The Grax Domain

12 Aug 2008 Reporting From The Temporary House

1 Aug 2008 Moving to a temporary place

You never really comprehend how much crap you have in your home until you move out of it. That's something I've come to terms with now that I've moved into my temporary home.

I've been evicted out of my previous home I'm renting. In fact all my housemates have been evicted. The reason for this is because my landlord and lady wants to tart up the property for renting, only this time they want to live in it too. Well it would be silly to try and sell it now, what with the falling house prices and everything.

I needed a new place to stay and I do have friends that I will be staying with. The problem is they won'tbe coming back to Oxford until September for various reasons. So I needed a place for August. After looking at some various house renting websites I found a room that would do. It's a student house off Cowley Road. It's only available for a month because I'm "house covering" for someone that month while they do their thing. In other words Im paying and staying in their room for a month while they move on.

Being a typical student house it's... Small and shitty. But it's only for a month.

So after spending all week slowly packing up all my things and tidying up the place (well it was my housemates mum that did most of the work. We didn't ask her to, it was pure mother instincts!) it was time to move out. After filling a Vauxhall Big Van™ with half my stuff and lugging it all upstairs I realized that not everything was going to fit in my room. And that bungelows are awesome. So I filled the van up with the other half of my crap and drove it to my mums house, which is an hour and a half away.

It was 3:30pm and I'd reached my mums house. It was within a few minutes of arriving that mother panicked me when I told her that I had to return the van by 6:00pm. "Grax you'll never make it!" she wailed and rushed me to call up the van hire company to find out what time the van was due back.

Turns out the van didn't need to be back till the next morning. Everyone's blood pressure returned to normal.

Mum and I sat down to lunch and she did the typical mum thing of making sure I was well fed. "Do you want another roll Grax? Do you want a hot cross bun Grax? A cup of tea? I've made shepherds pie because I wasn't sure if you'd be hungry or not. Are you sure you don't want another roll Grax?"

Just imagine what it would be like if a guy was trying to seduce a woman...

"Would you like a shag? Do you want to give me a hand job? How about if I go down on you? I bought a twelve pack of condoms and a bottle of lube because I wasn't sure if you want to try anal. Are you sure you don't want a shag?"

Oy...

After lunch and unpacking she showed me the extension she and my step dad did to the house. It's quite an amazing job they did. You'd think it was aways a part of the house. This led on to the repeated lecture of me getting a mortgage to buy a house to rent out to other people even though I can't actually afford to do so. And I'd was a bit surprised by their reaction when I told that one of my good friends that I'm moving in with this September just finished university and doesn't have a job yet (partly because I wasn't that bothered about if she had a job or not).

I mean, I know mum and step dad love me and they mean well. It's just that it would be nice if they didn't sound so worryingly disappointed in me.

Don't worry, it's the last stretch of the story.

It came to 5:30 and I drove back home, feeling less than content. In fact the more I thought about it the more angry I got because I still needs to tidy my room, it was gonna be 7:00ish before I got back to Oxford, I thought I could have actually fitted everything in my room, the whole trip was starting to feel like a waste of time (although looking back in hindsight I know this not to be the case). I became more stressed out with the situation.

Getting back to the house I found out the landlord and lady had arrived and were staying the night. Panic packing ensued. Filling bin bags with crap I was keeping I threw them into the car and began work sweeping up the carpet of dust, toenails and bodyhair that was on my wooden floor. Finally I finished with my room, drove to my squatters hole, pile the last of my things into it my room and collapse into bed.

It was around midnight when I finally went to bed and peaceically passed out through exhaustion.

The whole thing was much more stressful than it should have been. Still, I'm here now surrounded by a wall of boxed stuff, hoping to find something for next month so I can do the whole moving again.

Is it September yet?

26 Jul 2008 A response to T2 Risk Taking

Seems like my rant about T2Darlantan's Player Hater entry has caused quite a reaction. The first part has received dozens of comments, ranging from praises to hate-mail to even "WTF is with your eyes??" The second part has only received a handful of comments, which tells me that the majority of people didn't bother to watch part 2 of my rant (which is kinda important to watch as it rounds off my rant). It certainly seem to be case judging by some of the comments that have the vibe of "Don't you tell T2 how to live his life, fuck you!"

And if that wasn't enough T2Darlantan himself made a video response to my video response.



So there are lessons to be learnt from this exercise.

1. Don't split your videos into multiple parts; people will probably stop watching after the first part and ignore the rest
2. If you want lots of comments and subscribers on your YouTube account target a person that has a huge fan base, leave a video response to one of his entries and have him to respond back

11 Jul 2008 Run Twinkletoes Run!

If you can't watch the video above, you can read what I said below:

Hi there. My name's Grax and I have a friend that is going to be attempting something quite spectacuar in a few months time.

On Sunday 12th October 2008 my friend Mitu will be attempting the London Parks Half Marathon. And the reason she's doing this? She's doing it for The Right To Play.

Right To Play is a charity that uses the power of 'play' to improve health, build life skills, and foster peace for children and communities affected by war, poverty and disease. Using their specially designed sports and play programmes, and working in both the humanitarian and development contexts, Right To Play has projects in more than 20 countries in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.

Now this is a sponsored run and Mitu would like everyone to give their donations towards this run. She has set herself a minimum target of £500 and I would like to do my part for her run.

So Mitu, a message for you, I've added my sponsor money to your run. And I hope it goes towards a good cause.

Now Mitu has also created a website for her to keep a video diary of her progress at www.runmiturun.com. Since she's created this website a couple months ago she a grand total of two video entries. Which is a shame really because I personally would like to see more or Mitu and see more of her video entries.

In fact, here's an idea Mitu. You can use it as an incentive to get more people to give more donations. How about this: for every £10 towards the £500 goal you recieve you'll release a new video blog. I mean it doesn't even have to be anything amazing. It can be something crap. Why it could even be something like....

"Hi everyone! Mitu here and I just got out of bed ready for my morning run! Except it's 7:15pm now and I... kinda... missed it.... Still, nevermind! I got my music player, I got my trainers, I got my Ready Brek, and I'm ready for action! It's gonna be awesome!!!"

Well... it's a thought.

If you would like to give your donation towards this sponsored run then you can. By going to www.justgiving.com/mitu. Alternatively if you would like to check out her progress you can take a look at Mitu's website at www.runmiturun.com. And hopefully by the time she sees this message she'll create some more video blogs for our amusement.

