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Home Cooked Japanese Dinner with K-POP
So proud of this girl. Haunting Asian Grocery shops like an Asian local. Kristi’s gone next level! Just a few years ago she’d not eaten much more than steak and 3 veg!
Making her own Gyoza! For reals?!
OMFG that marrow. Japanese Curry! My Slow Cooker finally put to good use haha!
Perfection, so good and made even better that the coriander came from Kristi’s garden!
MAN SO GOOD! So proud of this girl. Perfecto!!!
Early morning after Grumpy Baker run saw us in luck as the croissants JUST came out of the oven!
Mad catch ups (as always!) with K-POP. Was a cold but super sunny day so we headed out to the rock pools down by the cliffs and I collected 3 hermit crabs for the tank, amazing as the water in the rock pools is freezing and yet there’s still so much life in them. We then spotted whales breaching the water and man they just kept on coming! We spotted at least 5 whales out there, so rad.
All this time out Kristi had a Japanese Curry slow cooking back at home and man, what a treat dinner was last night. All the textures, flavours and complexities of Japan made in front of my eyes in my kitchen! All these amazing women in my life, treating me to amazing food. I’m fucking blessed!
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Fluval Edge 2 Nano Reef Update
Not only have I got a new shelf waterproof shelf to put the tank on, I’ve also got a powerpoint so I don’t have to run ugly cables around the wall to where the power is.
You can see in this picture where the power cables used to have to wrap around to get to power (frag tank used to sit on that bench with toys on it now).
And a little phone vid for now.
My house is falling apart, literally. I had a handyman over recently to fix up a few things in the house and whilst I had him I thought I’d FINALLY move the tank back to where it belongs (fish tanks aren’t the cleanest things and really shouldn’t ever be in a kitchen, bad feng shui!).
Over a year ago (time flies!) the tank used to sit perfectly above the aircon vent in the lounge room. The tank leaked one night and the MDF board under the tank absorbed all the water. If I left it any longer the tank would have fallen through the aircon chute!
So Robbie was over last week and he helped me move the tank (it’s an awkward move which I did solo last time, but made a LOT easier with Robbie’s help!). Man the tank was dirty as. SO much gunk in and around the filter, salt build up all over the insides and outsides of the tank and the back wall of the aquarium hadn’t been cleaned in forever.
I’ve lost the hammers, the cat and the acan, my peppermint vanished and aiptasia has appeared (funny that). I’m also down to one turbo snail from 3 (from memory) and I can’t see any hermit crabs. The clowns are doing awesome, so too my cleaner shrimp which I never expected to live this long in my hands. The fungia is still around (makes me want more!), some zoas, the 2 nassarius snails are well, so too the huge brittle star under the rockwork. The leather is still there and he’s HUGE. He’s been closed up for ages as the finger leather next to him got so large (literally took over the tank!) that it stung the leather so bad on one side that the leather started dying so I’ve moved the finger leather to the other side next to the pump, which it doesn’t like, and now it’s 1/3rd the size and staying that way for the moment.
The star polyps have covered a whole lot of the rock which is rad, the monty is holding in there (I heard they were tough but damn they’re tough!). Xenia tends to get out of control at times, but my big water changes tend to cull it back a little, till it comes on strong again (in all sorts of strange places too, it’s now finally growing on the back glass which is what I always wanted it to do!).
I’ve spent some time cleaning up the corners of the front glass (it was a mess), but have decided to let the back wall and left wall (as its up against the wall) go for now. Looks ugly as but I have some plans in mind which might just let me leave those walls unattended, but still look good/interesting.
The Two Little Fishies NanoMag I had on the tank had rusted out so bad you wouldn’t believe. I’m sure my phosphates are through the roof! I’ve bought another one though as I’ve tried a fair few nano mag cleaners and none have been better/stronger than this one.
