Twenty Fucking Sixteen

Hello 2016, you sure did creep up on me quite quickly. Time flew for me in 2015 but it was a year full of great ups and some very major lows, probably one of the lowest points of my life. But overall it was a great year as I was able to spend it with great company, you all know who you are. 

Looking back not much happened as I actually scored a full time job aka started my career as a lab technician. Very happy with the position and the people I work with are great. I couldn't have asked for a better role. So work wise, I managed to tick that off the list for 2015's New Year's resolution. Work wise for 2016 would be to progress even further and continue learning.

Kendo - it was non-existent. I still keep tabs on what the club is up to but the only time I picked up my bogu and shinai was to move them out of my room. I do miss it but with starting my new job I just didn't have time for it in 2015. Maybe that'll change in 2016 and I attend at least one training session.

Leading onto to my fitness levels, which is a new one for you 2016 as I am very unfit. I've put on a bit of weight and lost nearly all of my body strength and struggle to do 3 pull ups. So I'll be trying to get back in shape so I don't die at that one kendo training I'm aiming for haha.

Car wise, Kim and I now own 4 cars between us. Like previous years, my CRX did not get boosted but it's getting there. Mark my words, it will get boosted this year! Kim's crx will try and get a B18c dropped in and our new car, the Chaser, will get sideways a lot more this year. Then that will be the end of that! (Until I want more power in either of the cars).

Personal projects are doing pretty well, Karts and Kebabs was a great success in 2015 with a full field of 20 racers. I'm aiming to further improve it this year and hoping it will continue to grow. I hardly wrote any articles or anything remotely close to one for a magazine project I wanted to start but that has been put on hold for the biggest personal project I'm going to undertake. Probably because it's a team project with my closest friends and it's a passion project. Watch this space as if things go to plan, we'll be living the dream after 12-18 months of hard work.

Overall 2015 was a good year, I can only hope 2016 will be just as good and I'm looking forward to ticking more things off the list this time next year.

Toodaloo motherfuckers.

Melbourne 2015 - #yezmelb15

Earlier last month we all jumped on one of the first flights Saturday morning to head to Melbourne for the Labour Day long weekend. As with any trip, the days leading up to the departure date were spent planning what we would get up too and day dream of how much mischief we would get up to. We had it all planned out: go karts, ramen, film a porno in our hotel room, darts, ramen and visit the casino to enjoy throwing away money.


Obviously the plan I was most excited about was unsurprisingly, filming a porno in our hotel room. We stayed at Somerset on Elizabeth and we've stayed there before so we knew it would make the perfect backdrop for our first step into the porn adult film industry. First order of business (or first business of order as Kim would say): the title. We all know the title would make or break the whole film and we decided on "Exploring Melbourne's Alleys". The story of a Sydneysider's trip to Melbourne, meeting a girl named Alley in one of Melbourne's famous/hipster alley ways. Then it was back to the hotel room for the 2nd and 3rd act of the film, where I would fulfil my dream of being a director. Kim would be my assistant, leaving either Hieuy or Mowad (or both) to fill the role of the protagonist then we would have to find someone to fill the female (pun may or may not be intended) role for it to all come together.


Instead when we landed things didn't go to plan as we had hope. Fortunately no issues with airport security even though Kim has a history of getting pulled up every time. The troubles started at Europcar when we went to pick up our rental car for the weekend. Mowad's licence was due to expire on the final day of rental and Dean, the shiny forehead assistant, made shit difficult and refused to allow Mowad to rent the car. Instead I had to put it under my name and I was the designated driver for the trip, fucking great. We then met up with our honorary Yez member, Ying, for lunch at one of many hipster cafes in Melbourne. Within seconds of looking over the menu, the majority of us were just confused with the fancy names given to each dish but Mowad, the chosen one, was not impressed when he miserably said:

"This annoys me"

We all had a quick look at the menu and couldn't figure out what could be annoying Mowad so much he had to explicitly state it. After everyone else exchanged confused looks at each other, Mowad looks up and explains that the orientation of the double-sided menu was 'incorrect' according to conventional printing standards of Australia. We then all paused, after a moment of silence as we processed the revelation that Mowad has just dropped on us, we all just bursted out laughing. Less than an hour of arriving in Melbourne, Mowad was all ready to rage quit and claim his 72 virgins. It wasn't a good start to the trip for Mowad but hopefully things could only get better from here.




