
– This tiny flat keyboard is missing a forward delete button (I love that button!).
– I’m starting to do mac things and sound like a mac person. I cashed in an iTunes voucher Caryn gave me years ago and I bought myself Kanye’s latest album (Track 10, Hell of a Life = awesome) through the iTunes store. iTunes even found album cover art for all the songs I’ve got, nice.
Steel stand has been constructed, the doors on it are temporary for now (new ones being made will match the kitchen).
Car & bike friends FTW.
Me wearing a suit? No waaaaay. Jonno, me, suga + Andy. Photo by Quentin Mui.
Photobooth set-up at the reception (great idea!). Photo by Mark Pakula.
Christina and I were the MC’s at the reception of our friends wedding, and whilst we had been nervous about it for the past few days we had a ball once we got going. Yeah we stuffed a few things up, but hey, the laugh was on us!
As soon as our MC’ing was done the party started and in typical Christina vs Justin fashion we both had a race to see who would get wasted first (so the other would have to drive). In the end we were both smashed and with the wedding party ending all of a sudden (time always flies when you’re in the zone right?!) we were left trying to straighten up over a massive greasy meal at a City Extra, a 24hr cafe (always wanted to eat there!). By 1am I was finally straight enough to drive home haha.
Roller in Surry Hills.
The sponsors who made this event happen.
Boxes and boxes full of Asahi!
Welcome back to Sydney Damien! – At some point Damien (who’s just moved back to Sydney from Cairns) and I had to run out to get some art supplies, loads of ice and plastic cup for wine. Unfortunately he got done by the parking police.
I put a bit more effort into cutting up 1st and 2nd place, felt lilke I was in design school again!
Love this one. Zann and Miles did a great job hanging the top 20 Visual Response FUTURE entries.
The winning entry. Great from a distance but amazing up close. I’ve love to get this guy to do our wedding invites!
The gallery.
The turnout.
The new Australian INfront; Zann, Damien and I. Would never have happened without these guys. Me so proud :)
I’d been smashing Asahi’s since setting up at about lunch time and was feeling pretty lose by early afternoon. Slightly foggy today but had a blast at the INfront do last night. Some of the OG were there, so cool to catch up with them and I met a lot of new people too. All in all it was a great success! The top 20 Visual Response entries were fantastic, the beer was cold, the tunes were awesome. Great crowd, great vibe.
PS: Much better pictures from the night here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=37944&id=126268997417461#!/album.php?aid=37944&id=126268997417461
Cry baby.
Toilet trained!
Soon after my last post I saw something out of the corner of my eye which looked a lot like a cat outside. I then thought it must have been a bird (I often have Indian Miners outside my office). A few minutes later I saw a small cream coloured cat sprint for it’s life across the backyard. It was really windy out (looked like a storm was about to hit) I got some shoes on and went out to see if I could find him/her but I couldn’t see it anywhere. I sat inside looking out for a while then spotted him climbing over the next door neighbours fence back into my backyard. I went out and tried calling the cat over but it refused to move. I ran back inside to grab a jacket at the weather was getting worse out and after some time I managed to get pretty close to him. He sniffed my hand and cried a little then he bolted again. I went back in and came out with a bowl of kitten food (pretty smelly stuff I thought). This time I managed to get him to play with a twig and soon after he spotted the food and started chowing down. He let me pat his head and I grabbed him by the neck and got him inside.
Christina got home just as I got him inside and we set up the laundry with a bed, some food, water and a litter tray which he went straight for. Perfectly toilet trained little guy! He ate the rest of his food too. He looks like a pure-bred burmese and he was super affectionate (but a bit smelly).
The next morning I took him to the local vet and sure enough he was micro-chipped and de-sexed. His name is Ringo. I’m sure his owners are going to be really happy when they get the call from the vet :)
Suga and I gave Mia a bath the other day (using some special cat shampoo of-course!). Initially Mia freaked out but after a while she decided she loved it (she was licking Christina’s hands which were holding her still). She dried real quick as it was a hot day and her coat has never been sooooooooo yummy!
I looked all over the house for Mia later that day and started to panic when I couldn’t find her (had she somehow run out the door?!). I finally found her sleeping under the bed. Usually she sleeps on top of the wardrobe in the guest room (up very high so she feels safe) but I’ve recently found her in deep sleep in other places. The bathroom (!), under the bed sheets and now under the bed!
Nyaw the little mau mau.
Dallas frag from Matt. My fave SPS coral so I’m hoping this little guy is gonna grow!
One of the near dead SPS corals from the interstate shipment. You can see the completely bleached base. The only way to save it from here is to ‘frag’ it. Fragging is where you snip off the tips that are still good.
One of two big pink birds nest corals in the interstate shipment. It’s beaten up and some parts look pretty pale but I think they’ll both pull through AOK.
Another one from interstate. Blue tips but the rest of it is brown. A brown acro is an unhappy acro.
Tank hit 29degrees lasst week so I’ve been running this fan and so far the temp has stayed below 28.
Full Tanks Shot.
I took delivery of a few more corals this week both from a local buyer (Matt from AMDbulbs who delivered the corals for me) and also from my Uncle John’s interstate collector.
I tried my hand at SPS corals a few years ago and only managed to keep them alive for a few weeks and I never tried keeping them again. They’re harder to keep than most other corals which explains why they’re considered the jewels of the reef (also generally commanding higher prices and much more aquarium gear and husbandry to keep). With my current system I’ve been able to not only keep them but to watch them grow so I put an order in with my Uncle John for a box of SPS corals sight unseen (kinda exciting as you don’t know what you’re going to get).
Unfortunately it all went wrong.
The plane was delayed overnight and something also went wrong at the airport. Instead of the box coming in first thing in the morning it was delayed until late that afternoon. On opening the box there was a pretty bad smell. Two bags were filled with black (rotten) water and inside them were completely bleached acros. In other bags were more bleached acros, dead crabs and even a dead little green goby which must have been living in the coral (so sad!). I paid $270 for a box of 8 large colonies, 2 were completely gone, another is pretty much gone (I’ve fragged it but it’s not looking promising) and the others look pretty bashed up. :(
It’s the last time I’ll be ordering a box of acros unseen. I thought I was going to get a lot for very little money but instead I got a lot of death. I feel guilty about it and I would have been better off buying quality live stock from someone close by.
We’re having a party tomorrow night at Roller in Surry Hills. I’m bussing it in as the event is sponsored by my fave beer: Asahi. Hope to see some of you guys there!
More info: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=177366345610719
Christina’s Dad is selling off his entire set-up (minus C02 gear). That’s the tank, stand, hood, lights, filter, UV sterilizer, all plants, fish, heaps of shrimp too. There’s over $1k’s worth in plants, fish and shrimp alone but it’s not so much about the cash, it’s more about getting it out of the way to make way for his new (bigger) tank so you’ll have to tear it down and transport it all by yourself (bring a mate!).
EDIT: SOLD!!! (funnily to the guy who bought my ED Civic!).