Home made katsudon, with deep fried pork loin, onions, leeks in mirin and soy sauce topped with an egg. It tastes better than it looks.

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The odd bits over the week that passed. Braved the cold with my friend on Friday morning to wait outside an Optus shop so that he could get his iPhone. That was 445am at around 8 or 9 degrees but with plenty of wind. Heh, I didn’t get one as I’m on the only carrier in Australia that does not carry the iPhone (yet). We were the first ones there and at 5am, the next lot of people came to queue up, surprised that there were people crazier than them. More people started trickling in and by 630am, there was a line of 10 odd people. The shop opened at 7am and my friend went in to get his phone. Getting the phone was easy, but the Optus backend was broken so my friend didn’t get his phone working until noon the next day.

It’s a cool phone with plenty of practical application. Devices these days come with function overload, but don’t present it in a user friendly fashion. Nokia phones used to be easy to use, but have since added more layers of complexity, that I find it troublesome to use my current model for basic tasks.

Will patiently wait for the iPhone on my carrier at a very much discounted rate on a contract plan. Heh, sometimes, one does crazy things just for the experience.

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Visited friends I haven’t seen in a few years. Heh, watched their wedding video and saw photos (they recently married during to my trip back from KL to Melbourne). It’s sort of scary, the whole ceremony involved in a wedding. I know it’s traditional and it’s a big event, regardless of your culture or background, but just the zounds of people and the whole rowdy affair makes it intimidating. Heh, personally not fond of big crowds, would just like to blend in and be ignored.

Strangely I don’t function well around people I’m not familiar with. It’s sort of a self defense mechanism I’ve built into myself growing up. If you don’t stand out, you don’t get into trouble. Not sure why I thought like that before. It’s just hard to be oneself in front of people you don’t really know, especially on the first meeting (which at times, is the only chance you get). Heh, never had any reason to change that before, can’t think of much reason to change that now either. Probably won’t elaborate on that today. Time to sleep anyway. Heh.

Favourite Japanese restaurant in the city, Sushi Ten, somewhere in an arcade along Flinder’s Lane, serving sushi/sashimi and various donburi dishes.

The above is a katsudon, pork crumbed in panko and stewed slightly in a soy based sauce. Quite yum.

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Watched Prince Caspian (part of the Chronicles of Narnia) today. It was a 10am show and the cousins gathered to watch it partially because they wanted to and partially because my other cousin from New Zealand was having his last day in Melbourne. Heh, I doubt they’d wake up this early to watch a show for any other reason. It was a pretty entertaining movie, slightly darker in tone compared to the first one, but overall still catering well for kids. I’d probably admit that I’m a big kid.

My cousin’s on his way back to Christchurch now, so the usual scheduling of daily activities will resume. Will start sending out those job applications again, and I have a better idea on what I’d like to do. It’s a little slow I guess, but it’s good to have savings and living off that interest for the moment. No new big expense items lately so looking forward to working again so I can buy a toy/gadget or two to play with.

Sort of lost track of what I should be doing, with all the visitors this past month. Another of Vyanne’s friends will be over at the end of the month. Would like to keep practicing at my photography. I’ve been too comfortable with food shots and I’d like to expand my skillset a little. Previously I only took plants (they look pretty anyhow you take it anyways) and then moved on to food. Used my cousin for quick experiment, but find my understanding of the SB-800 flash unit a little dull, so I was fumbling with it more than I could use it for proper lighting. I understand its usage conceptually but have yet to put it to practice.

Trying to setup myself with a stock photo agency. Send in photos, and hope that people will download them. It’s side income with minimal work, so I’d like to give that a go. My photo book for the year is a little behind schedule, so hopefully that gets patched up in the next few days.

Been eating too much lately due to the in flux of visitors. Hitting the gym soon.