Dogs, heaps of them, all left alone at Bondi Westfields carpark. I can only assume they were minding these dogs but I’d be furious if I knew my dog minder was leaving my dog in the back of a ute at the shopping mall.

Organic Nachos on Crown St. Surry Hills.

Caught up with an old friend (and ex-flatmate) Liz today. We had heaps to catch up on, both of us are very much in the same place at the moment with work and getting what we want out of work/life.

Liz founded Embody many years ago and has only just gotten back on the horse with it (like I have with INfront). After lunch (check above, yup it was good) I dropped in to her place and met her guy Daniel who runs Scientifik his own skateboard company. We had heaps in common (I used to skate, he still does!) so hit it off straight away.

Be sure to check out their sites, real people doing their own thing, got to love that!

Embody: http://embodyspa.com.au
Scientifik: http://www.scientifikskateboards.com.au

Despite the freezing cold a fair few VWGolf.net.au members came out for Pizza night which is held on the 1st Wednesday of every month in Pyrmont. Great people, great conversations. Our little community is solidifying, found it’s roots and we can only grow from here.

More pics HERE.

I’ve just uploaded a feature on Matt’s MX5 over at JDMST. Matt’s a guy I’ve known for more than a few years through the car scene. His car diary on JDMST is a true inspiration to me. Unlike myself, he’s not the kind of guy who obsesses over modifications or the perfect ride height or wheel offset, instead he’s just genuinely into driving and finding epic b-roads I’ve never seen or heard of before.

You can view his feature HERE

Now in stock in the JDMST SHOP.

When I got back from overseas I had a funky package waiting for me from Charles Kha. I knew it was going to be Issue 85, Auto Salon Magazine’s final issue.

I opened the package to find three perfect non-creased (thanks to the packaging!) copies, one standard issue which will soon be found all over Australian Newsagents and 2 Limited Edition magazines featuring alternate covers.

Christina and I got straight into reading the magazines. We both consider the ASM staff as good friends (Christina even did a stint as a graphic designer with ASM) and it was bitter sweet, fun and sad to read their last words.

You can read on-going comments on Issue #85 here.

Thanks to my new partners Damien and Zann The Australian INfront is back, hard.

This week we’re covering the Rosemount Australian Fashion Week – What’s next? The sky’s the limit with these guys!

This morning I got an email from a mate Tendy who sent me a photo of a carbon bonnet. The email message was: “You want?”.

I replied and the phone rang very soon after. It was Tendy, he said he would be happy to let me have his new bonnet now and I can order him another one from Rennenhaus later (he was going to paint it white then fit it to his white GTI).

He’s a champ and I wasn’t one to refuse! He was already at Top One so Suga and I jumped into the car and in 20 minutes we were borrowing Dedy’s tools (I felt pretty bad about that and would have preferred to bring my own tools) and installing the bonnet.

Quality is perfect and fitment is bang on. I’m super impressed at how easy it was to install. This OSIR bonnet weighs 6kg and the stock one weighed in at 12kg. A decent saving of 6kg which brings my savings so far to -48.38kg.

I had this black VW emblem waiting for me in the mail when I got back from HK.

I’ve just installed it and washed the car too (note to self: Next time wash car BEFORE meet not after!). I’m liking it!

A few pics of some toys I picked up in Hong Kong:

Tamiya models. I just buy them for the box. I’d like one of every car I’ve owned. The GT-FOUR though is a car I’ve always wanted to own but haven’t yet.

When I saw this in a small shop in Sugar St. my heart skipped a beat. I used to watch this cartoon every morning when I was a kid. It was called “Star Blazers” and it blew my mind. I’ve found a few small toys since then but this is the real deal. It’s huge and it was super expensive. It turns out it’s 2nd hand and was released way after the cartoon in 2005. This particular one was 2nd hand but a grade 90 which means the box has been opened but the toy was never ever taken out of the box and played with or displayed.

Of-course I will be taking it out of the box and proudly displaying it in the lounge room :)

I also picked up these metal master grade Transformers. Both are modelled off the original Optimus Prime which I already bought a few years ago but one of them is Ultra Magnus and one is a special black version.

You’ve probably seen the Chinese guys selling RC helicopters at the mall. This is basically the same thing but it makes a robot fly. It also has a trigger which shoots a beam that can shoot down your opponent which is pretty cool.