Although Mowad wasn't having too much luck I didn't lose hope and was still trying to tick everything off our 'To-Do List' for the trip. I stayed positive and later that day we hit up 2 kart tracks and ate ramen for dinner. Just like that 2 things got ticked off the list and we even dropped by Sandown Raceway for Skyline Nationals. The next day we hit up more karting tracks, ate even more ramen, played darts and threw money away at the casino. We were on a roll, this trip was turning around and I'm pretty sure Mowad was enjoying himself finally.


And before you know it, it was Monday morning, we were all sitting at yum cha and slowly getting ready to leave the wonderful city of Melbourne where the people are friendlier, the highways were more efficient, that kart places were better and the vibe was just so chilled. Definitely a place I'd love to move to one day if I get the chance. Oh by the way, we never got around to filming 'Exploring Melbourne's Alleys' as we got too caught up go karting, eating ramen and arguing over who would have to drive. I guess that'll be something we'll have to work on for our next trip.

#yezjapan14 - Buta-man, Egg Tarts and Karts

I was going to sit down and write a nice post about my most recent (1 year ago) trip to Japan and get all nostalgic and shit but I thought that might be a bit boring. Instead you'll just get me mainly posting up photos that I pulled off my iPhone after the trip.

Just like everything I do, I do it with good intentions and initially I had intended to have a mad blog post up, filled with photos and videos right when I got back so I could share it with everyone. But just like everything else I do, I leave it up to 'Future-Steven' to worry about and shit never gets done. Future-Steven is a bit shit like that but I'm sure he has good intentions. So now, me, Present-Steven, has to do it all.

If I were to sum up the trip in a few words it would be "A-fucking-mazing". It was my third (or fourth?) time back to Japan. I forget now but it's something along those lines and it was so much fun. Usually if you want to test friendships, the best thing to do is travel together and luckily for everyone, we didn't end up killing each other. We did come close though, at one point in the trip, Dave dropped a bomb at the Izakaya and we all nearly passed out then Hieuy tried breaking the land speed record with a Nissan Cube on the wangan on the way to Twin Ring Motegi or the other time when Hieu nearly stabbed us all after we tickled him in the elevator at the station. Now that I think about it, I think Hieu was trying to kill all of us during this trip. Does that mean we failed the friendship test or did he?

Anyway, I could sit here and tell you endless stories of the trip but I'll leave that for Future-Steven to do. In the mean time just chill to some of my favourite photos from the trip.














































Full album here.

Brian Farley Memorial - Eastern Creek Karts

It's a weekend full of racing. GT cars will be circling Bathurst for the 12 Hour endurance race, the V8 Supercars have their Supertest on at Sydney Motorsport Park and just around the corner at Eastern Creek International Karting Raceway, karters of all ages gather for the Brian Farley Memorial, an event held by Karting New South Wales. Although it's a relatively smaller event, the competition is just as fierce as racers of all ages return from their holiday break to compete in the opening event of the year. You can read up more about the event over at Karting NSW's website.

I was fortunate enough to have an early start today, which meant an early finish so I was able to take out my camera for a bit of practice while the karters got on with their practice sessions. Unfortunately I don't follow the race series closely enough to know who's who but I did have a great time watching these guys put down lap after lap. I can't wait to catch the race this Sunday!

Melbourne 2015

On an early Saturday morning our alarms went off and all we wanted to do was stay in bed but we couldn't. We had a flight to catch so we could spend the next few days in Melbourne for our seven year anniversary.

We arrived at the airport and went through the standard checkpoints for our flights without a hitch. An hour or so later and a pretty rough landing we were in Mexico! I mean Melbourne. It's been 4 years since we last visited and it was such a refreshing getaway.

I instantly fell in love with the place; the people, the shops, the atmosphere. It was just all so chilled and laid back, the complete opposite to Sydney. Honestly, I think Melbourne is the Osaka of Australia. I now am thinking of moving to Melbourne, we'll just have to wait and see if I can score a job down there and I think that's all it will take for me to make the move. But that's something Future-Steven can worry about.

For now just enjoy some of the photos I took when I was down there courtesy of my iPhone 4S.