Suck UK

Posted on November 30, 2008

Recently Maree told me that she works at a place that gets Suck UK products at wholesale prices, which of course drove me to buy a bunch of stuff I wouldn’t usually get. These included a pen holder and digit message tape, as well as a cool bottle opener shaped like a skeleton key that she got me as a surprise. The latter’s awesome as I’ve been pulled up a few times at international airports for my usual bottle opener keyring.

Loving Suck UK’s Dead Fred pen holder. There’s something satisfying about jabbing a pen right into the poor bastard’s heart.

Sydney FC

Posted on November 28, 2008

Tonight Papz and I headed down to the Sydney Football Stadium (located just ten minutes away from our office) to see our first ever A-League match. Although we’re both fans of soccer/football, we haven’t really been interested in Australia’s league primarily due to a lack of spectacle. Since Papz received the tickets for free however, how could we refuse?

After experiencing my first game, I can say that there’s several good things about the A-league. There’s freedom to choose where you sit, and the crowd is super friendly (although out of the tens of thousands of seats available, why did we have to get a crazy old guy sitting next to us). Shame about the selection of beer though: it’s either VB or Cascade Light. Hmmm.

Tonight Sydney FC went up against the Queensland Roar. In the first half Sydney were completely out-played by QR, who dominated the midfield, had better positional play and spread the ball fluently. Sydney on the other hand looked very shaky, with some ghastly defensive errors. Sydney were a lot better after the break, and really started to threaten. In the end it was a 1-1 draw, and from an entertainment point of view I’d give it a 6.5/10, which isn’t too bad considering the league is only four years old. I still much prefer the English Premier League, where the pace and technical proficiency is so much higher.

Cribs

Posted on November 28, 2008

After two years, I’ve just moved out of my shoebox of an apartment at Portico, a heritage-listed building that was once a church. I chose this place initially because of its history and the juxtaposition of old and new: it still retains the limestone structure and massive iron gate entry while offering modern touches like a 24 hour concierge and automatic car stacker.

Here’s Portico’s exterior (right). It’s in the northern end of the CBD, meaning you’re in the quieter financial district away from the hustle and bustle of the George St strip and Haymarket. There’s also plenty of hotels nearby for a late night coffee (Shangri-La, Menzies and Four Seasons) and many a high-end bar for the alco (Establishment, Hemmesphere, Ivy). There’s always plenty of eye candy in the car park too; I’ve spotted an F430, Aston Martin Vantage, Porsche 911 Turbo (black on black), Bentleys, Jags and so on. There’s a few Japanese modified car lovers in the building too.

Interestingly, when the developers decided to convert this old church into boutique apartments, there were many regulations which made the job rather difficult. As it’s heritage listed, they weren’t able to modify too much of the structure, and they also had strict weight limitations to abide by. That’s why the stairs and loft support beams are made from wood.

Everyone seems to want a loft these days. Portico’s offer enormous ceilings (nearly six metres by my guess). Floor to ceiling windows really amplify the height too.

Without doubt my favourite room: the bathroom. This f*cker was bigger than the bedroom, with an enormous circular tub, steps and an open shower. Hidden out of view are the laundry and store room, the latter which I crammed absolutely to the brim (as witnessed when Garth tried opening the door and was nearly crushed by my plasma’s box).

Here’s where I spend the majority of time, the lounge. I love my couch; it’s absolutely enormous and swallows you up. Behind the couch is my desk, which means I can be the ultimate bum and watch TV and be online at the same time.

Since I like cooking, I must say that the kitchen sucks. It’s too small, and the low slung cabinets are at eye level, meaning you have to duck under them when chopping something up. Glass splashback’s cool though.

Left: the view from my couch. Right: the glass double-doors that lead to the bathroom.

While it has been super cool to live at Portico, the rent escalation is just too ridiculous. Regardless, a big shout out to Carlos (the building manager) and Jono (the night concierge) for being such awesome friends!

Here’s the view from the balcony of my new place. Thankfully we managed to get everything in before the storm hit!

