Monthly Archives: July 2020

END OF MONTH MEETS ARE BACK!

Same shit, different name… oh wait! Same name? Kinda!

I founded and hosted the very first JDM Style Tuning End Of Month Meet (EOMM) back in March 2005. The concept was simple. I was inspired by Daikoku Futo meets in Tokyo Japan and wanted to re-create the same “all in, all welcome” vibe in our own backyard. The meets were awesome, and grew in size real quick.

In 2015 Top Secret Imports (TSI) and Fernando Wiehrl (Project D Drift School) helped us to secure the WSID carpark @ Eastern Creek for our largest EOMM and in 2015 Sean Ryan and Rob Green (Motor Culture and previous founders of ZEN Garage) secured the WSID carpark for monthly EOMM’s.

We ran the EOMM’s for the love of it, for the scene. WSID management insisted on a $15/car entry fee to pay for lights, ticket booth staff and a clean up crew. I tried my best to convince them to let all cars in for free just like Daikoku Futo meets, but only managed to get them down to $10 entry/car. Hundreds, most times thousands of cars would rock up every month, you do the math! The event was definitely a lucrative deal for WSID, but a small price to pay for a venue that we wouldn’t get kicked out of every month.

Towards the end we had a growing number of bad eggs ruining it for the rest. We’ve always tried our best to ask patrons to keep the music down when entering and leaving the meets, and to not rev their engines at the meets or do burnouts on the way out, but the scene is the scene (hey even at Daikoku meets people do filthy burnouts on the way out!). It is what it is, but sadly it just got worse and worse to the point where a crowd of people would egg on the burnouts just outside the meets, add to that a few accidents with people hitting poles and knocking down fences on the way out. In 2017 we asked the Police for help, they attended one meet, then on the next one they set up a defect station and well, that was that.

Fast forward to yesterday; I got a heads up from Andrew Hawkins of Motive Video that the End Of Month Meets are back. I believe the scene needs this meet and I believe that the event is in good hands and wish Andrew all the best. The first Motive Video End Of Month Meet kicks off at the end of this month on Thursday the 30th of July. Be sure to check out the events page here: https://www.facebook.com/events/2698965683719476

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All my Fallout 76 CAMPS

Just a quick tour of all of my Fallout 76 player C.A.M.P.S. None of them are 100% finished (I need more plans!), so please consider them all W.I.P.

Much thanks to AquaNova for the inspiration, especially on the first cylindrical build. Her work is amazing! Be sure to follow her.

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Getting off the meds

I’ve been on bi-polar meds (Quetiapine) for a year and a half now. Initially on a dose of 300mg/night, and over time I managed to reduce the dosage to 25mg/night on my own, mostly because I’ve never been into the idea of taking medication, if anything I’ve always seen it as a sign of weakness. 

When I was 18 my Dad was dying from cancer and I saw a transformation. He was a strong man. I’d even say I was scared of him when I was younger. He was a buddhist, but at the end of his days at St Vincent’s Hospital he had priests pressure him to convert to God. And that he did. As cancer ate him alive he grew weaker, and I took that weakness in a bad way. I was disappointed in him for giving up. When he died I took his strength and vowed never to be weak. 

I gave myself a deadline. Dad passed away at age 47, so in my mind I’ve had until 47 to do everything in life. I’m now 45 and it’s only recently that the hard reality of not being able to choose when it all ends has well and truly fucked me up. 

The meds knock me out about 30 minutes from when I take them and I’ve had solid 6–8hr blocks of sleep since, well, since a few weeks ago where I’m finding that one little pill isn’t enough anymore. I’ve had a sneaking suspicion that the pills do nothing more than get me to sleep, and the lack of sleep was what send me insane in the first place. A few weeks ago I tried herbal sleeping pills subscribed by a specialist (who was made aware of my situation), but they did jack shit. My local doctor has now put me onto a sleeping pill which he says that he would much rather me take than Quetiapine, and it’s been a rough transition over the past week, but I’m getting there, and have had a couple of nights of solid sleep on the new medication. 

I did a podcast recently with some friends and I didn’t entirely like some of the things I said, or sounded like, when I listened to it back. Listening to it back was like looking into a mirror for me. I sounded like someone who had given up. Someone with a lack of drive, someone who didn’t care anymore. I’ve lost respect for myself, and thus respect for others. I’m biting my tongue instead of speaking out. I’ve been choosing to do and be nothing. 

Being on meds has helped me to avoid hitting the low lows, but I’m realising that it’s also stopping me from getting the high highs… I feel like I’m somewhere in the middle now. Numb, flatline. Everything I’ve ever done of any worth (to me) in life has come from embracing the low lows and the high highs. 

So I’m now on a mission right to get off the meds in hope that I’ll find my drive again. Whether it works, or not, I’ll have to see. Either way it feels good to even be on a mission once more!

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