I bought this ‘Dr Ion’ bag a few years ago from the famed online seller of all things Japanese (including porn and sex toys, aw yeah), Jlist (prude-friendly version: Jbox).

I initially bought it to use as a little bag I could carry a sketchbook and some pens in, but I never really made the most of it and it’s spent the last couple of years sitting in my garage, collecting dust. Which, incidentally, is why most of this photo is greyscale – it needs a clean, in a big way!

I realised this morning that it would probably make a pretty neat little bag to carry my new camera around in, and it really is a perfect fit. Hoorah.

I’d never heard of the brand before, and haven’t seen many others using any of their products, but it’s a reasonably well-made bag. Sadly, this particularly one doesn’t appear to be available anymore. Sorry, folks!

Last night after work, I caught up with ‘Piro’, an old online>offline friend that I’ve known for about 11 years now – and in fact, it occurs to me just now that, along with RetroSuper, that might be one of my oldest online friendships. Crazy world.

Hailing from Sydney, Piro was in Melbourne this past week for the UX Australia conference. We managed to squeeze in a drink and some eats last night, which was great because I hadn’t seen her in about four years, maybe more… time has some mighty wings, that’s for sure.

We met up at Gin Palace where the organisers of the conference had thrown an open-bar for the attendees (not I, sadly!), but thanks to Piro’s grumbling tummy and a too-loud-to-catch-up atmosphere, we took off for some eats.

A new acquaintance of Piro’s led us to a place just off Tattersall’s lane, allegedly known for its badass dumplings. But, upon seeing the line, our stomachs decided we were heading elsewhere!

So, back out onto Bourke Street, we marched up to Ito, a fairly decent Japanese restaurant. Oddly, despite the fare being of a pretty decent standard, the highlight of my visit had to be the Dyson hand dryers in the bathrooms.

I thought the damn thing was going to saw my hand right off with air alone. Phenomenal.

After dinner, we headed to Lonsdale Street with plans to grab some sweets from one of the Greek pastry stores, but decided to head over to Brunetti in Carlton for a hot chocolate and some macaroons instead.

It was great to catch up with Piro, it’d been far too long. Must make sure the gap’s not quite so big, next time.

Alright, so I might not have put too much thought into that title (and I may have come off sounding a little Adelaidian in the process), but ladies, you ought to get into Melbourne’s Little Salon and check out their classy wares. Not simply because my lady manages the two stores, but because you’re honestly going to find some genuinely cool items there.

Click through to catch a few shots I snapped off during a surprise attack visit this afternoon, and a few shots from a fashion book launch we ended up dropping in on, courtesy of Friedy’s good friend ‘Min’ being the book’s editor.

There’s some really, really nice things here, which is largely thanks to Friedy as she does most (all?) of the shopping for the stores on behalf of the owners.

These little toothpick knitting needles are great. Apparently the designer has her grandma knit the woolen bits, and then puts the rest together herself. Nana sweatshop!

A quick shot of myself to satisfy my irrational sense of narcissism… Friedy was in the next shot, but she probably wouldn’t be happy if I were to post it up. So you get just me instead, hoorah.

Then off to the launch of a fashion book for which Friedy’s friend Min (I think her real name is Melinda?) was the editor – and her sister was the designer. What a team!

And I shall leave you with a shot of this really nice and European looking deli.

I’m out too often, lately. Well, not necessarily too often, but being out as often as I have lately has meant that the nice vegies and other eats I buy for a week tends to go unused.

That means that come the Monday week after the weekend I bought it all, I’ve got a fridge and pantry full of items on their last legs.

This afternoon I cooked up some burgers that weren’t going to last much longer (I should have froze them, I know), and tonight I ended up cooking up a huge wok full of vegies – with tofu and falafel, just for kicks – before they ended up in the bin.

I didn’t end up using the asparagus; I do like it, but it would have been too powerful a taste in this concoction, I think. The sweet potato and onion were both fine, but I figured I’d throw those in anyway.

