Monthly Archives: October 2016

Vegas Trip: Day #2 – The Hangover, pretty much

passport

What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas… but fuck me dead. I woke up on the floor in my hotel room, with the neck of a T-Shirt stretched around my waist, leaving the rest of the T-Shirt looking like a skirt. I have ZERO memory of shit that went down last night. Pretty sure I was drugged. I’ve lost ALL of my money, phone has been stolen too, but thank God they left me with my passport!!!

Posted in Travel | 6 Comments

Vegas Trip: Day #1 Sydney > LAX > The Chronicles > Las Vegas

first
Dave had checked us in online, and this somehow screwed up Qantas’ baggage check-in system! Not a good start! THEN Zi had his US currency stolen from him at the check-in at Qantas! Feds were all over it but we had a plane to catch so hopefully he’ll be able to deal with it all later on, back home.

carbon
Carbon seats in the A380 were actually quite comfy! Flight was still pretty hard for all of us though.

obama
FINALLY! We made it, only to have to queue like sheep for 2.5hrs before getting out onto the street!

ciggies
First thing, ciggies. $5!!!

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Ken was waiting for us when we got out in his awesome TRD Tundra.

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He drove us to the Avis car hire to pick up our Party Bus which ended up being this huge Ford bus with plenty of room and super cold AC too.

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Dave ripped his shorts lol.

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We then ate at Chick fil A, so good!!!

ghia
Spotted this super clean bagged karmann ghia in a carpark (where we were trying to get US sim cards sorted for our phones which ended up being a bit of a pain and took way longer than expected), he had a leak and couldn’t get the car up, he found the leak whilst we were there though.

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And a few minutes later his crew arrived. So rad!

megamoist
Mmmmm Mega Moist. We then checked out the local Wallmart (lol).

popeye
Random, right?!

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Cray.

eibach
We then dropped past The Chronicles Year 8 Anniversary Event. So rad as I’d seen so much of this event footage on the net over the years.

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The event had some pretty clean cars parked up inside, outside though was a much more realistic affair with a fair few cars that were modified, but far from perfect, much like our local scene in Australia.

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Loved this clean S2K. Lots more Hondas than any other make as expected, chill tunes, chill people and great vibes despite the super harsh sun that was pretty much burning us alive!

merc
Noice.

prelude
Pretty cool to finally see USDM clean shaven bays in real life.

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WILD!

drink
Drank.

trueno
Loved this Trueno.

rb26
The only GT-R there, an R32 and it was pretty cool overhearing the locals say that the engine looks a lot bigger in real life (IE: they’d not seen an RB26 before!).

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Spoon kit. Polarises people. I personally love it!

toyo
Toyo spotting.

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Evasive EVO!

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nsx2

nsx1

umbrella
This guy had the right idea bringing an umbrella.

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And my fave car of the event.

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Exit left!

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spoon_interior
Central driving position!!! Apparently it’s the fastest Civic in the US on the circuits here.

gt3
Pretty much a cup car.

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More Toyo spotting! R888 RPRSNT!

8th
The trophies.

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Yonas and Joey, AKA: @stickydiljoe

thechronicles
Great to finally meet the guy!

innout
Then we ate some more. YAS!!!!

sky
The sky went whack and then we were off on our road trip to Vegas. Man we were absolutely wrecked at this point. Adam’s a champ for driving the distance!

highway
The scenery just got more and more baron as we went along.

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Group shot in the Nevada Desert.

bus
Go the bus!

tesla
Tesla chargers. It was dark by the time we got into Vegas.

wynn
And our hotel, The Wynn, is huge, busy as fuck and bang in the middle of the strip. It’s halloween here too so everyone’s super dressed up!

lobby
The hotel’s nuts, and feels like The SIMS! Getting to the hotel elevators is an experience in itself as you have to go through the casino to get there.

8AM and we were all at Sydney International Airport, quietly excited about our huge trip. We ran into John Lor and his mate Simon at the airport SO RAD! I had NO idea John was coming!