Please give as much as you can towards this sponsored run. Every penny can go a long way for the right to play.

Thank you.

7 Jul 2008 Cowley Road Carnival 2008

Last Sunday I attended the Cowley Road Carnival in Oxford. Well it was just down the street from where I live, so I thought I'd see what all the hub-bub was about.

If you can see the video clips below you can watch them on YouTube by clicking here and clicking here.

23 Jun 2008 Executing The Other Idea

Guess what I did to myself yesterday....

21 Jun 2008 Another Grax??

You can watch this entry on YouTube by clicking here.

16 Jun 2008 Red Head

Oh my....

What has Grax done to himself?

I had a friend visit over last weekend. Whilst walking through town she came up with the idea of dying my hair a different colour. I thought to myself "Hell why not. When's the next time I'm gonna do this again?". So I got some red hair dye and got it on my bleach blonde hair.

But don't get too comfortable with this red hair. It's only semi permanent, so it'll come out eventually.

Besides, this is not my other plan I had in mind. That's still left to come.

Till then....

Stay tuned.

23 May 2008 Wii thievery

My Nintendo Wii was stolen from my lounge on Thursday 16th May.

I didn't actually notice it was gone until the following Friday evening when I got back from work. But I didn't think anything of it, I just assumed one of my housemates borrowed it without asking. There was no one in the house to ask so I went about my business and went away to a friends house for the weekend as planned.

It wasn't until I got back that everyone in the house told me that none of them borrowed it. So someone stole it. Bastards.

There were two things that struck me as odd about the crime. Firstly there was no sign of forced entry. No broken windows, no damaged door, nothing. So I'm assuming that someone left the back door open so the burglar could just walk in (we've all gotten back into the habit of double locking again). But that could also imply that the burglar is someone who has already been in the house and knew where the Wii was.

Which leads me to the second odd thing about the crime. The only thing that was stolen was the Wii, two wiimotes, Mario Kart Wii (because in was in the console at the time) and the power cable. They left the composite cable to connect the Wii to the TV, they left the sensor bar and they left the CD case full of games. So what they nabbed is kinda useless (although you can get replacement sensor bars and TV connectors easily enough). But they also left the crappy TV itself, the Playstation 2, the stack of DVDs next to the TV. The burglar left a whole bunch of stuff. Either he was startled and left with what he could, or he's just a shitty robber.

I mean c'mon! If you've gonna robbed a place take everything you can!!

So that Monday I called the police. Not the emergency 999 number because, well, it's not an emergency. They said they would send someone over that evening, or the following evening.

Wednesday morning I get a call from them apologising that no one came on Monday or Tuesday and saying that someone will be coming that Wednesday evening. I don't really blame them for taking a while to get to my case. With all these many crimes and understaffed, overworked police force that are being tied down by paperwork; it's not exactly high on their priority list to see the guy who got most of his Wii stuff knicked.

So a policewoman came round my house on that Wednesday evening, after having the courtesy of asking if now was a good time for her to come over whilst the football final was on TV. Which... I thought was kinda odd of her, but nevermind. I told her what happened, told her a list of what was taken, and gave her some kind of way of identifying the Wii if they came across one (I didn't have the console's serial number written down, but I did have the Wii number written down). She took a statement, she gave me a "sorry you've been burgled" pack (complete with UV pen), mention that she'll pass the details to the burglary team of the force, mentioned something about how it might not be worth sending in the SOCO team for fingerprinting due to many housemates and the lounge was tidied up before I reported the crime to the police, aaaand.... that was about it really. Her demeanour was pleasant but I got the impression the whole thing was a bit "I'm sorry that your Wii was stolen, but there's not a lot that we can actually do about it."

The thing is I doubt I'll see my Wii back again, no matter how much I cross my fingers, and I can't replace it for a while because A) I have no home insurance and B) I have no spare cash to buy a new one. Which is a bit crappy really. Very crappy.

11 May 2008 Pre wedding vlogs

Before my dad's second wedding back in mid April I did some preparation for my outfit. I recorded my activities as a vlog for a laugh and to show it off to people. Who knows, there might be some value to these videos. Enjoy.

Warning: the following vlogs may contain strong language and product placements.

19 Apr 2008 The new look and the wedding: The photos

I mentioned earlier this week that I attended my Dad's second wedding and that I was allowed to post up some photos of the big wedding day. Well after a hefty set of "I'm really bloody busy at work getting the demo stuff ready for demo day" with hints of "I've just got to squeeze in my ass-grooving lessons" and "wait, how does Flickr work again?" I've uploaded some photos for all to see.

It's not all the photos from the wedding day (I didn't get permission from everyone that attending the wedding) but it's the best selection of the happy couple. You can see the second wedding photo set here.

But here's one of the photo's to wet your appetite:


Did I mention how proud I am of my dad? ^_^

15 Apr 2008 The new look and the wedding

So I went to my dad's second wedding last Saturday and it was pretty fantastic.

My dad met this woman a few years ago and, to cut a long story short, she proposed to him last summer and he accepted. The date was set; 12th April 2008. Now my dad is not the usual kind of dad (as people who have seen and met him will clarify). He lives in London and he is kinda cyber-goth... or cyber-punk, I'm not too sure how to classify him (if he is classifiable at all). So the wedding was not going to be a traditional church wedding, but more like... a fancy dress party.

Therefore I wanted to do something different with my look. If I was to turn up to the wedding dressed up like I normally do I would have stuck out like a sore thumb. So after a couple weeks thinking about it and with some consultation from my dad I came up with my outfit for the wedding. And here it is:




It's amazing what some hair bleach, white contacts and temporary tattoos can do for a guy's look huh?

So I was ready for the wedding and eager to take part in the fun. This is what happened next.



However there is good news. I have been given permission by my dad to post up some of the photos of the wedding. As soon as I dust off my old Flickr account I'll be able to share with you more photos.

6 Apr 2008 Freaky April Weather 2008

So I walked out my front door today and I saw this...


... and this...


...and this...


... I mean what the hell???


It's the middle of Spring. We shouldn't be confronted with this much snow in Britain an this time of the year...


Still it did make me smile. And I thought "Ah well, when in Rome..."

24 Mar 2008 Grax's Easter Holiday 2008

Well this week didn't go according to plan, but it's been a good week none the less. I had the week before easter off work. So for me it's been a 8 day long weekend for me. The second half of that time off was spent sleeping, which I'm not too proud off. Y'know when you get the feeling that you've wasted half the day when you wake up at 1:00pm, because in a way you have wasted half a day? But the stuff when I was doing stuff it was pretty enjoyable. And it all started two Friday nights ago.