I also kept a section of sweet potato to fry up some delicious chips, inspired by the ones Friedy cooked on the weekend while we prepared our mushroom pizzas.

Describing these little suckers as tasty would be a major understatement… wait, I already called ‘em delicious. Very good, move on.

Chopped up and good to go. Onion, field and flat mushrooms, falafel, tofu, zucchini, Lebanese cucumber, vine and mini roma tomatoes. I fried up the tofu and falafel with some sweet paprika, and chucked the whole lot into the wok afterwards.

I forgot to take any more shots, but here’s the final product.

There’s enough here to last me the rest of the week. Friedy laughs about me always eating the same thing, but I usually mix it up a little each week; sometimes tofu, sometimes chicken, and often a different variety of veggies and spices.

Different sauces find their way into the wraps as well, so by the time I’m done, there’s usually a different taste each time.

Right on.

On the sunniest day my fair city has seen in more than a few weeks, I ventured out to the Royal Melbourne Showgrounds with fellow nerd Liam Marcon for Manifest 2010, which is probably Australia’s premier anime convention (or ‘festival’, if you will).

It was an odd experience, to say the least. While I consider myself an anime fan, it’s been obvious to me for a long time that there’s actually very little anime that I really enjoy.

In fact, if I had to pull a percentage out of my back pocket, I’d say something like 96.7 percent of all anime released in the past 10 years has bored the living lunch right out of me.

Take away the likes of Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Samurai Champloo (itself a mere shadow of Cowboy Bebop) and a few Ghibli films, and I’m hard-pressed to say there’s anything else that has really captured my attention.

It’s almost depressing; I’ve yet to be pointed to a new series for which the primary and secondary characters and plot points can’t be checked off on a frighteningly formulaic checklist. And, frankly, I’m pretty easy to please – so this is really saying something, I think.

Also, here’s an awesome(ly hilarious) video.

More photos below.

Anyway, Manifest. As always, the event is largely one massive cosplay geekout, and while it’s not my scene (although I could probably be convinced to dress as Patlabor’s Captain Goto if I thought any of the mostly-teenage participants would even recognise the outfit), I have to give credit to the kids for the amount of effort and dedication that goes into their costumes.

Still, it’s clear this is absolutely not my scene. It’s probably just an age thing, or the simple fact that I’m not as obsessed with anime as most of the event’s attendees obviously are.

Liam gets his head crushed in the mechanical grip of a very manly Sigourney Weaver.

There were some amusing sights and moments, but in the end, I couldn’t help but feel like I’d wasted a beautiful day.

Yesterday morning, after completing our civic duty in this year’s national election, the good lady Friedy and I headed to Tom Phat for breakfast.

Now, I don’t live in Brunswick, but my impression of Sydney Road is based largely on driving through (as quickly as possible), and one or two stops at specific stores.

To describe the strip as a dump might be a stretch, but I’m not sure I’d consider it as charming as the locals – who’d all probably prefer to live closer to Carlton or Fitzroy – might like to think.

For that reason, Tom Phat can probably be considered something of a diamond in the rough – depending on who you ask.

Nb. apologies for the rubbish photos; this was right before we went and got my new camera, so these shots were taken with my phone.

We did our homework before heading in, and found that most users at eatability found the service to be terrible, but the food to be great.

Of course, that can be a common theme with most restaurants (they know they’re good, they know you’re going to eat there, so why go to lengths to be nice as well?), so we didn’t let that deter us.

Thankfully, our experience was better than expected. The guy that seated us was a pleasant lad, and the lady that waited on us was equally cheerful. Our orders were taken quickly (likely in anticipation of the coming rush), our coffee arrived quickly and the meals followed not too soon, and far from slow. And at the same time! Perfect.

We kicked things off with the South African fruit toast, with walnuts (if I recall correctly). This was good, although I found it a bit stiff and difficult to chew – this is largely my fault; I’m missing a molar on either side of my top row of teeth (I swear I’ll get implants eventually, leave me alone!)

We had the toast as an entree of sorts, and our meals arrived about ten minutes later – a perfect gap.