I’ve been doing 20 litre water changes every 3-4 months on this tank, yup, SUPER lazy. Goes to show how strong everything in the tank is (though I don’t feed heavy, never have). I’ll get water changes back up to bi-weekly at the very least. I ordered a couple of peppermint shrimp from Reef Secrets in hope that they will rid the tank of aiptasia, and I also got me a couple of turbo snails. I ordered 2 huge ones by accident, but that’s probably AOK as there’s a shit tonne of algae on the back wall!
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When mum brings you treasures from your childhood
Mum dropped off these 2 books which I hadn’t seen since Marcellin College (year 5).
Blast from the past! I’m pretty sure I was meant to be bringing in a ‘proper’ book to class on reading days in year 5, but fuck it, these were the only 2 books I found interesting at the book store!
Posted in Spam
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Best girl in the world
Woke up to the doorbell, angry, then realised it was McDonalds delivery with a note sent from the best girl in the world. @star.santillan I love you too. #bestiesforlife
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Daruma
Finally unpacking my suitcase of trinkets from my not so recent trip to Japan (yup I’m hopeless!!!). Mia wearing a Daruma collar Mum got for her on our trip.
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Lane 8 Loving You Cover
This track is coming along real nice after the weekend!
Posted in Music
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Final Fantasy XV – Finally Popped my Final Fantasy Cherry
Says 33hrs on the certificate I got on completing the game (cute). That’s doing a few side missions, but I did more of them in the beginning of the game than towards the end (IE: there are a billion more quests left for me to do in the game).
Cindy’s hot, got bolt on boobs, and is your Regalia’s mechanic. She ends up upgrading the Regalia so it can fly, and man, after not being allowed to drive for the entire game (it’s auto pilot), being able to fly post game is NUTS and makes me wonder why I couldn’t fly from the start (and that the games developers are crazy and I love it!)
Post game activities, flying around the gorgeous world in the Regalia.
As much as I hate the crazy auto pilot driving, it was also so strangely relaxing and enjoyable in a watching post race rendered vids of a race in Gran Turismo kinda way.
I’m gonna miss you bros. It’s been emotional. Sunsets were awesome in the game, and the game really makes you fear night which I thought was a cool touch.
Speaking of darkness, the Pitioss Ruins. The most hardcore platforming puzzle shit I’ve ever done, those who know know! Massive high 5 to anyone who completed the fucker!
I’ve never played a Final Fantasy game. As much as I love most Japanese culture, I’m not into the pink and cutesy girly Anime stuff which is how I’ve always looked at Final Fantasy. A billion people out there can’t be wrong though, and their latest game (which was in development for 10 years!) had me intrigued as it’s an open-world JRPG (music to my ears) where you play a character who has 3 close mates who set about on an American style road trip.
It’s trippy as all hell as it’s so Japanese, but the world is so Nevada. I love the world LOTS. I love all the silly fetch quests too. I really enjoyed playing with my 3 bros along side me, so much so that in later missions when I was separated from them I missed them. The cheesey music got to me in to me in the end, the lore did too (the open world gameplay to the lore specific bits are so juxtaposed it’s almost like 2 different worlds, but it still worked for me). It’s a road trip but you don’t get to drive, or do anything much in this game really. Driving is like teleporting, and you can beat all enemies by mashing a button, or if you’re too lazy to do that just hold the button down. Yup. Final Fantasy is an EASY game. It’s like a movie game, but I hear people complaining more than ever that it’s just too hard, and maybe that’s why I like it, because if it was any easier it would be ridiculous.
Having said that. I finished the game and got into the story more than the gameplay. Basically everyone dies. They make you fall in love with people, then they kill everyone then you kill yourself. I had a gut feeling that this was what Final Fantasy was all about; LOSS, and yup, it’s a pretty fucked up story, but it’s a really fun game! Again, love the juxtaposition, it’s truly unique.