It’s been a HUGE day of travelling. I’m buggered, sitting here in the hotel room after having a much needed shower (OMFG so greasy all day). It’s 10.30PM local time now, we’re starving again so we’re going to head downstairs and explore! More tomorrow!

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The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – Special Edition

My copy of the remastered Skyrim for PS4 is here! The game only came out today, and I leave for LA tomorrow morning so I thought I’d come home to it in a week’s time… but NO! Thanks Bethesda for express posting me a copy to play today.

Being truly done with Fallout 4 (until mods come out for it on PS4!), and struggling to get back to The Division after downloading the 1.4 update (which after a few hours play really feels like how the game should have been from launch). I’m going to give Skyrim a good go despite not being a huge fan of magic/fantasy like realms.

I’ve only spent 2-3 hours on the game but I’m enjoying it so far! Really helps that the Fallout 4 familiarity is there with the controls, and general gameplay too. Sure, the graphics aren’t as great as Fallout 4, but one thing I’ve noticed is that the game loads SO fast! Loading screens flicker past in an instant, unlike the 30+ second wait at times when opening a door into a building in Fallout 4 (worst way to kill immersion IMHO).

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – Special Edition is out now on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.

Posted in Games | 3 Comments

I’m still playing Fallout

pipersleep
I’m still with Piper, though I lost Cait AGES ago. If you’re on PC you can use the console to find any lost companion, no luck on the PS4 though! I googled and found a lot of others out there had the same issue, and the only way to find your lost companion is to remember where you left them. Fallout 4 has a HUGE open world and I looked for Cait for weeks and I finally found her again, SO RAD! The intense feelings this game can provoke, so awesome!

loot
I’ve completely finished the game and discovered nearly every location on the map, yet on rare occasions when free-roaming I still do find places I’ve never been to, and secret rooms to loot.

bos
Yes I’m guilty of googling “things to do in Fallout 4 once you’ve finished the game”. One of the most common suggestions was to play the game again, but go with a different faction. I tried this and went with The Brotherhood of Steel (BOS), which was rad for a bit, but I couldn’t stand the grind so I stopped as soon as I boarded the Prydwen.

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I’ve instead continued my addiction of collecting Power Armour (PA). I’ve now got enough money to keep on buying new frames, but instead I’ve tweaked my character from a gunner into a sneaky sniper, and my fave past time now is to sneak up on enemies in power armour from behind and shoot their power cores out, which forces them to leave their power armour so you can then kill them and steal their power armour frame and whatever bits they have on it (this vid shows the process well).

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Even more stolen suits.

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Stolen Raider PA.

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Yeah even more! I’ve got over 50 PA suits now!

I’m still playing Fallout 4. The music draws me in SO hard. I love love love the soundtrack, so much! Listen to it here, and the retro-post-apocalyptic world, it’s just so awesome. I can understand why so many people loved the game (and have so much love for Bethesda the company who make the game), and I’m truly glad I’ve managed to play it despite being almost a year late to the party.

Watch this guy react to the first Fallout 4 teaser trailer (which features the epic orchestral Fallout intro piece). It pretty much captures how I feel about Fallout 4 right now (haha!).

PS: Bethesda are the creators of Skyrim, also an open world RPG, but more in the style of Lord of the Rings, which I love, but not as much as the retro-post-apocalyptic world that is Fallout. I’ve read a lot of good stuff about Skyrim (PS3 game so much older than Fallout 4). Bethesda are re-releasing Skyrim Special Edition (comes out tomorrow), it now features remastered art and effects and all DLC content too, so it’s a good time to give that a go me thinks (goodbye!), good thing then that when I return from Vegas, there should me a copy of the game in my mailbox!

Posted in Games | 3 Comments

The Division Update 1.4

division
1.4 update installed.

I’ve not played The Division for months. The times I did log in to play I just found it boring (mainly because nothing had changed). I’ve been waiting for the next update, and yesterday I downloaded it and gave it a go. I immediately noticed a supply drop in the open world (outside of the dark zone), that was pretty fun. I then noticed that I could choose different difficulty tiers for the open world (higher tier = better loot). Rad!