Friedy ordered the roti omelette, which was a new concept for me. The roti flavour we all know and love was clearly there, but there was a taste of noodles as well; probably helped by the egg.

An abundance of bacon laid just beneath the top level of roti, egg and sauce, which I dutifully helped the not-huge-on-meat Friedy work her way through.

I had the claypot baked eggs, and that was just something else. It came with a side of thick toast (sourdough I think) that was probably a tiny, tiny bit on the burnt side (though the centres were fine), but it complemented the dish well and gave me something to chew on.

The dish itself was full of flavour, almost overwhelmingly so, and carried a spiciness as well. I’m a complete wuss when it comes to hot and spicy foods, but I soldiered through and it wasn’t quite strong enough to put me over. I did break a sweat, though, wow.

Near the end, it occurred to me that the dish was a lot like eating a bowl of spaghetti bolognese – without the spaghetti. It was rich in tomato flavours, and the (very nice) beef mince mixed in only strengthened that bolognese feel. None of this is a bad thing, though, and really it’s only made me consider the low-carb virtues of having my next serve of spaghetti bolognese without the pasta!

Lastly, the coffee was excellent. We only had a skinny latte each, but it was simply spot-on. Easy to drink, not too powerful in its flavour. We’d heard that Tom Phat is known for doing good coffee, and if that’s true, it seems like a well-earned rep.

Perhaps the oddest thing about the experience – if there even needs to be an ‘odd’ part – is that both meals felt more like lunch or dinner than breakfast, but it never felt wrong. Maybe it was the addition of toast…

RESULT! Recommended.

Tom Phat, 184 Sydney Road, Brunswick. Look hard, because they don’t have much signage.

In a bid to play with my new toy some more, I jumped in the car and went for a drive to my nearest suburb still likely to have places open and lit at 9pm – Box Hill.

By the time I got there, I was feeling a bit peckish – my dinner plans were scrapped earlier in the night – and then I remembered that a friend of mine is super keen on a particular burger joint in Box Hill; one of the few non-Asian stores in Box Hill actually, haha.

This friend reckons these burgers qualify for that classic ‘unknown, unassuming burger joint that makes the best burgers ever, and most people don’t even know it exists’ status that some lucky little well-operated places manage to attain.

Jake, it was a good burger dude, but it was far from magical. You need to get out more!

A couple more shots after the jump.

Some poor kid seems to have lost her Dora-covered Croc. Still, from all the bad juju the Crocs brand seems to carry among the hip social elite (I’m lookin’ at you, Friedy), the kid’s probably better off now.

Well, hundredhandslap is back. I recently moved all of my regular blog posts from HHS to my new blog, doshio.com. When my last relationship ended, so did my regular access to Fiona’s awesome Canon 450D (which I really did hog too much of, anyway). So, without that badass camera, I figured I’d drop the photoblogging for a while.

Today, though, I went out and picked up a Panasonic GF1.

Let me say, first off, that I don’t know much about photography, either technically or artistically (other than the old adage of ‘just go with what feels right’).

But, all the same, the GF1 doesn’t seem to mind that I’m a total amateur.

The quality of shots this thing takes, without touching any settings… it’s like having the auto-blip in the Nissan 370Z’s manual transmission. I don’t need to heal-toe, this thing does it all for me.

The GF1 also shoots 720p HD video, and I made a quick (and damn boring) test video. Jump through to the rest of this post and scroll to the bottom.

To put it simply, it’s like a very expensive version of Viagra (do not consume, contact doctor if taken), ’cause I’ve had a boner since I got it.

So, HHS is back as my photoblog. Stay tuned. Click through for a few more at-home shots. They’re pretty boring, but I’ll get out soon to shoot something a little more interesting (if only to me).

There’s nothing special about these shots, either. I’ve selected no settings, and done no post-production work. These are taken on the standard F1.7 setting, with the 20mm Leica lens (manufactured by Panasonic).

The above shot was actually taken in pretty low light.

Until next time…