Late last year a pair of sunglasses were meant to be sent to me from Hot Buttered Surfboards & Surfwear in Australia. I won some about a year or so previous for writing what they judged as the 'post of the month' on their international forums. Those ones I didn't get to choose and was sent a pair of silver 'aliens', which although pretty groovy, did not look right on me.

Late last year I found some bugs with their new forum and emailed the guy who wrote the script and the website (contracted to HB). To cut a long story short, I effectively ended up beta testing it until it worked correctly, and Blake Foss who was the programmer mentioned it to Terry Fitzgerald, owner of the HB franchise (yeah, the T.F. - legendary surfer etc). Terry was apparently kinda stoked and said for me to pick out a pair of sunnies from their range and they would send them over to me. Sweet! Somehow the email went west and I never received the sunnies. After a few more emails back and forth more recently, I now have in my possession a brand new pair on HB 'species' sunnies!

This is the style. The ones I got (by request) are black frames with the blue mirror-type lens (like in the inset). Really lightweight, very comfortable (no marks on the sides of the nose after wearing them for a while either) and styling big time imho. They almost feel custom made to be honest, they're that good, and just in time for summer too! Great timing as my old Dirty Dog 'Weapon' sunnies were on their last legs as well, so to speak. Yeah, so I'm stoked about that. Big thanks to TF & Liv at HB and to Blake. Cheers guys.

Still waiting for the surf videos I won from surf.co.nz, although they said it would take a few weeks at least. Maybe I should enter these competitions more often ..I seem to win a lot (relativity check: the surf.co.nz one is the only comp of any sort I've entered this year). That's all for now, just sweating it out in the heat here.