Category Archives: Uncategorised

Now that the renovations are pretty much done I’ve started putting a bit of love into the aquarium again. I’ve got the protein skimmer working at it’s best once more and I’ve replaced a cannister of carbon (long overdue). New light tubes are in too. The road to recovery is going to be a long one but I’m sure I’ll get there.

I paid my Uncle John a visit this weekend. I’ve finally snapped a shot of him (he hates being in front of the camera!).

Here’s the shop on Beach Road in Bondi Beach, as my Dad left it back in the 80’s. John hasn’t done one single thing to it, the shop is so dirty and run down inside that a lot of people that walk in just walk straight back out.

My Uncle John, Dads youngest brother, the hippy (John the Beatle is what my family calls him). I love the guy.

The Locks often haunt Insadong, a Korean BBQ joint on Rowe St. in Eastwood. The place is always dead quiet, which is a shame as the food is great.

I love any crispy beer.

Bibimbap.

On every single Saturday, all year round the Locks have a table booked at Excellent Chinese Seafood Restaurant in Carlingford for yum cha. I’ve been on a few occasions now, basically anyone in the family that wants to rock up does which sometimes makes for a very tight squeeze. It’s just such an awesome thing to have.

Christina and I hit the framers this weekend. We have 4 great Kozyndan prints to frame and a small Amy Sol print too. All signed of-course!

Amy Sol print.

Kozyndan HORNY print. That’s them in the poster :)

Signed love.

Perhaps their most famous print.

Yup signed!

ADVAN are now officially operating in Australia, we have them on JDMST as advertisers at the moment (thanks to the guys at go2space) and they invited us to an industry night at Cargo Bar last Wednesday night. Great venue, great people, great presentation by Christian, their head marketing guy (I loved how many times he mentioned “JDM”!), heaps of food and drinks on tap till late too.

The Advan girls from the Advan industry night. The first thing I asked them was “Are you guys from Japan?”.

I’ve always had a soft spot for the brand and their products.

Used semis on display, nice!

Shida and Stevey.

Yesterday, at about lunch time, my internet went down. I tried to restart the modem, no go. I left it alone thinking that it was probably an outage in the area as there was some freaky weather here in Maroubra (very strong winds and some rain). This morning there was still no internet. I called Telstra, some guys wasted a shitload of my time and at the end of it he said he couldn’t help me any further because I wasn’t using a Telstra modem. FUCK! I am 100% sure the DLINK modem I am using is a Telstra approved modem (it says so on the box?!), in any case I called Telstra sales and ordered a new modem from them. $99 on special, great, but it might take 3-5days to get to me (not great).

Yesterday I also had a built-in wardrobe guy come around to give me a quote on a wardrobe for the bedroom + a linen closet for the hallway. He was going to email me the quote today but since I have no email I got him to send the quote to my Mums email addy (I’m at my Mums now). The quote came in at $4900 for the bedroom wardrobe and $2300 for the hallway one. FUCK! That’s a shitload of cash. I can’t see how I could justify that at all. One thing he did say was that the flor wasnd’t level in the bedroom, that freaks me out a little. If I bought an IKEA wardrobe ($1800-ish) it might not even sit right? I tried to call the guy but he didn’t pick up so I sent him an email, complete with sob story. I’m really hoping he will bring the quote down ($5k for both wardrobes would be AOK).

So, no internet = no work. I might as well read (something I rarely do, maybe a book every 2 years?!). I’ve just finished reading Dan Brown’s Digital Fortress, it was so crap but I couldn’t put it down. Christina bought me The Godfather to read (I’m 30 pages in and it’s reading like a bad 80’s porno). Friends on FaceBook have suggested a few books though, might run out and buy a couple of them.

Last year I rode my 80’s Paino roadie in the Sydney to Gong ride and she was amazing, especially in the hills (nothing I’ve ever owned goes up a hill as fast). She’s been completely refurbished since last year, new paint job and I’ve polished all her bling bits. I’ve been feeling very precious about her (so much so that I don’t even ride her!) but I’ve decided that I’m going to ride Paino again in this years ride. Today I gave her a quick tune, she’s ready to go. Bring on the Gong!

I’ve had a bit of fun the past few days working on a faux movie poster for MC Cyclery, who are giving a bike away at this years Sydney Bicycle Film Festival. Higher resolution images + links + more discussion can be found here.

Yesterday myself, Suga and her cousins (+ a few friends) hit Picton Karting Track. The Karts are faster at Eastern Creek, but the guys who run Eastern Creek tend to be a little too strict (I get black flagged all the time there grrrr!). The guys at Picton basically let you do whatever you like, not to mention they’re awesome guys too who wear a smile on their face and seem to genuinely love what they do (that makes all the difference in my opinion).

We did the Grand Prix (3 x 20 minute sessions, 1 x qualifying, 1 x race and 1 x final) and had 9 people all up (with a few first timers). Stevey ended up with the best lap time of the entire day (including other groups that went before us). All the best lap times were done in Kart No.3 which I was sitting in for our finals but stupidly, last minute, I gave it up to sit in the same Kart I used in the previous race (stupid stupid me as Steve took the No. 3 Kart and scored the race win AND the fastest lap of the day).

Suga’s cousin Annie took these pics (thanks Annie!):

The carpark. Took us just under 1hr to get there and we were 45 minutes early!

Steves bike complete with battle scars.

Suga’s Shoei + my Bandit.

Suga and I (Steve in the bg).

Felix and Di decided last minute to come along! :)

Felix (note: Keichii gloves).

Suga and I ready to go.

Norman spinning out.

Di and Suga.

Norman leaning in.

Post qualifying.

Me.

Peter.

2nd race times.

Grid for the final race.

Suga.

Stevey got the fastest lap time of the entire day (bastard!).

More pictures here!.

On Friday night we went to Neil Perry’s new Rockpool Bar & Grill to celebtrate Richie’s Australian Citizenship (again hehe). Awesome venue (used to be an old bank apparently), felt very Gotham City. When ordering “medium rare” at Rockpool you really get just that, medium rare (it was almost bloody). In future I’d consider ordering my steak “medium”. Suga ordered the grass fed rib-eye on the bone and I ordered the grain fed and it was awesome to taste the difference (the grass fed actually tasted like a mouthful of grass after eating the grain fed).

Thumbs up from me, kills Prime (2 bad experiences there, will never go back).

I’ve had a Dyson vacuum cleaner since 1999 (the first model ever released). Back then I was a super keen design graduate, and design, be it industrial design, architecture or graphics, was on the brain day in and day out, when Dyson products were launched I was instantly a fan. I still am (except I now think they look ridiculous where once I thought they looked cool).

The old Dyson has had plenty of use, it’s electric chord doesn’t retract into the body anymore but apart from that it still works, which is impressive, but we knew these new ones had to be much stronger so we took the plunge and bought one (Bing Lee sold it to us for $620, rrp is $739).

It’s heavy (11kg) and feels very plasticy but it sucks, hardcore, so hard that the carpet actually lifts off the ground.