Author Archives: Justin Fox

District Dining


Sharing style dishes.


Di was just about to relaunch Be The Foodie, her food blog. We got a sneak peek on the new design too, super clean, functional, just how it should be!

Caught up with Felix and Di the other night at District Dining. I didn’t think the food wasn’t that great (but the company more than made up for it!). It didn’t help that we were denied dessert and kicked out as the table was booked for another party after us! Christina and I dined at Emmilou the night before, a Spanish Tapas restaurant which takes Tapas to a new level. I thought Emmilou was so damn good that I’m sure it kinda ruined the District Dining experience for me a little (similar shared dish style concept).

Edit: The all new Be The Foodie is now live!

Posted in Food | 1 Comment

Max & Mia

Posted in Pets | Leave a comment

JDMST EOMM / EVO NATS


I brought my 80’s Kuwahara along for kicks.


Babs’ Hako took out best of show runner up.


One category I had to judge was “Best Hellaflush”… but Hellaflush is an American brand! I sat there, felt embarrassed about it for a bit, then I kicked myself in the bum and thought why the hell not, sun’s out, let’s have some fun. This is the car I chose for the win.


I also had to judge “best stance” which I gave to Shane. You can’t argue his Supra has a menacing stance (even in broad daylight!), best of all, it’s stance is dictated by function.


EVO 9 wagon took me by surprise. It also won a runner up prize for best EVO.

[IMG]http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2625/5741769471_e86c80b866_o.jpg[/IMG]
Babs claiming his prize.


A very pregnant Nat (Miss-R) took 3rd best overall car of the day.

Perfect weather, EVO guys were ripping it up on the circuit and skid pan (very impressive!), Show and Shine prizes went down a treat and best of all there was a great social vibe all morning and afternoon.

Judging the “Show and Shine” with George from Mothers was a hard job. George has judged many an event (including Sema!), and being in the care care industry he had a thing for perfect paint. I’ve got little idea about good or bad paint, but George didn’t have much of an idea about JDM car culture so we met in the middle.

There were a billion photographers out and about today so I’m sure there will be many more pics of the cars on show. I’ve started a photo thread on JDMST. Click here to keep an eye on it as photographers get busy uploading their images.

Posted in Cars | Leave a comment

AGDA Debate

Simon Mundy, the Victorian President of the Australian Graphic Design Association (AGDA), has written a blog entry on his desktop blog in response to Andrew Moffitt’s opinion piece in desktop magazine’s May issue, where he posed the question ‘To join or not to join AGDA’.

For various reasons, AGDA was why I started The Australian INfront in 1999. I’ve never paid to join AGDA, mainly because I’ve never been convinced of the value of joining (no offense intended).

In the late 90′s I worked at a few design companies that were members of AGDA (all you have to do to be a member is pay their yearly fee) and they admitted to me that being allowed to have an AGDA badge on your web site (along side your Microsoft Certified Partner badge!) made them ‘look good’. In fact one of the AGDA councilors in the debate writes the following on the value of being an AGDA member:

Kudos: Put “Member: Australian Graphic Design Association” in your email signature and on your website. It’s (perhaps not) surprising how many clients take note and take you more seriously. Use it like a qualification or like accountants use “CPA”. And the more of us that do it the more powerful it becomes.

That’s pretty hilarious as it confirms this idea of paying to be a member, just so you can say you’re a member, to somehow make your design company seem more legitimate.

I’ve been around public forums to know how they work. There might only be a handful of people fighting in a room, but the fact is that thousands more people are reading the debate, and they’re making up their minds about who’s side to be on. I’m feeling sorry for Simon Mundy, who initiated the debate to try and convince everyone that joining AGDA is well worth the $250. The responses made by AGDA representatives read very defensive, which is a shame as they’ve got a golden opportunity here to listen to what people really want (IE: digest the feedback, have an AGDA meeting and then reply post meeting).

I tried my best to stay out of the debate, but in the end I had to chime in (couldn’t help myself!).

You can read, or join the debate here: http://desktopmag.com.au/blogs/agda-give-it-a-try

Posted in Design | Leave a comment

Public Domain


Ray Barbee (they spelled his name wrong in the video!) in Public Domain (1988). We used to watch this video over and over. Each time we got to this segment of the video we’d be so pumped we’d all yell out “let’s skate!” and hit the streets. The first song in the clip rocks too.

Posted in Skate | 2 Comments

80’s revival right about now


I scored these NOS (new old stock) pink T-Bones on eBay They’re the exact same wheels I used to skate on way back in the day. On opening the door this morning, post man greeted me with “T-Bones!”. Turns out he used to be a skater too, and still does skate occasionally. He couldn’t see the logos on the wheels as the wheels were wrapped up in bubble wrap, he could just tell from their size, impressive!


Size comparison to a newer style wheel. They’re huge, and roll over small stones and cracks effortlessly, damn fast too.


Later that day the doorbell went off again, this time Mr Postman delivered a genuine NOS Ray Barbee complete. His video segment in the Public Domain video blew me away as a kid, at the time no other skateboard had a nose kick as big as this. I always wanted it, now it’s mine. I intend to skate this one rather than leave it up on the wall.