PS: Once you finish the main story you can return to the open world, from there you can do post game activities and one of them is the Pitioss Ruins, a secret dungeon that you have to fly to (you car can be modified to fly, it’s actually pretty damn epic!), it’s only marked with a tiny yellow line on the map, and that yellow line is a runway. The runway is so short I crashed out a few times trying to land (super frustrating as this game has LONG load times!), and once I landed I had to wait until night for the secret door to open. Then I was thrust into the most hardcore platforming game I’ve ever played, made super hardcore because there’s a sever gumminess to Final Fantasy XV’s character control.
Push your controller forward and your character takes 3 steps forward, this makes it nearly impossible to do precision jumping/tightroping in puzzle like environments, but one evil fucker at Square Enix designed this monster of a maze, and it took me almost 5 hours to complete (in the end I had to use an online guide too). Amazing a game can be so easy all you do is press a button to win it, but then you have this thing… it’s crazy! You go through the pain to complete the dungeon to get lots of loot, but one pice in particular which lets Noctis, your character auto-dodge enemy attacks (as if the game wasn’t easy enough as it is!!!).
The crazy thing is that once I checked out the guide, and read the comments below the guide video, I read that a fair few people also struggled with the dungeon, and also spent 4-5 hours in there, then on completion, and resurfacing they hopped into their Regalia (our flying car) only to crash on take-off as the landing strip is too short, losing all 5 hours of gameplay and all items looted in the dungeon. Holy FUCK that would make me rage SO damn hard! I’m SO glad I read the comments and made sure to save straight after completing the dungeon (I even paid to get the car towed to the garage rather than even attempting to fly off the strip!).
PPS: Steam has a HUGE sale on right now and pretty much every single game I’ve got on the wishlist is half price now, or even less. I ended up pulling the trigger on Borderlands 2, which should be Co-Op fun with Ved, and also Dark Souls 3 to fuck my life.
Rich Dad Poor Dad
Repeat after me: “Money is not evil”.
Has anyone read that book “Rich Dad Poor Dad”? Yeah I haven’t either, but it’s got something to do with me in that I was born into wealth, and ever since being aware of it (high school pretty much) I’ve been more guilty of it than anything else, so much so that I’ve made it my life’s goal to use the position to do greater good for others.
I’m good at a lot of things, but making money isn’t one of them. I’ve spent my life creating not-for-profit communities. I’ve put my money and my soul into each and every one of them and never felt the need to get anything back but positive feedback (which is my preferred currency). I’ve frustrated the fuck out of business partners who have in the end had to leave the business because I just refused to make money.
I’ve had countless conversations with friends, about the disservice I’m doing to the industry. IE: If I am a professional graphic designer charging people $500 for a logo (or worse yet doing it for free which I do all the fucking time), then how the fuck has any other designer, especially ones starting out have a chance?
Getting on topic. We’ve just changed the pricing of all our goods in the ZEN GARAGE online shop in an attempt to get more sales (in an attempt to make more money). Where a T-Shirt cost $40 before, it’s now $39.95. I literally had friends tell me that if they had 2 T’s in front of them; one was $40 and the other $39.95 they’d buy the cheaper one, even if it’s only by 5 cents! This is killing me. I then did a fair bit of research into what others are doing (not that I really care), but hey even the God I met last week (Shepard Fairey/OBEY) does it with his goods, so if he does it then it’s OK if I do it too?!
I can’t feel good about the move, and if it does generate more sales then it’ll be bitter sweet, but the reality of it is that ZEN GARAGE is doing great, and has always done great since 2011, but we’ve never made a salary or any real money out of the business. We only make enough to pour it back in to make another run of stock, and even then we usually fail to re-stock as we don’t have enough money in the bank (which explains why our hoodies come out in summer most times haha!).
“Hallelujah!” is what my business partner Rob had to say; “I’ve been in the business for 6 years waiting for you to wake up!”. More profit means being able to have our staple range in stock all year round and it’ll also allow us to up the quality of our goods as well as design more new products and I’m excited about that.
Visit: https://shop.zengarage.com.au
Posted in Zen Garage
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