That Friday evening two main things happened to me; 1) I was taught the art of being able to hear conversation on a noisy dance floor by plugging ones earholes and 2) I got to chatting to a random drunk girl down one of the Oxford roads on the way home. Long story short she wanted some cigarettes, I couldn't help her out then, her 5 friends left her cos they got bored waiting, I took her home, bought her some cheap ciagrettes along the way (the cheapest possible. Let it not be said that I ain't a nice guy), she let me into her house, and she unloaded a bunch of rants about all the negative aspects of her life till daybreak whilst we had Natural Born Killers playing in the background. There was no bedroom action involved during this time but I found it strangely pleasant trying to be her agony aunt for the night, even though technically in all seriousness what the hell could I possibly say or do to make everything better for her. After all, she had a 10 inch kitchen knife in her purse. Well a girl's gotta keep herself safe and all.

In other news I am now officially and uncle and you all shall now refer to me as uncle Grax. For it is written... Right at this moment in time. My nephew was born 9 days earlier than expected (I had booked the week off expecting to see him during the middle of the week) so I went and visited him and my brother on Sunday along with my mum. Let me tell you something; 6 day old babies don't tend to do much. All baby nephew did when I was there was sleep, pull the occasional weird yawny stretch thing, sleep, wake up for a feeding, not really realise what was going on, stuff like that. I guess the major action happens as babies get older.

Mum was super excited about the baby as has been since the moment he was born. She would be squealing with joy proclaiming that he was so cute and so perfect and "He looks just like you and your brother did when you were babies". Every 5 minutes. Well its good to know that he going to grow up a good looking lad, just like his uncle. I tried to hold him and, at first, I didn't wuite get the hang of it cos my nephew was squirming and resisting in my arm, which I was not use to. After a little guidance from my brother my nephew calmed down and was dozing blissfully in my arm. The thing that caught my interest is how my brother seemed to be so good at being a dad, like he knew exactly what he was doing. I guess I imagined that I would be the first to have kids.

Lastly I spent some time catching up with some old friends. It was a mixture of watching DVDs, eating unhealthily, screwing around, and a birthday trip to Alton Towers with my ex girlfriend, her new boyfriend (who didn't really say too much to me, but then I didn't really want to be the hunky third wheel to his and her love-fest of uh.... sexy.... couple.... thingy... thing.... what couples do) and the rest of her crew. It was all good apart from the crappy video thing at Alton Towers not working on the day. And I was so looking forwards to doing some kick ass poses for the camera. It would have been awesome I tell thee.

Ah well, no time to reminisce. I gotta head back to work tomorrow. I wonder if anything got done there...

6 Mar 2008 Ceroc you like a hurricane

One of my New Years Resolutions was to treat my body better and one of the ways to do this was to get dancing again. I did Salsa dancing for around 2 years but I stopped doing it for 6 months because I got pinned down with work. But I am determined and I recently started getting back into Salsa again. Last lesson I met this charming girl and she invited me to try a Ceroc dance class in town. Not wanting to turn down the offer of a charming lady (and not willing to admit that I've never heard of Ceroc) I accepted and tried it out for the first time last night.

Turns out it's simple enough for me to look like a bad-ass on the dance floor.

Ceroc, for those who are not in the know (including myself), is a dance form that is based in modern Jive but borrows lots of elements from other dances including Salsa, Swing, Lindy Hop and Merengue. In fact I could spot different Salsa moves when people were dancing freestyle. The main differences between Ceroc and Salsa includes things like the tempo is slower and the footwork doesn't seem to be that important.

After a couple minutes of trying to tell my brain that I am in fact not doing Salsa I was able to pick up the basic routine. In fact I had an edge over most of the other beginners because I knew how to dance Salsa. So I was able to lead and make my many partners do what I wanted. With the occasional shimmy thrown in for good measure.

And the shimmies served me well on the dance floor as it impressed the ladies that I dance with during freestyle... Well... it was more likely due to the face that for a 'beginner' (which in the world of dancing I am not) I was able to hold my own and give the ladies a pleasant dance. Still there's nothing wrong with flaunting your chest a bit.

It felt good to be able to dance well, especially when most of the women I danced with are "Mmm, mmm, mighty fine". But I don't want to get ahead of myself here. Just because I can confidently do one Ceroc dance routine doesn't mean I'm the next [insert dance legend here]. I'm going to keep going to Ceroc lessons until I can confidently remember and do at least four routines during freestyle. Otherwise I'm dead in the water. But still, so far so good.

27 Feb 2008 But we're in the middle of a plate!

Did anyone else feel that earthquake last night as well?

18 Feb 2008 Grax Domain Birthday and the meaning of flumpy

Say, it's the Grax Domain's birthday today! It's actually 4 (count 'em) years old. So in traditional tradition I've done a little bit of artwork.

I've been playing a lot of Team Fortress 2 and the picture's based on Heavy Weapons Guy, my fave class.

I also found out a new meaning for a word: Flumpy.

I was sitting around at work and a colleague (who shall be named Collie) approached me. The conversation went something like this...

Collie: Y'alright? How's it going?
Me: I dunno. I just feel... Flumpy. I don't know how to describe it.
Collie: Well maybe if you used a real word.
Me: It is a real word (I didn't think it was a word, but I played with the idea)! Look I'll prove it. Google'll know. Google knows all.
Does a Google search for the word Flump
Me: Ha! See? I told you it was a real word.... uh-oh....
Clicks on the Urbandictionary.com link
Me: "Flumpy: the act of oral sex perform on a human while taking a shit".... Hmm... I'm not gonna live that one down am I?
Collie: Nope.

So yeah, apparantly that's how I'm feeling right now; flumpy. Anyone got any ideas how I can get out of this mood?

30 Jan 2008 I don't like needles....

Apparently I did something amazing today. I donated some of my own blood.

Me, a guy who loathes having needles shoved into him for a mere moment, chose to allow a tube inserted into my arm and drain me for five minutes.

It wasn't the run down community centre that was bad. It wasn't the pin prick on my finger to get a drop of blood for an iron level test that was bad, though I did hesitate to begin with. It wasn't the overworked mature nurse that was talking to various patients that made me lose my cool. It wasn't the build up that freaked me out. It wasn't even the point just after the needle went into my arm that I panicked (I looked away at this point), although my lower half of my body did start to tingle for some reason.