Sorry for the lack of posts over the past week, and my excuse is a culmination of things. Primarily it’s because I’ve moved out of the city and back into the burbs, and as you would expect it has been a bit of a nightmare to pack, transport and unpack all of my junk. I had completely underestimated the amount of stuff I have, and thankfully Kula, William and Hons lent me a helping hand.

To compound the problem was Telstra’s monster f*ck up by not connecting my landline at my new place. After a couple of hours on hold, I finally got through to someone who had half a clue and began rectifying the error; the problem though is that they’re backed up and so they won’t be able to do it until mid next week. Add to that the need to get my ISP to reconnect my ADSL 2 and I’m probably looking at another week without fast internet. That sucks.

Harbourlife

Posted on November 23, 2008

Harbourlife swallowed up Saturday and I needed the whole of Sunday for recovery. My head still hurts. This is the most intimate of Fuzzy’s music festivals, which certainly makes it a lot more enjoyable. There are only two small stages, and I’d put the capacity at around the 5000 mark.

Weather started off really nice. A lot of boats full of revellers always gather around too.

When it comes to perfect venues, I don’t think you could beat this, dancing right next to Sydney Harbour overlooking the Opera House and Harbour Bridge.

Blue skies soon disappeared though.

Dark ominous clouds rolled in but luckily there wasn’t any rain. The wind was ridiculously strong though, and the temperature dropped real quick. I can’t remember how many times we were offered money for our jackets and hoodies. There was nowhere to escape the cold really, and it wasn’t surprising that a lot of the crowd bailed early.

Dancing: an enjoyable form of exercise! The dancefloor was super sticky though.

Felix da Housecat was so-so. In fact most of the performers didn’t seem up to par. Don’t get me wrong, Felix did drop some fat tracks, but there was some horrific mixing and the whole set didn’t link up too well. He also grabbed the mic to ramble on about how he hadn’t slept for two days, which sent waves of screeching, ear piercing feedback into the crowd. Not nice.

The hunt is over

Posted on November 20, 2008

After weeks and weeks of driving all over Sydney, pushing my way into overcrowded inspections and filling out countless application forms, I’ve finally found a new place to move to. I really don’t want to move out of my current apartment as it’s pretty awesome, but now is the time to move somewhere cheaper so I can save up to buy a house. At least my new place has a balcony, and doesn’t resemble a shoe box like my current apartment does. Packing though, is something I’m dreading big time. I have so much junk it’s not funny.

A weekend I won’t remember

Posted on November 20, 2008

Haven’t been out for a while. In fact, the only things on my social calendar for the past few months was eating out or playing poker. This weekend I have Harbourlife on (was one of the lucky ones to get tix as it sold out in six minutes or something), probably the only music festival I’ve yet to go to in Sydney. Last year I had tickets too, but I had to sell them due to a date clash with the D1GP All-Star World Championships. Unfortunately the weather doesn’t look like it’ll hold up. Regardless, I’ll be there with Papz, which can only mean one thing: a super trashed weekend which neither of us will probably remember. Dunno what it is, but we’re a bad influence on each other. Along with a case of beer, a case of Smirnoff Blacks and this bottle of baller Tanqueray No. Ten gin (47.3% alcohol), it’s going to be one messy, messy weekend. Can’t wait.

The irony

Posted on November 20, 2008

Being part of an editorial team for a magazine has its bonuses. Being the editor of one can be even better, especially if you consider the various packages that find their way onto your desk week in, week out. From pens wearing a company’s logo to a car-shaped computer mouse to DVDs. Most of the stuff I pass on to the rest of the guys at work, the remainder tends to just gather dust on my shelf or in a box beneath my desk. Ironically the moment I sold my Xbox 360 (I honestly think the PS3 is ten times better) I’ve been receiving dozens of games that are, you guessed it, for Xbox. Making things even worse is that these are actual copies (from friends at various companies) rather than the editorial copies we receive to review (which tend to come in a CD case sans booklet and can not be on-sold). I must make a point of asking for PC or PS3 from now on!

