Category Archives: Uncategorised

View from the mezzanine level.

Jess and Christina.

House rules.

They print out a new menu daily.

100% go for the grain fed over grass fed.

The goodness.

Last night we had dinner (again) at Neil Perry’s Rockpool Bar and Grill to celebrate the last day of HSC exams for Christina’s sister Jessica. Mr Lock had booked us into a table on the private mezzanine floor above the restaurant (pimp!) and this time we ordered our steaks “medium” instead of “medium rare” and they came out perfect (the waiter did confirm that they prefer to cook their medium rare steaks on the rare side).

The experience for Christina and I was so much better than last time (because of the steak), the starters were also awesome (we had sashimi, Australian meats, Calamari and King Prawns) and the warm rhubarb, strawberry and almond pudding with vanilla sauce was killer.

OOOOOOOOOH YEAH!!!!!!!!!!! TheFiXFiXFiX WEB SITE IS NOW LIVE!

I snuck out of the JDMST EOMM on Saturday night early so that I could go home and hit the sack. 5am on Sunday I was up, packed the car and headed of to Richie’s. From there we rode to Newtown for the start. My hands were killing me from the ride in so I made a little adjustment to the bars (I tilted them back) and that made a HUGE difference.

We met up with Jing and after sitting in the line for 10 minutes we decided to jump the start (we would have been sitting there for at least half an hour otherwise). Like last year there was a major blockage for the first 10km but we were rolling soon enough and that Gong vibe kicked in.

Seeing so many different types of people, of all ages, so many different kinds of bikes and the volunteers yelling out “Thank you so much! Thanks for the support!” brought a massive smile to my face. I’ve always treated the Gong ride more like a race (which it isn’t) and gone solo every time. Richie, Jing and I stuck together as a group all the way until the finish line, which was great fun.

The event raised over 2.6 million dollars for MS and I managed to raise $410 so a huge thanks to everyone who sponsored me.

More pictures and discussion can be found here.

I’ve decided, on a whim, to re-upload my old blog. I started it back in 1998 (pre-blogger). You can check it out here, it’s pretty juicy.

Dianne has put up her pics from last weeks Tortilla night on Be The Foodie.com

Gah I just saw this pic… my old S2000, spotted last night in Homebush. I miss it all of a sudden!!! :(

I put off owning a mobile phone for years but eventually I was forced to use one, now I’ve been thrust into Twitter.

The new Australian INfront will go live soon and due to technical issues the old site was torn down today and a new INfront twitter feed has been created to keep everyone informed on the progress.

PS: MC Cyclery are now on Twitter and FaceBook too.

We’ve just featured 2 more members rides on JDMST. Wilch’s R33 GTST & FRPilot’s Mark II Tourer V JZX100. Enjoy!

With the help of people with big hearts I’ve managed to raise $335 so far for this weekends Sydney to Gong ride. I’ve had no preparation at all for the 90km ride but the vibe on the day will be awesome and that alone should see me reach the finish line.

My good buddy Sean Torstensson was recently diagnosed with MS, it has made the Gong ride all the more relevant to me now. If you’d like to sponsor me, please click here (you know, stock up on that good karma baby).

Last Friday I visited Mark at Coral Sea Aquariums in The Spot, Randwick. I hadn’t visited him in a year or so, maybe more. We had a chat for a while, always great, he’s a nice guy who has run the shop for 40 years.

In all those years he’s seen The Spot change so much, from what was such a great little community of diverse little shops to basically a “Little Thailand” (nearly every shop there is a Thai restaurant now).

The sad news is that the old couple who had been renting the shop to him for the past 40 years have recently sold the building to a developer. This developer has already kicked out the post office and the chiropractor next door and if Mark wants to keep running his aquarium shop he’ll have to pay 3 times his rent when his lease runs out early next year.

When the developer first met Mark he already mentioned that he didn’t like the idea of an Aquarium shop in his building and that he would have prefered a restaurant instead (he already has one Thai restaurant in the corner shop). Of-course Mark can’t afford to pay 3 times the rent, it’s simply a way of telling him to get out.

Mark is not sure if he’s got it in him to start a new business and despite running the shop for 40 years he’s never seen himself as a business man. He started out young, and had a telent for keeping fish and shared that through his shop. Like my Uncle John (who also runs an Aquarium shop), running the shop is his life.

A sad conversation I suppose. Mark is obviously very upset but I told him to look at the positives, that running the shop for 40 years was massive, a huge achievement. On leaving the shop we joked about him most likely not being there if I dropped in again to say hi in a years time.

Mark had a few Peppermint Shrimp which I grabbed (I need them as they eat pest anemones), he had a hard time trying to catch them as they were in a display tank (not to mention his eyesight is pretty bad too!). He ended up having to take out all the rockwork and when he took out one particular piece we heard a huge loud cracking noise. Mantis Shrimp we both said! Turns out it was this guy, what looks like a Tiger Pistol Shrimp (the largest one I’ve seen in real life). Mark, like many aquarists, didn’t want him (and would have killed him most likely) but I think they’re harmless and damn interesting creatures so I took him.

Whilst I’m on aquariums. I also bought this Blue Starfish (linckia laevigata) earlier. I also have a couple more interesting star fishes now. I’ll get pics of them some time soon.