It was when I looked at the red tube...

When I saw the needle in my arm...

When I saw how God damn big the was...

That I thought "Oh bum, there's a freaking huge needle in my arm"...

And I went from being slightly anxious to down right scared. Not 'throw your arms up in the air and scream' scared but a good healthy 'shallow breathing, manic laughing and shakes' scared. I was still trembling after 5 minutes and the needle was removed.

Seriously, I thought the draining needle would be thin, like the ones you get for blood tests. Not a freaking hose pipe.

And for what? To possibly save a life? Well the main reason why I did it was I wanted to do something that scared me. Needles scare me. Being brave and yadda yadda. Plus it's always handy to know at parties what your blood type is.

So hey ho, another notch on my belt of life. I hope someone enjoys my blood, with a slight ting of anxiety for flavour.

25 Jan 2008 One of the greatest t-shirts known to mankind

Ladies and gentlemen.... BEHOLD!



Thanks to the folks at the Penny Arcade Store I have in possession one of the greatest t-shirts known to mankind. Granted you need to be a Street Fighter fan to get any appreciation out of this. But seriously, if you're not a fan of the game then well... *shun*

In fact this t-shirt is so great it is in fact a replacement for my old and wore one.



Ah my old tee; so worn, so faded. It is time to retire the old dog. Maybe I can give it away to a friend or charity or something.

While I was browsing the store I noticed this t-shirt.


Shoot Him First

I've been playing a lot of Team Fortress 2 recently. So because of that and because of the weak US dollar, I picked up one of these too.

That is all.

20 Jan 2008 Lessons on room decorating

I've just come back from my weekend of helping my friend decorate her living room. From this I have learnt the following:

• Painting a room does not take a couple of hours, but rather many, many hours. No matter how small the room looks.
• It's always handy to have the right tools for the job.
• The size of your tool does bloody matter.
• Attaching a Philips screwdriver head to a long flat-head screwdriver with lots of sticky tape does not turn it into a useable long Philips screwdriver.
• Screws in walls are a good way of release manly grunts and growls.
• Asking for help unscrewing a tight screw in the wall does not undermine ones manliness.
• Painting a room at 2:00am is not for everybody.
• It's lots of fun to completely cover your hands in gloss paint, but it's a bit of a pain to get off your hands. And it makes your hands sticky and tingly.
• Not everyone will appreciate you getting your hands completely covered in gloss paint, not matter how much fun it is.
• Painting a room is bloody boring, no matter how much cheesy disco pop you play in the background.

I'm sure these life lessons will serve me well in the future.

2 Jan 2008 New Years Plans for 2008

Happy New Year everyone.

... Oh... I'm a little late. Still nevermind.

Hope your guys New Years celebrations were fun. My New Years was big load of last-minute-pub-get-together-with-some-friends-with-drinks-and-a-splash-of-karaoke. Not bad. But looking at some old friends' photos of their parties made me think that maybe I should have spent more time catching up with them.

But enough about me, let's talk about me.

And I'm talking about New Years Resolutions.

After stumbling upon Secretia's New Years Resolution list for 2008 I thought to myself "Hell I'll give it a go myself". So I sat down and jotted down a list of things I think I can improve about myself.

And with that, as you all as my witnesses, I wish to present to you in no particular order, my list:

• Keep my room tidy - I thought I can cope with my 'systematic chaos' but really, the ever-creeping piles of crap is getting silly. I'm starting to lose things in my room it's that bad. No more I say!
• Learn Spanish - Just a little pet project I would like to do so that when/if I go to a Spanish speaking place I'll be ready for 'em
• Manage my time better - Between all the long hours spent at work, going to the pub with colleagues, procrastinating and playing games I felt like that I just run out of time to do stuff, or to even do nothing. I want my spare time back dammit!
• Find me a woman and keep her this time - Arguably the hardest and most important item on the list. Still I'm getting better at this woman malarkey...
• Manage my money better - Despite getting a higher paid job last year there still seems to be some plugholes where money seems to drain away. I need to plug them up and I think I know where they are
• Write my blog entries on time - I've been writing several entries in batches instead of a constant stream for a short while now. I don't know if it really a problem but it doesn't seem to be what professional do in the real world, does it?
• Look after my body better - I'm talking about getting back into exercises, eating more fruit and veg, get back into dancing. I let myself go over the months and it's starting to show.
• Spend more time playing with Flash - I've got a couple of ideas I wanna try out.
• Study the mystic arts to become Sorcerer Supreme - I'm sure I can fit that in somewhere...

I'm sure you will agree this list is quite achievable. Only time will tell.

Until 2009.

29 Dec 2007 Christmas 2007 Aftermath

Can you believe it? I sneezed and missed most of it.

The weekend before Christmas Day I spent with my friend and I took the time to spend some quality time with her... and I helped her out with sorting out her Christmas preparations to the sounds of Christmas music and movies into the wee, wee, wee hours of the night. It's wasn't as bad as it sound, she did help me get closer into the Christmas Spirit than I've been in quite some time.

Too bad I picked up a cold somewhere along the way.

So by the time I got to my mums house for the family get together I was progressively getting more and more exhausted. Fortunately is didn't really matter this year.

Normally my mum's clan get together for the usual Christmas rituals. But this year they were scattered all over the place, even as far as Thailand, so it ended up being simply my mum and step-dad for Christmas Day. After the presents and dinner I felt so shattered that I went to bed at around 8:00pm. Fortunately I sweated out most of the cold in the night (quite literally) and was well enough to visit my brother on the Isle Of Wright on Boxing Day. More Christmas rituals on his end, came back the next day, caught up with some friends in Portsmouth (including the gorgeous geek girl Mitu), and discovered the true joy of Doom the Board game! Seriously, if you haven't played it yet, do yourself a favour and try it. Bottles of red wine is optional.

After rounding up with a short visit to my dad up in London and that wraps things up for Christmas 2007. All is left to look forward to this year is New Years Eve.

Oh before I forget. This year I took a fun gamble and took part in Skeddy's Secret Santa event. I sent mine off to my victim and I hope he enjoys it. As for me:



Thank you Secret Santa, where ever you are. ^_^

24 Dec 2007 A message before Christmas

Yeah, I kinda said that I was going to do a huge blog dump after I moved servers. In actual fact all I managed to squeeze in was one week of the Alpha course as an entry. Trouble is I got sidetracked with other things, including shitty long hours at work all week where things kept breaking, trying to sort out all the Christmas presents online, do the social thing with friends Christmas and New Year, it went on and on.