Simply… water.

Posted on November 20, 2008

When I was a kid, I hated drinking water. Now I can’t get enough of the stuff. Indeed there’s been such a resurgence in water’s popularity that there are now dozens of ‘designer’ brands, with bottles of water fetching in the hundreds of dollars. I’m not that crazy, but I can certainly appreciate the blank taste of Evian (compared to the sweetness of tap), or a nice bottle of San Pellegrino. I’ve been buying slabs of the latter for the past couple of years now. Hold the lemon slice too thanks.

Leet

Posted on November 18, 2008

William and I were bored last night and so what do we do? Dig up Counter Strike Source from some dusty back corner of our hard drives. Although the keys come back naturally (just like riding a bike), it took a few games to get our rhythm back. Here’s Willio (William) with an AWP kill and Speedracr (moi) with a knife to level up.

Home brewed

Posted on November 17, 2008

Without doubt you can tell that I heart food. And I also don’t mind cooking either. Heck, although I really shouldn’t admit this, I sometimes bake as well (oh the shame). Although I’ve been a bit lazy recently, there comes a point when you’re sick of eating out. As I haven’t lived with the folks for over five years, a home cooked meal can be f*cking satisfying. The above is a simple silken tofu drowned with a mild soy base and topped with coriander and fried onion. Takes about, oh, two minutes to make.

Veggies. Hated ‘em when I was kid, love them now. The tofu and this plate of bok choy (which is flashed in a wok with garlic) cost A$1.60 all up. Now that’s a bargain.

Also made a sandwich for lunch. Muddled avocado with a splash of lemon, slice of cheddar, fresh lettuce and a chicken fillet (thigh). The bread’s Noble Rise’s ‘Olive Oil & Sea Salt’ sliced white. Mmmm. Ate two back to back. Maybe I should make another…

Drifting

Posted on November 15, 2008

Exactly one year ago I was in LA, preparing our drift car at Kure Motorsport for the D1GP All-Star World Championship. That weekend would prove to be one of the highlights of my career, and it was the perfect finish to what was a dream debut in drifting. We had just finished third in the Drift Australia championship, while also being the first team to score maximum points in a round (top qualifier and round win) and the first team to win back to back victories. Then at the D1GP we knocked out the most successful D1GP driver at the time - Youichi Imamura - in the Top Secret RB26-powered Fairlady Z. It was a huge scalp to claim. It ruffled a few feathers too, as we were the nobody team backed by Bridgestone Australia while Top Secret were backed by Bridgestone HQ.

It’s a bid sad that we’re not at the Red Bull Drifting World Championship which is on this weekend. Having tasted competition at an international level, everything else seems a bit… bland. Although the D1GP event was a nightmare in terms of the team’s workload (we broke rocker arms, split runners on the plenum, smashed the differential and broke the gearbox), I don’t think I’ll ever forget the experience.

On the topic of drifting, I dug out the above photo which was taken in late January 2007, just two weeks before our inaugural race. I recall that night vividly: it was about 3AM at Hypertune’s workshop in Taren Point, and I remember thinking that there was no way in hell I was going to be able to get the car completed. While I’ve played around with many a car, I had never undertaken management of a project that required a complete teardown and an all-new ground-up reassembly. While it seems easy, in reality it is a hair-pulling, nail-biting experience, made worse by the fact we only had three months to get it done. It’s the little things that catch you out, like what fitting you’ll use on the transmission for the cooler. Or the run-on effects you didn’t think about, like where’ll you’ll mount reservoirs and piping now that you’ve tubbed the f*ck out of the front. Will it actually start? Is the wiring right? Are your motion ratio calculations correct? Is that one-off propshaft strong enough?

When I sat in it to start her up for the first time, I remember being so paranoid of it bursting into flames (at the time there was no glass in the car, no bonnet and no boot-lid, so I felt rather exposed) that I made sure that someone was ready with a fire extinguisher just in case. Mark video’d the moment, and you can see the huge grin on my face when it barked into life. I’ll try to find it and post it up.

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