Monthly Archives: October 2009

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.

My 2009 number.

My growing collection of race numbers :)

I got my registration pack for this years Sydney to Wollongong bike ride in the mail last week. I did the ride twice when I was in high school and I also did it last year. I’ve had an awesome ride every time. Last years event was huge, we didn’t even get going until 5km in because there were so many riders. The event gets bigger every single year with more riders every year and more money raised for the MS Society too.

I’ve set up a BikesMoveUs.com Team for this years ride. We’ve already raised $415. I’m sure we’ll raise a lot more. You can check the page out here. Please consider donating (hit the big “Donate Now” button!) or better yet, dust off that old bicycle in the shed and come join us!

Daintree Eagle

Last weekend we went couch hunting but all the couches we liked were $5k+. Dream couches, but way out of our budget. On Monday we said goodbye to our old couch which we sold on eBay and on Tuesday we thought we’d drop in to King Furniture.

The old couch was a King Furniture couch (old model Delta, non-storage), it was huge, deep seats which made me slouch a lot and it just looked so damn heavy (in fact it was very light due to an aluminium frame). It put me off King Furniture but after seeing the prices of European designer couches (art I’ll call it) I thought we’d at least drop in to have a look.

We got there and it was packed. They were having a store wide Spring Sale. Great timing! We were looking for a 3 seater couch, something super simple and this couch just popped out at us, the price was right too, even before the spring sale discount. There were a million fabric options but Christina honed in on a colour and texture she was after (I love it, very 50’s) and we didn’t hesitate, we bought it on the spot.

The sad thing is that the couch won’t arrive until mid next month. Until then it looks like we’ll be sitting on the floor in front of the TV (quite uncomfortable actually).

George Nelson’s bubble lamps.

Whilst I’m on the house update. We’ve still got to get some lights for the bedroom and other rooms in the house. I’ve wanted George Nelson’s bubble lamps for years now but I’ve never been willing to pay the $1k/lamp asking price. A while back Spence and Lyda had a store wide sale and they came down to $800/lamp. I was there, in the store and I still couldn’t do it. I kinda regret it now as I’ve walked in to a billion lighting stores in the past 6 months and I’ve not found anything at all that comes close. Looks like I’ll have to bite the bullet and spend up on them. I just keep thinking, that if it was my car, or my bike… I’d only want the very best right?!

Feels like I’ve been getting back into a lot of things.

Last year I got back into cycling and recently I’ve gotten back into cars. I’ve been doing a bit of design work that I’m actually enjoying lately and I have to say I feel like I’m getting back into design too.

Today I worked on the new INfront. The old site has been there for so long (so long I don’t remember when I designed it). I’m determinded, with Dave‘s help, to get the new site up by the end of this year.

I’ve just gotten past the mock-up stage on a logotype for Mark Pakula. I love what I’ve done. It needs a few more tweaks but it’s pretty much there. I’d love to show it off, but I’m going to wait until it’s 100%. I’ve also been working on some huge banners to represent MC Cyclery at the Sydney Bicycle Film Festival at the Chauvel Cinema in Paddington. Again, still in mock-up phase but I’ll show them off when I’m done.

In the span of 5 minutes I also got 2 work related emails. One from Rimian, a developer mate of mine and also one from Richard from the Digital Wranglers which Caryn and I did a bit of work for a year or so ago. It’s funny how things work… isn’t it?

Next thing to get back into is my salty fish tank. It sure needs a bit of TLC.