Still, with two weeks holiday time off work that should give me enough time to at least do a proper blog dump (I've got a thing or two about a thing or two to write about), which will be posted before this entry right here, as if nothing unusual is happening.

Till then, it's less than one more sleep till Christmas...

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

18 Dec 2007 Christmas Prank 2007

You know those pranks that people play where they wrap some suckers stuff in newspaper or tinfoil? And oh how people laugh when the victim arrives to see all this stuff wrapped up and then unwraps everything with a strained grin on his face?

Well... I thought I'd try and bring some holiday cheer to one of the guys at work...



Gee, ain't I a stinker? ^_^

14 Oct 2007 Trip to Alton Towers

So my girlfriend, Princess, and I decided to go to Alton Towers this Saturday. It was very last minute, she's a theme park nut and I've never been to Alton Towers before, so all the signs pointed to a fun day out. It was a mixture of highs and lows.

The Highs

• The good rides - Nemesis, Oblivion, and Rita. These rides did to me what rollercoaster rides should do; make me scream like a girl. Air was pretty good, but not as thrilling as the other three.
• The crazy golf - It was a fun couple of hours to waste and Princess managed to win a free game at the end. Not bad for £5 a head
• The garden area - This makes Alton Towers stand out of all the other theme parks. The gardens and the tower itself are quite stunning. Picturesque and make the whole place seem more... authentic and real. It was fun to get lost in it for a while
• One of the queues – There were a couple of people in the Terror of the Tower line that worked at Alton Towers having the afternoon off. It was a couple hours wait and we had a laugh talking about things including some of the stupid things people say to staff members (like “Does the Nemesis ride go upside down”) and some of the ghost hunting they have done. It made the hour wait a lot more bearable. Tip: Always be friendly and chat with the staff, you might get lucky.
• You Day – They started this new feature where they video you riding on selected rides and you can watch it all on DVD. In theory this is cheaper and more fun that getting a photograph. All you need to do is wear a wristband electronic sensor for the day (very Big Brother) and there's no obligation to buy. The pose I did on one of the rides make it worth dong alone.

The Lows

• The crap rides – There were a few lackluster rides that included The Runaway Train and the crappy haunted house with bolted-on laser gun game thingy.
• You Day – The sensor was not picked up on all the rides, we were not allowed to preview the DVD and on one of the ride we were not even on it! They had put some random people on our DVD.
• Terror of the Tower – It was just no scary. The cannibalistic master was not scary. Hell the bill for our dinner was scarier than that fatty. Not worth the 2 hour wait, I could have done a better job at that attraction.
• The dinner - £20 per head?? For a simple buffet meal at the hotel? Are you mad!? We'd been better off going to McDonalds.

Despite the negative it'll be worth going to Alton Towers again properly. With a crowd. And poses on all the rides.

Mind you, isn't it a tad illegal to have video footage of other people without their permission? What with the Data Protection Act and all. I would want people accusing me of anything dodgy or seedy with the footage and stuff.

5 Sep 2007 Grax Friendship Tour 2007: The Wedding

So there I was, Saturday 25th August, the big wedding day.

Not my wedding day mind, my friend Mr M's wedding day.

On this faithful day my friend Mr M was to get married to get married to the lovely Miss A. And this is actually a big deal for me because this is the first wedding I've ever been invited to. I've only ever been invited to the crappy wedding receptions, never the actual wedding. I was going to see how real people actually do weddings, like on those TV shows.

It was all pretty much how you expected it to be, a wedding at a church (they're both Christians after all, as in real life Christians), the bride was absolutely beautiful and radiant, the groom was... coordinating everything right up to the vows (which I feels a bit odd, surely the bride and groom should leave the coordinating to everyone else?), people were dressed up and looked smashing (I looked irresistible in my suit, obviously), there was music from... some local Christian pop rock playing Christian worship music...

Call me narrow minded but I can't help but feel that Christian rock being played in a church to be a bit blasphemous. What about using the traditional wind organ? Or the bagpipes? Such under-rated instruments.

Anyways.

The wedding and vows and "I do" came and went. We all proceeded to the park next door for photos where Miss A got stranded on one spot because she didn't want her dress to get ruined in the dirt. Then we got herded back into the church for dinner, toasts, etc. Because I knew virtually no one at the wedding the bride and groom dumped me on a random table where there was a rather attractive woman sitting across me. So what else could I do but be charming and socialise.

I later found out that Miss A had dumped all the single people on one table in an attempt at match making, which is the same table I was stuck on. That conniving little...

Well her plan worked.

After the dinner and toasting we got shoved out of the main hall as it was to be converted into the dance area. I was distracted by the choir who were singing some tunes with their beautiful harmonic voices. And then the hall was ready for the dance. First it was the traditional "First dance" for the bride and groom. Then it was....

.... The barn dance.

...

Well at least it wasn't a cheesy wedding disco. It didn't get me dancing though.

The night came to a close, I somehow got roped into helping clearing up the church at the end of the wedding (I could never say no to a beautiful woman), then I retired to a friend house to sleep and reflect upon what had happened that day. When I say friend I mean my newly acquired lady friend that I met across the dinner table. I left for home a few days later than I had originally planned.

5 Sep 2007 Real Life backlog

Eeesh. What a busy two weeks. Overworked, lack of fun time, two major events. It's enough to drive a guy away from his blog.

You're just dying for more details aren't you?

24 Aug 2007 Grax and the Autism Study - Cancelled

Due to personal and family related reasons I will not be continuing with the Autism study. For one thing, I hear tell that it's not a good idea to have your brain scanned in a machine unless you need to.

Best to keep those people happy.

22 Aug 2007 Grax's Friendship Tour 2007: The School Reunion

This weekend was a very special episode of Grax's Friendship Tour because Grax got to see his old secondary school friends. Well, some of them anyway.

Over the past few months these school chums have been adding themselves to Facebook and then one of them had a bright idea of having a reunion in a pub in London, which is ironic seeing as we all went to school in ye olde town of Fareham. Details details.

So a chance to see various people I've not seen in nearly 10 years to compare myself to them? A chance to show off how successful and good looking I've become (I use to be a fat nerd in school)? You bet your ass I want in on the action.

The plan was simple.

Head to Harlandos house, get the train to London, get into the pub, show off, get kudos, come out victorious. There was a slight snag with the plan...