Of-course everyone was online, game updates tend to bring the crowds back. I joined a crew and hit the Dark Zone and yup, they really have changed a LOT. The game doesn’t feel any harder, or easier initially, but you instantly realise that NPC’s are dropping more loot (good loot too), and you get caches for levelling up and completing assignments. There’s just so much more loot everywhere! Then you realise your armour has dropped, and you can’t do the Lone Star ammo trick, and that they’ve released new gear which will force you to work on your character, which was expected to be honest, but within 2 extractions I was already getting better gear than what I was wearing, so I’m thinking that min/macing a new character won’t be so bad.

Having said all that I’m still feeling like I’m quite done with The Division. I do have the Season Pass though and will most likely come back to play the next DLC, Survival (trailer below).

Posted in Games | 5 Comments

Monday Fundays

starfeet

mondayfundays

Posted in Photography | 1 Comment

Fallout 4 Merchandise

Game merch is usually pretty meh, but holy shit there’s some EPIC next level Fallout 4 stuff out there. I’ve got a few bobbleheads already, they’re awesome! And I got myself one of these babies (I hunted down a first gen release on eBay), which houses your iPhone (you download an app to make it fucking real!). Cray!

PS: Still on a high from WTAC. I say it every year, but damn it was the best WTAC so far! Things do not slow down for me though this year. I’ve got a big meet next Thursday night. 3 months ago there was a defect set-up a few km’s down the road from our EOMM. The last 2 meets have been down on attendance as expected, but we’re coming back with UNITED. A meet run by the community, namely Downshift, Street Cover and Tuned.

THEN I’M OFF TO SEMA! Las Vegas, baby!

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WTAC Race Day Saturday

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driven

monster

baker_madmike_dino

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toyo7

toyo6

toyo3

cray

melsass

greg

amanda_sierras

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evo

vibes

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robbie

kpop

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wtac2016_drifts_zengarage

Not often at a loss for words, but fuck, what a weekend! Spotting insane cars en route to Sydney Motorsport Park in the morning set the mood right, and seeing the huge queue of awesome machinery rolling in for the Shannons Show n Shine (which was hands down the best so far and again hosted by THE-LOWDOWN.com) confirmed that it was going to be a cracker day!

Time flew for me, always does at WTAC! I tried to get around to snapping shots of all the friends of Zen, but failed miserably. I did however meet a whole lot of first timers to WTAC (lots from Victoria, some even from overseas!) and I have no doubt they will all be back again next year (and the year after and after!).

WTAC, it’s like a dance festival I swear!

PS: You can check out the full feature on Zen Blog: http://www.zengarage.com.au/2016/10/wtac-race-day-saturday/

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WTAC chills on the hill

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Hiring Golf buggies, best thing we’ve done at WTAC this year haha!

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WTAC Race Day Friday

loademup
Road trip. Ved’s flatmate Sam was out of the house by 5am.

bnr32
Pornography! 7am Ved and I were at Eastern Creek for the WTAC media briefing.

tunnel
Ved made the call to get a couple of buggies this year and OMFG what a mad call it’s been!

buggy
Buggy life!

burgess
Zen Racer Adam Blitz Speed Burgess in the zone!

nads
Hey Nads!

jdmyard
Super last minute, but I managed to get another fresh JDMyard T-Shirt designed in time for the JDMyard WTAC Team this year. The boys are looking hot I reckon!!!!!!!!

heasmans
David was coming 3rd last time I checked the big screen!

kpop_jas_cords
K-POP, Jas and Cords at the Zen Stand!

dk_helmet
OMFG his helmet.

keiichi_me
This time I had a ciggy with him AND he’s wearing his fucking super suit!

herman_keiichi_alain
Herman and Alain, day made.

signed
Signed!

coolcats
Team Zen WTAC 2016! #coolcats

Cray Day! It’s like a re-union for me. So many awesome catch-ups! Can’t wait for tomorrow, it’s going to be absolutely HUGE!

Posted in Cars | 1 Comment