Monthly Archives: August 2010

Bysen 120W LED


It took only 4 days for the Bysen/bsled LED’s to arrive from China.


How they sit on my stand.


The timers were impossible to figure out but with the help from this forum I’ve set them up nicely (blue lights on in the morning, white blue then white white blue then white blue and blue again at night, very nice).


They’re crazy bright, so much so that I’m not sure we can handle them (we had dinner last night with all house lights off and just the LED’s running!).

A few things: The timers look so dodgey. One of them even uses different screws to the other two. Each light has 3 manual on/off buttons on top and one of the buttons on one unit doesn’t work (but the light still works). My stand is bowing a little at the middle which was to be expected (dodgey!).

EDIT: The glare from hanging them was just too bright and I didn’t trust my stand, nor the thin cabling used to hang the lights with so I decided to whip out the jigsaw and hack up my old hood. Here’s the result:


No glare, units stay cool and away from salt water which is great considering they’re not made for this harsh environment (they are originally designed to grow plants!) and it’s a safer set-up for Mia (imagine coming home to a dead kitten in your tank?!).

Posted in Pets | 5 Comments

High jump


Mia’s getting really good at jumping. She can now jump up onto the kitchen bench and dinner table too. Here she is about to jump up onto the box Christina’s new iMac came in.


And on top of the box, checking out the garden.

PS: Yes she’s getting bigger every day!

Posted in Pets | 1 Comment

Aquarium update


Algae bloom.

I did a huge 120litre water change the other day, tested my nitrates and they were still sitting at about 50ppm. Over it I decided to take some more drastic measures. I’ve read a lot into carbon dosing, basically, if you add something carbon based (such as sugar or vodka), bacteria will feed on it and their number will increase. The bacteria will be consuming more and more nitrate to build their cells and the excess bacteria in turn will be skimmed out by my skimmer, resulting in lowering my nitrate reading.

I decided to try putting one teaspoon of sugar into the tank. The next morning the entire tank was cloudy, this was a good thing as it was most likely an algae bloom and too right my skimmer went nuts and was pulling out more crap than usual. I’ve tested for nitrates again this morning and the reading is looking a little better. Sad thing is I lost my clam. Everything else is doing fine though.

I’m so over this crappy tank. I’m starting to seriously think about doing it right straight off the bat. IE: A custom tank made to my dimensions (I’d like a deeper, not taller tank), a proper weir + sump and plumbing set-up and with some serious tech equipment to boot.

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THE-LOWDOWN & JDMST EOMM

Yesterday Christina and I headed out to THE-LOWDOWN & JDMST EOMM which was held at Autotechnik Tuning out west. We took the GT-R and I quickly realised I had no DC to plug the sat-nav into (I’ve ripped it out and replaced it with a battery cut-out switch!) so I had to print out some directions from Google (haha). We got there at about 10AM and the meet was already filling up (I had a spot reserved for me luckily!).

The weather was absolutely perfect (so nice to have that warm sun on my back) and some of the cars that rolled in absolutely blew my mind. So many cars had great stance and I had to pinch myself a couple of times (couldn’t believe I was in Sydney!). BBQ was awesome and the vibe was great too.


The Fonz!


This pic is so good.


Old vs New.


Ryan from THE-LOWDOWN


So clean, great stance.

All photos above by Matt Mead at MOTORDRIVEN

For many more images from people with cameras on the day visit: http://forum.jdmstyletuning.com/showthread.php?t=27606

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iPhone 4

Suga’s new iPhone 4 takes a decent photo. These pics are completely unedited (direct upload from phone to Flickr). Click the images to view the full size direct from the phone.

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30inch


30inch baby.

Christina bought a new 27inch iMac and she’s given me her 30inch Apple monitor. Plug and play! I’ve now got my big monitor (which is so tiny in comparison to the Apple 30″) set to portrait on the right of the 30inch.

Posted in Design, House | 1 Comment

UNIbrace


UNIbrace under-body brace for MKV Golf.

My UNIbrace under-body brace came in the other day. Check it out, looks rad huh?! I’m booked in on Wednesday next week to fit it up, as well as my Recaro seats (whoo hoo!).

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Blue Angel

Last night we went to Blue Angel Restaurant in Darlinghurst for my Aunt Lely’s B’day. We were given the menu a few nights ago and they suggested that we pre-order our mains as it was bound to be a busy night. Too right it was! It took us ages to find a park. We spotted a line of Asian tourists outside and the massive no parking zone in front of the place (for coaches I assume) screamed tourist trap.

The decor was different! Very authentic Italian (I liked it) but we had no time to appreciate it as we were very quickly ushered upstairs into a private room. Before we even got settled down one waiter had dropped 2 bottles of wine which smashed on the floor splashing all over handbags, jackets and one guest. Worst of all they were mute and not at all sorry. It only got worse from there. All our waiters (which were all Asian) must have been trainee staff. They had no idea how to serve, they were super nervous and their English was very broken. They had no idea how to pour wine (I even had red wine spilt on my white shirt, nice) and what’s worse was that Christina’s main meal came out 15 minutes after everyone else’s (despite us pre-ordering a few nights before!). To top it off her pasta and my pasta were both way over cooked too.

We had a good time despite the crap service and food (my family is a hoot!) but I feel sorry for anyone who has saved up their hard earned cash to get ripped off by restaurants like this.


The big spill!


My cousin Nicholas, always clowning around!


Nicholas and Romina.


My hunz.


Christina loves her new iPhone 4.


Bernard and Lely.


Nicholas’ speech.

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FS: 1997 Specialized Hardrock


For sale.

In an vain attempt to make more room in the man cave I’ve decided (after many years of deliberation!) to sell off my 1997 Specialized Hardrock. It’s the bike that got me back into riding and it single-handedly got me into tinkering with bikes. I’ve put a lot of blood sweat and tears into this bike, can’t say I’m after a lot of money for it either, it’s more about making room and also selling it to someone who’s actually going to ride the thing! If you’re keen, or know someone who is keen, let me know!

PS: Build thread can be found here.

Posted in Bike | 1 Comment

MC Cyclery


New MC Cyclery web site.

When I met Grant from MC Cyclery a couple of years ago I’d just missed out on the opportunity to re-design his web site for him. It turns out he’d already asked Damien and Zann to design his site, all good as both Damien and Zann are my Australian INfront business partners (small world!).

A couple of days ago I was asked to re-design the site, to make it clean and simple in order to not alienate everyday customers. It’s a new direction which Grant is taking the bike shop. Where we were once gunning for everything rad and gnarly we’re now focussing back on “suburban bike shop”.

Current site: http://www.mccyclery.com.au
My new site: http://www.mccyclery.com.au/blog/

Yes it’s built in WordPress, yes you can see it’s using the same theme that I’m using on this very blog. Clean, simple, flexible and most of all easily up-datable. It’s a work in progress but it’s pretty much ready to go live any day now.

Posted in Bike, Design | Comments Off on MC Cyclery