I'd picked up some food poisoning a couple days before and it didn't go away in time. It was hard to control the toxic rotten-egg stench that erupted from my gut and the liquid that came out of my ass. But I wasn't gonna let a little food poisoning ruin my night.

So I soldiered on, with medicine and all.

So Harlandos and I got to the pub and we were greeted by two girls that we know from school, the two that organised the reunion. They were part of the hot girls group in school (you know, the kind that where obviously good looking and knew it, who didn't really talk to the nerds). It was shocking to see that looks wise they've not changed one bit, it's as if they've not grown up. They complimented on how much weight I lost and how good I looked.

Compliments from hotties. The plan was working like a charm.

So we got the drinks in and waited for the rest of the ex-pupils to trickle into the pub.

Out of the hundred-odd people in the class of '98, out of the 30-odd people that signed up to Facebook and knew the group, only 9 in total turned up. And the only person I talked to was Harlandos. And again, virtually none of them had changed since I last saw them.

More compliment about my good looks. The plan was working like a charm.

But alas my food poisoning was getting the better of me. As the night progressed my trips to the pub toilet became more frequent, the stuff coming out becoming more and more liquidly as I simply run out of food matter in my gut. It became increasing difficult to juggle having conversations with old school chums, two randomly girls in the pub I ended up talking to, and making more frequent trips to the toilet. People were ending up getting disappointed (well, more drunk really). It was taking a toll on poor old Grax.

So I bid my farewell to the group and retired to Harlandos house. After missing one of the train because I needed to hit the toilet again just before the train was about to leave and it didn't have a toilet inside it. The cads!

It was cool seeing everyone again and I'm definitely gonna do a 10 year school reunion next year, whether they know it or not. And we'll do it properly. Well make everyone go back to Ye Olde Fareham and rent out the sports hall and make everyone dress up in smart clothes (or better yet the old uniform!) and drink punch from the fruit punch bowl that has been spiked. Just like they do in the tv shows! Hopefully next time I'll be less ill.

Food poisoning; it's a pain in the ass.

30 Jul 2007 Grax and the Autism Study pt 1

I am helping mankind by partaking in an Autism study.

About a month ago I noticed a flyer from the local Oxford hospital asking for voulenteers to partake in an Autsim study. I figured "Hey why not. It might be fun to do and I might learn a bit about myself". So I called up the number on the flyer and voulenteered myself.

Last week I got the call and made my way to the hospital to show them how Grax thinks. Half an hour late mind, but Grax showed up none the less.

I was interviewed and test by a thin, nerdy (in a cute way) woman about my age. She sat me down in an isolated room and we made small talk before getting down to business. The first set of tests involved words and their definition. At first they were simple words like 'bird', 'wheel', 'day', etc. But then they became harder and more abstract. What is the definition of 'Number', 'purpose', 'haste', 'excitement'? The more words she came up with, the more I realised that I uses words without actually knowing their full meaning. I felt my charming powers against this nerdy hottie fading.

It was enough to make one feel very simple indeed.

The next test I was given a series of cubes with coloured sides and I had to copy the patterns that were shown in a book. That was simple enough to do and I got all but the last one correct, because I didn't look at it from the right angle.

By this point my mind was spend and I wanted to nap (the fact that I was up till 2:00am and woke up at 7:00am didn't help either). But still more tests had to be done. The last test involved me staring at a computer screen and copying the movement of the fingers on the screen. For 15 minutes. This test was mind-numbing. I'm sure I had actually nodded off to sleep for a split second or two several times. Afterwards the cute nerd told me that she sympathised with me. Which is nice.

There's more to the study that features a huge brain scanner of some kind, but the scanner was down for maintanance so I have to wait till it's repaired.

More to come in the future. Stay tuned!

30 Jul 2007 Grax goes Wii Wii Wii all the way home

I was at my friends house the other weekend and I got to try out a Nintendo Wii. Last Saturday I had an impulse, tripped and 'accidentally' bought a Wii for myself. It's pretty fun, though truth be told I'm having more fun playing with my Mii and Everybody Votes feature than the games I got with it.

I'm trying not to hand my credit card to the Wii Shopping channel and blowing all my money on all the Virtual Console games. So many classics. So little time...

Edit: Do you have a Wii? Do you wanna be Grax's Wii friend? of course you do and now you can! All you gotta do is register the following Wii Number on your Wii:

5884-0620-2454-0126

You can even email my Wii without using the rubbish "Wii" email address. I set up a forwarding address so to email my Wii all you need to use this the email addess below:



Easy huh? Onwards to the Mii Parade!

8 Jul 2007 Uncle Grax

I'm going to be an uncle.

I got a phone call from my brother today late in the morning. Turns out his partners pregnancy test was positive and going to be a dad in the near future. Well in nine months time to be more precise.

I'm pleased for him and wish him and his sprog lots of warm wishes.

My brother is always two steps ahead of me. The fact that he's three years older than me is besides the point.

29 Jun 2007 The Day I was 25

It's my brithday today and I am now a quater of a century years old. I'm getting on bit now.

...

I suppose I'd better find me a wife or something. Any takers?

13 Jun 2007 Dream Theater in Newcastle: Doing it for the fans

Last Saturday I was in Newcastle with my good friend Mr WiGz. What was I doing up there? Why I was seeing one of the most well-known prog rock bands Dream Theater. And I gotta say that they are pretty good. Well worth the ticket money.

They started off with a good couple of songs, then did a couple of songs from their new album 'Systematic Chaos', namely 'Constant Motion' and 'Forsaken'. Afterwards they did something special. Because it was their 15th anniversary of somethingorother they spent the rest of the night playing every song from their Images and Words album.

Like I said they were pretty damn good. It was like listening to their CD, but only like in person. It did done make me all smiley and singy and such.

It was pretty odd looking at the crowd though. It was full of old men. I'm talking grey, balding long hair, geeky looking. would partly explain their choice of playing their old stuff to please the fans. That There was not one fit looking girl in the whole place. There were some kids there too, no doubt they were dragged along by their dads. "C'mon Timmy, you'll love Dream Theater. YOU WILL!!"

Also it was unfortunate for DT front man James Labrie. His choice of cream coloured shirt and trouser really brought up his sweat patches. Most notably the one around his crotch area. I bet the front row guys and girls got more than they were expecting.

4 Jun 2007 Grax's Friendship Tour 2007

Grax has been on the road and so far it's been fun.