Top side is factory gripped from the 80’s.


90a’s a little hard for my liking as I like to do big slides. They’re 57mm “mini’s” but 57mm is a huge wheel today. T-Bones might make their way onto this board, maybe.

Posted in Skate | 1 Comment

Zoomer Timeline


Day 1. Previous owner Paul had already bought an exhaust, stretch kit and lower seat frame.


Stripped plastic panels, frame brace with forward pegs, new exhaust. Painted. New seat frame. Low and flat handlebars, removed blinkers and put them on the sides of the battery box. New seat, fat rear wheel and tyre, painted mid section of frame, new front-end (brakes, wheel and shocks), JDM headlights.

It’s always nice to see before and after pics :)

Posted in Bike | Leave a comment

Australian Born Chinese

Christina is sick with the flu, so is her sister, and last night we were meant to get together for a family dinner to celebrate my B’day but my sister is well preggers, and it’s not the best idea for her to be hanging out with sick people so we postponed the night.

I’ve not caught the flu off Christina, neither have her parents, so the Locks asked if I’d like to go for dinner at Excellent Chinese Seafood Restaurant, their local Chinese restaurant of choice.

Tony’s picky about what he eats, and this place makes strange and wonderful dishes that aren’t featured on the menu just for him. I assume Tony wanted to order all sorts of grand dishes for me but he asked me if there was anything I’d like to eat and I jumped at the opportunity to take charge of the order for the night.

I’d had a couple of glasses of wine, and was feeling good. I didn’t want fancy food. I’ve had it before and it’s probably all the chefs out the back ever cook, so I wanted to make it fun for the chefs as well.

I asked if it was alright if I ordered:

– Crispy skin lemon chicken
– Beef with black bean sauce
– Sweet and sour pork
– Pineapple fried rice
– Salt and pepper prawns

Rosemary and Tony thought I was joking but I wasn’t (haha!). Tony was too embarrassed to order the food (he’s got to show face right?!) so I ordered it (waiter’s reaction was gold).

The food came out and it was absolutely demolished. In fact the only dish that wasn’t finished was the one vegetable dish Rosemary ordered (I sure as hell wasn’t going to eat any veggies on my B’day).

Ultimately the flavors of these dishes are uniquely Chinese in my opinion. Nothing like Thai, Vietnamese, etc. Sure Chinese people have think this is “Australian Chinese” food, and it’s kinda like ordering a meat pie at a gourmet restaurant, but it was naughty fun and it really made my day :)

Posted in Food | 6 Comments

Zoomer update


This morning I dropped in to Racecourse Motors to get the guys there to swap my front tyre for me. They’ve got a really nice and neat scooter shop across the road from the Randwick Racecourse which is pretty close to where I live.


I spotted this strange Zoomer like bike. The seating position with the pegs forward actually wouldn’t be too unlike my Zoomer.


Old wheel left, new right. The guy that greeted me was a champ. He swapped the tyre over in no time and it only cost me $20.


NCY rotor installed. Kinda ugly. A plain cross drilled completely round rotor would have been nicer.


Braided line is pretty long (a LOT nicer than having the crazy long drum brake cable before though) and I’m still not sure I’ve routed it the best way.


Other side. Glossy black wheel suits the rear wheel now and this new alloy wheel with tyre weighs the same as an original steel wheel without tyre.


Super happy with it!

I’ve installed everything. Just need to buy some brake fluid. I’ve had issues with spacing the front wheel. The kit came with everything I needed, except the speedo housing and the wheel doesn’t sit flush against the stopper on the fork (to stop it rotating) as I had to use a spacer on that side to centre the wheel. It’s not rotating at all though, so it works fine, but it’s definitely not designed to work this way.

Posted in Bike | Leave a comment

Zoomer B’day Session


Couldn’t help myself, started ripping into the Zoomer right away. I grabbed a trusty milk crate, put a sheet over it and lifted the bike up onto it. Bit tricky to do on your own, but the Zoomer’s light enough. Taking everything off is a little annoying but I’ve done it enough times now to do it pretty quick.


Right at about this time Christina yelled out from upstairs “LUNCH TIME!”. Usually I’d be shitty as I was in the zone working on the Zoomer, hands covered in grease, but hey Christina made me a B’day pie! Pie’s are one of my fave foods of all time. I love a good pie, this one had my name on it too! Mmm mmm, it was delicious!


Tummy satisfied, head buzzing on a nice glass of red I got back to work. New front brake caliper to replace the OEM drum brakes. I hate it that it’s annodised red. Thought about stripping it down to bare metal, but I’ve decided to leave it as is for now.


I bought an axle puller for giggles. Didn’t fit on the OEM forks but with a little dremel work they fit on these new ultra-low forks perfectly.


Front brake master cylinder and throttle (grip not installed yet).


As far as I can go for now. Notice how much bigger the new brake lever is, so ugly! Waiting for a starter switch (I can kick start though) and tomorrow I’ll get the tyre fitted to the new disc brake front wheel.

Posted in Bike, Food | 2 Comments