She did great! More here.

Copperbanded Butterfly with one of the new Chromis.

My laziness with changing water in the marine tank over the past year has meant that some of the corals have died off. I won’t be replacing them and I might one day end up with a fish only and live rock tank. Some aiptasia has popped up though, and they’re a pest more than anything else (they even look a bit freaky). I’ve enlisted the help of a Copperbanded Butterflyfish to do the cleaning up (they love eating aiptasia!). They are known as a hard to keep fish as most of them die once they run out of aiptasia to feed on but the dude I bought’s been feeding off marine flake, brine shrimp and pellets too so that’s great news (ie: he’s food trained!). Whilst I was at my Uncle Johns Shop (Beach Aquariums at Bondi Beach) I also picked up 3 more chromis which are schooling nicely in the tank.

I missed a photo of 2 white Hyundai Excels parked next to each other, one stock and one over the top modified, shame about that, also missed a couple of Indian Miner birds eating someone’s dried up vomit on the floor from the night before. But I did get these shots:

Bindi doll.

Mummys girl.

Shame on you Tony Hawk. Shame shame shame.

Sexy fembot.

Diu or no diu.

In Kingsford.

At Shalom on Anzac Parade in Kingsford, ghetto but damn great food. So good it reminded me of my childhood!

I built up my new bike today. WHOO HOO! More info and pics here.

I managed to sell the Oxford on eBay for $102.50. It’s not about the money but I’m glad it’s going to be used instead of being destroyed (I found it on the side of the road).

In other news I’ve finally sold my apartment in the city. It was meant to be an investment property for me but it never went up in value, the body corp. fees just kept on rising too. The rental was OK though. Lesson learnt: don’t invest in apartments! If I had invested in a house, or even a semi it would have doubled in price by now (apartments rarely double in price?).

In any case, the money will go to renovations on the house I’m living in right now and I’ve put a little bit of it aside for me to splash out on new toys. I’ve bought myself a new bike (surprised? NOT!) and Grant messaged me yesterday to say it was in so I’ll be picking her up in a sec.

I’m also thinking about getting back on the bike, as in, motor bike… I still have my license and this bike has my name all over it.

I’ve always been a loud person but over the years I’ve gotten better and better at listening to people.

After last Monday night’s BMU night ride we stopped of at McDonalds (we’re always starving post rides!) and Tai, one of the guys we’ve been riding with, tagged along. We all know that he’s a vegetarian, and we also know he’s a strong enforcer of the prevention of cruelty to animals but on that night I asked the right questions and he flowed with the answers.

It turns out that Tai’s a very religious guy, so too his wife. He hasn’t got a name for his religion, but it seems to take a lot from Buddhism (escaping the cycle of suffering and rebirth, re-incarnation, kharma, etc.). He sincerely believes he’s going to get “there” (enlightenment? Heaven?) when he leaves this life. He believes he’s been put on the planet to be loving and he posed a question of whether or not you could lovingly kill an animal, which in the past few days has got me thinking.

He is living proof that you don’t need to eat meat. He’s built like a truck and has so much energy on the trails. Is he perfect? Far from it, he indulges in decadent luxurious toys and even sports a leather Louis Vitton wallet, but hey, no one is perfect and he sure as hell is trying.

Instead of arguing (let’s call it debating), which I usually LOVE doing. I decided to listen instead and I feel I got a lot more out of it in doing so.

Yesterday I caught up with Tabitha, who used to run Bold, a new media company which took me on as a graphic design intern in 1996.

At the time I had just lost my father, and I’d pretty much lost the plot. I dressed myself up to be as visually offensive as possible, hair extensions, ripped up clothes, stockings, high heeled boots, it was all about attitude and shoving the bad feelings down. If I could have changed my name to fuck, I would have.

I remember the day when I was called in for an interview at Bold. I sent out 100 CV’s where I crunched up and distored the type on the CV so hard that you couldn’t even read it (IE: My CV as art, attitude, and not just a boring word document). I only got 3 interviews out of 100 CV’s sent (I wonder why?).

I was wearing my big boots, stomping down a sun lit hallway, there was a modelling studio I passed, loud music and a photographer yelling out “yeah baby!” then there was Bold. Tabitha was the boss (a woman, yay!) and she wasn’t wearing shoes. I knew I wanted to work there straight away. She had her Mac tower propped up on a tall wooden stool which looked like it was going to fall off if anyone ever bumped into it. I asked her why she set it up like so, and she explained that she loved the tension of it (what a lady!). She laughed at my cd-rom presentation folio (where others didn’t get it and thought I was too arty) and she gave me the job.

I found Tab on Liz’s facebook just a few weeks ago (turns out she’s friends with Liz, my old buddy and ex-flat mate. Yes small world). I hadn’t seen her in forever, I didn’t even know what she would look like, but we arranged to meet up at Bondi Beach where she lives and works. She had just had a swim, and she was looking great! I remembered her voice (people might look different but they always sound the same) and we walked up to a coffee shop and 2hours of great conversation just flew over our heads in what felt like 10 minutes(so much to talk about!). Back when I was 20, she was my boss, my mentor but we were very much talking as equals now (I’m an adult now, right?!) and if anything I almost felt a role reversal.

It turns out Tab’s been through some hard times in the past few years, and she’s very much healing, re-discovering her worth and in need of good friends and company right now. Again I wanted to talk, so much, but I was so happy to listen too. I’m glad she’s back in my life.

Almost there! More here.

Short video from last night’s epic Loftus night ride :) More pics and chat here.

Christina bought a Rubiks cube on Sat, she’s been obsessed with it all weekend.

On Sat. night Mum organised a huge traditional Indonesian dinner for my family and Christina’s family. Food was awesome, conversation was great, awesome. I’m pretty sure everyone had a great time! :)

On Sunday I woke up at 7.30AM to my mobile phone alarm, had to get up to go to the Deus Bicycle Swap Meet! Christina got up too and we met Andy there at about 8.15AM.

Here are some pics:

So me, wish she was mine.

Let me in let me in!

Drool frames. I would have bought the lot (especially the immaculate Colnago or Red Bundy track frame) if they were my size! Most were 58+ in size, many frames were going cheap at $200 and under.

This Paino sold in front of my eyes. Yummy!

This Bundy was sooo tiny! A kiddies road racer, so awesome.

Steel City Cycle.

$70 scored me all of this today :)

I just love what Deus is doing, they’re breeding culture. Motorbikes, bicycles, coffee and hot retro cars too. It’s such a buzz to see passionate people hang out around the shop.

We also dropped in to Kingsford markets, nothing but Repco’s and Huffy’s today though so we headed in to vote on the Archibald Prize. Abbey McCulloch is a finalist this year (I’m super happy as I love her work and I own one of her original paintings!).

Bitey sun but otherwise perfect weather.

We also hit the Opera bar for lunch, so good.

PS: All the gear I got today is now on the bike.