For the past month of May I've been hitting the road and visiting some of my past friends because dammit, it's been too long since I've seen most of my friends since moving out of Portsmouth all those years ago and I wanna see how they're all doing. Plus I can imagine seeing me would bring smiles and sunshine into my friends heart as well, so everybody's a winner.

The first weekend of May I travelled back to my old Uni town, Portsmouth, to see the roleplaying friends that I use to have fun with when I was suppose to be studying. This included the fabulous Meebles (who's website, at the time of writing, has been offline for month!) The weekend was spent catching up, going to a joint birthday party (Meebles and another guy), and playing a round of Talisman where we all got screwed over by the quiet one because we were too nice to him. Bless his cotton socks.

The second weekend of May I travelled down to Basingstoke to attend a wedding. Well... wedding reception to be exact. I was visiting my salsa class friends that I left when I moved up to Oxford. After all two of those salsa friends were getting married that day so I figured I would arrive and give them my blessings and give blessings all round... Not that they needed Grax's blessing or anything. It was rather jolly watching the happy couple for a moment, but I left qjuite early in the evening. I didn't book a place to stay in Basingstoke and... I guess I wasn't quite in the joining-in mood that night.

One the third weekend of May I ventured to Fareham to see my old school chums. This was the best time I had so far in my tour because, despite not seeing my Fareham friends for a good year or so, the moment I walked through the door it was like I had not left. We were laughing and joking away with jokes that is only funny if you happen to be there at the time (the best line of the night was "Take it Copper!"). Without a plan at hand I came up with the idea of spending the night in with junk food, beers and some DVD, just like the good old days. Pure nostalgic bliss.

On the forth weekend of May was a double whammy. Saturday I travelled to Swindon to catch up with an old friend of mine where she tells me stories of how she's getting her life back on track. Which, y'know, major kudos to her. I could tell she got a kick out of me visiting her... Well she would have gotten a kick out of anyone visiting her to be fair. Swindon is not exactly the liveliest place to be in England. I can relate to that. Sunday and Bank Holiday Monday was spent back in Fareham for a few games of Third Edition Shadowrun, where even the rain was powerless to stop our enjoyment.

Hell even last Friday I manage to squeeze in a few rounds of cider and port with an old home town friend that now lives in Oxford, where he introduced me to some of his many friends. I feel my social network rising.

The past month has been a fun tour, but it's not over. The Summer holidays are coming and I've got many-a-friends left on my hitlist.

Anyone else want a visit from Grax? Let me know.

20 Apr 2007 First week in Oxford

How's it going? I've had my first week in Oxford and so far so good.

For those who don't know what's going on in my life I was offered a new job in Oxford. It promised me a decent advancement in my career (read that however you wish) and I took it. I handed in my noticed in my old job a month ago and, although they were sad to see me go, they wished me well. Standard issue stuff; pub lunch, gift, card, cake, hand shakes, and so on. Still I am going to miss all the people downstairs...

I wonder if they've found my replacement yet.

So back to my new job in Oxford. From now on I am no longer a web developer by profession; henceforth I am focusing my skills upon Flash and Actionscript to develop games. Finally, a chance for me to pull my finger out of my ass and do some Flash games. Plus the company is brand new, so we've gotta make everything from scratch, which is good for me as I likes making things from scratch.

The guys at work are nice enough, not really had a chance to get to know them in great detail as we're focusing on work. The only real except is my boss. The weekend I moved into my new house in Oxford he invited me out to a mini pub crawl across Cowley Road to get me familiar with the area. This is quite odd for me; a boss man being friendly and social? But still I went, had a few drinks with him, chatted, and found out he's a pretty nice guy. And I'm not just saying that because my boss is probably reading this entry.

It seems to be the norm, being very friendly and social in Oxford, not like it was back in Andover. The night I moved to my new house my housemate invited me to the pub, paid for all my drinks (as I was short on cash at the time), and even paid for my takeaway (again, short on cash). The new house has two students and a hippy librarian and they have a student, laid back attitude to life, which suits me perfectly. Not sure if I like being the oldest in the house though....

So yeah first week in Oxford is good. Nice job, nice people, nice house, en suite, what more is needed?

Well I needs an Internet connection. It's been a week since I've been able to play Second Life.

Um yeah.... Second Life... That'd probably justify another article.

9 Apr 2007 Psychic blessings for the Oxford move

I'm thinking that everything is going to be A-OK when I move to my new bungalow in Oxford.

My mum helped me move the majority of my stuff from my old room in Andover to the new room in Oxford. After the packing and drive I showed her around the house then showed her all the inside. Her response was...

"Oh my God I saw this house in my dream! All these rooms are exactly the same as the one in my dream! I can't believe I dreamt this. I thought it was me and your step-dad moving to the house, but now I know it's was you Grax!"

She spent the rest of the day feeling all giddy and happy knowing that her son will be living in the house that she dreamt of.

So there you go. An omen from my psychic mummy that all will be well.

19 Mar 2007 My dancing fun up in Hull

Last weekend for me was pretty damn good.

I went up to Hull to see my old Uni friend Mr WiGz, he's doing a Masters up there so he's reliving the student life again. Most of the time we spent playing on his Nintendo Wii and now I want one. But that's not the main reason for this entry.

We (namely, me Mr WiGz and his chums) went to a nightclub called Spiders, which is located in the middle of some intustrial park. There's three or four rooms which plays rock and metal (except for one room that played various happy/cheesy tunes) and everyone was on the dance floor flailing their limbs like mad.

Never underestimate the power and joy of dancing like an idiot. You'll feel so much better for doing it.

Yes you will get mocked at (I myself was given the 'loser L on forehead' look by some random girl) but the jokes on them! Cos you know that you're dancing like a prat and it's funny, you'd doing it on purpose and not trying to act cool. So the fact that they're laughing at your antics makes it even more funny because they don't get it.

Ha! I win....

14 Mar 2007 This just in...

I've handed in my notice at work. Oxford here I come!

5 Mar 2007 Bad news (for me anyway)

Well.... uh....

My girlfriend and I....

We broke up....

Until further notice...

Last weekend we had the same relationship-ending argument that we had in January this year. The exact same argument. We could have ended it back then but we wanted to try and work things out, make 'us' better. I could see us having this exact same argument over and over again, with neither of us really doing anything about it.

So, with a heavy heart, we broke up...

Until further notice.

The best thing to happen to us (well to me anyway) and it got ruined.

16 Feb 2007 Birthday note/I.O.U.

I've written a note. If you can't read the image below then click here to see a larger version.

