Only when we moved into our new house did I discover that counter stools existed. It might sound silly, but I just thought everyone used bar stools for their kitchen counters. I found out that if you want something higher than a chair, but lower than a bar stool, counter stools were perfect. Yeah… it does seem a little silly now.

Unfortunately after weeks of wandering around furniture stores we didn’t find many counter stools (just mostly bar stools), and the ones we did find were all far too expensive for a seat that would only occasionally be sat upon. So what to do, other than turn to trusty old eBay? Funnily enough a quick search found about five sellers all offering EXACTLY THE SAME counter stools we’d seen in the shops, but at around half price! I swear they must all come from the same factory. Even with the (excessive) shipping included for $50, it came to $180 in total for four counter stools delivered. Bargain.

The movie Rounders is widely considered as the catalyst for the worldwide popularity of poker. Many poker players regard it as the singular spark that ignited their passion in the game. It’s faithfulness to the true essence of poker has made it a central icon in the poker culture. There is no other movie more frequently quoted around a poker table.

In the movie the main protagonist, Mike, plays at an underground illegal poker room run by Teddy KGB. For the poker chips Miramax enlisted the help of chip manufacturer PCOL, with the condition that they never replicate the chips for commercial sale. With the Rounders garnering such widespread popularity, PCOL have been asked many times to create replica or tribute chips. Every time, they have honoured their original agreement with Miramax and politely refused.

Below are some screen captures from the movie:

Recently I was lucky enough to make contact with a group of people who were able to create a design that was based on the original Teddy KGB chip, but had enough differences to allow them to be produced by PCOL. The chips are made of exactly the same materials and colours, but intentionally differ by using the horse head mould (instead of roman), a colour bear (instead of grey), and grey denominations (instead of red). It’s the closest any one has got to the original chips from the movie, and I’m stoked to be one of only a handful of people in the world to own a set.

For all those of you who are interested in poker chips, here’s four brief pieces of advice.

• Official casino weight is not 11.5 grams as eBay would have you believe. Casino poker chips are actually vary from 8 to 10 grams depending on the manufacturer and casino.

• There’s no such thing as composite clay. Composite clay is just plastic, not clay. The only mainstream companies making casino-quality plastic chips are Bud Jones and Matsui.

• You can gauge the quality of chips by how high you can stack them. Good quality chips should be able to create stacks at least 50 high, and the stack shouldn’t spin or wobble excessively.

• It helps you and your players if the denominations are consistent with the commonly used and widely accepted chip colours:

$0.25 – pink
$1 – blue or white
$5 – red
$25 – green
$100 – black
$500 – purple
$1,000 – yellow

PS: For those not familiar with poker terminology, a “rounder” is a semi-pro or professional player who makes a living or a significant amount of their income from playing poker.

Elaine and I had some friends around on Saturday for an Australia Day housewarming BBQ. I’m so grateful that so many of our close friends could make it. Unfortunately I don’t really have any photos because I was too busy running around… that’s the problem when YOU’RE meant to be the photo person! Anyway, I did manage to get some shots of Elaine’s wonderful cooking. She baked and prepared over ten dishes of finger food and snacks. That’s an awesome effort in my books. And in case you’re wondering, yes I did help out a bit.

By some happy coincidence, a poker game broke out later in the night. Guess who wasn’t such a gracious host?

On Sunday my two and a half month old nephew was christened at St Mary’s. Christian was such a little trooper during the whole event despite being awake the whole morning. He did crash however during the afternoon tea at Claudie’s parents’ house.

St Mary’s

Christian’s great grandmother

Christian’s christening cake

Thank you gifts for all the guests

With so much going on post-Christmas I almost forgot to post these photos from the Lorne trip.

Erskine Falls just outside of Lorne.

Another photo of Erskine Falls.

And yet another photo of Erskine Falls… because you know everyone loves photos of falls.

We visited the Qdos art gallery. Unfortunately it was closed, but we did manage to explore the extensive collection of outdoor sculptures.

A bronze Tasmanian Devil.

I’ve included this to show the effect of different lenses and perspectives. The first photo of the Tassie Devil was taken with my 10-22mm lens at 10mm, while the photo immediately above was taken with a 90mm prime lens.

Nice. I like the symmetry.

Some awesome textural contrast.

We managed a quick hike out to Teddy’s Lookout.

This is what the Great Ocean Road is all about.

An innocent butterfly receiving some macro lens lovin’.

The newly renovated Lorne Pier.

A father taking his two sons fishing.

We ate something like 3 out of 4 dinners at the same fish’n'chips shop.

The view of the Lorne (Lawn) Bowls Club from our room.

A view of the recreational area and the other buildings that made up the Mantra Erskine Beach Resort.