19 Jan 2007 The day The Grax Domain was famous

A few months ago I submitted The Grax Domain to I Talk 2 Much, a site that reviews other site and give them some critical pointers. Today I got my review from Heartless Lass and I did feel good about it. Her main pointers included "Not boring, but not exciting", "had some nice touches to it (namely the theme preview pop-up)", "had fun with the Magic 8 Ball", and "need more interesting flash than finding love or making a cup of tea". Overall I got 1 smack out of 5, which was better than I thought it would be, I was expecting a kick in the nuts.

Now you'd think that this would be enough excitement a site should have for one day. Oh no, it gets better than that.

Later one today my site got hacked.

A humble little site like The Grax Domain, getting hacked by some punk-ass kid with a kiddie-script that was probably found online and ran the script on his PC while he was jacking off to his latest daily harvest of pornography wearing his mummy's bra and panties. You can only imagine how happy that make me. And he (or she, equal rights and all) managed to pull the old 'index page switcharoo' trick on me, leaving other files intact. How talented. Truely I am blessed.

Think of the ratings!

Naturally when the people at I Talk 2 Much found out my page was hacked they rightly crossed out my review (with a strike tag) and said "Fuck off. kthxbia", thusly screwing over my credibility there and no doubt screwing my chances for a re-review in the near future. But I don't mind. I'm still feeling the high that is my site being hack. How many people can say that? I think I'll go and buy a lottery ticket tomorrow, I wanna use my lucky vibes while I still got them.

This stuff is liquid gold!

So I want to thank everyone at I Talk 2 Much for all the useful comments, I've taken them on board. But I want to give a special thanks to my hacker, Mr.BuRzUm, who has not only blessed my site, but many other sites with his 'leet' skills and his trademark front page. I wish everyone to join me in his appraisal. Thanks every so much Mr.BuRzUm, ya numpty!


That Mr.BuRzUm, what a guy (or girl). There's just not enough nice things to say about this legendary hacker. I'm feel all glowy inside.

Yes, we have no bananas!

9 Jan 2007 Help! I've been spoofed!

Over the holidays I've noticed that my email account was accumulating lots of "Undelivered Mail returning" emails from various place. The trouble is I didn't actually send out any emails to all those people. Which leads me to one conclusion; my email address is being ill-used for spam emailing.

I takes a closer look into the failed email and it's plaster with my @graxdomain email address with various characters bolted on to the begin. So far I've received 168 failed emails. I hate to think about how many successful spams have been sent out.

I am quite miffed, as I'm sure you can imagine.

I've notified my webhost provider, who says that they'll look into it. I did a quick search on the Internet and learnt that this kind of spamming is called 'Spoofing' or something like that. I need to do more research to see if it's actually possible to stop this abuse.

Has anyone else been a victim of spoofing? How did you cope/deal with it?

4 Jan 2007 Happy (belate) New Year, 2007 style

A bit of friendly advice. If you ever plan to celebrate New Years Eve on the streets of St. Ives, Cornwall in fancy dress costume (like I did, I was a pirate! Albeit a bit of a pantomime-style pirate) wrap up warm! Whether you wrap up in many layers or in a thick beer coat is purely up to you.

At least I managed to see some fireworks on the beach.

23 Dec 2006 A multi-lingual festive message

Happy Christmas
Navidad feliz
glückliches Weihnachten
gelukkige Kerstmis
Noël heureux
ευτυχή Χριστούγεννα
natale felice
christmas feliz
счастливое рождество
행복한 크리스마스
幸せなクリスマス
愉快的圣诞节

20 Dec 2006 Xmas Work Party 2006

Last night was the Christmas work party thing. We all went up to London for the afternoon, staying the night at a Travel Lodge hotel thingy, browsed around Tate Modern (where the latest exhibition is a bunch of slides that people can, well, slide down), ate at a tasty yet crowded Italian restaurant, watched the Blue Man Group, and then ended the evening with a few pints at a pub (to which four of us parted with the group and wondered around London talking about ways of making the world better till 01:00am, whilst the rest went to bed at sensible times. Pansies. They missed out on the nipple-erecting coldness of the streets.)

Nothing fantastic or interesting to report, just the same old, same old. Chances are you can just skip this entry.

11 Dec 2006 The sound of one hand tapping

I noticed that it had been quite a while since my desktop PC had seen any action. And there's a very good reason for that; it's cpu fan. My God is it loud! You could hear it when you were in the other side of the house. It's like a five year old kid screaming really loudly in a high pitch voice in the supermarket, and you're trying to sush it up but it won't and everyone starts staring at you with their disapproving eyes. It's not my fault, that was what came with the package! Stop staring!

Anyway it was time for me to do something about this. Time for a new cooling fan. Something very quiet, something silent.

Now my desktop, once in its prime back in 2002, is an older timer so I will be limiting it to be the dedicated DVD player with extra gubbins rather than a pwer gamers PC. It's an Athlon XP with a Socket A motherboard so my choices were gonna be limited. I did consider getting a Zalman Super Flower Cooler. After all it's big, quiet, made of copper, it's bound to be silent, right? But I'm feeling a bit cheap and didn't want to shell out that much money for just a fan.

Then my friend WiGz gave me some guidance. He pointed me to this charming fan, the Arctic Cooling Copper Silent 3 Socket A CPU Cooler. That's more like it. It seems to be just as good on paper and it's the third of the price.

So I got it, fitted it in my PC and, well, hear for yourselves:

Before with the old fan
After with the new fan
After with the new fan and pc case fan disconnect

A quieter PC and cooler too. Bargain! Definately worth having if you need it.

Now I can enjoy my collection in peace.

30 Nov 2006 Unconscious Mutterings 001

1. Rhyme :: Thyme
2. Substantial :: Money
3. Instant :: Coffee
4. Greed :: is good
5. Brad :: Majors (Asshole!)
6. Season :: tickets
7. Accomplished :: Accomplishment
8. Invite :: Invitation
9. Sparkle :: Sparkle
10. Rainbow :: Six

Unconscious Mutterings

29 Nov 2006 The week I was in Plymouth

Last week my girlfriend and I had ourselves a week off work to go on holiday. The exotic location we decided to go to was in the south of England, to sunny Plymouth, a few hours drive away from my house. Well it wasn't really sunny. In fact it rained most of the time we were there. That's Cornish weather for ya.

But despite the rains we had a really good, chilled-out time.

We stayed in a little cottage place in a village just outside of Plymouth. The house was great, so nice and cosy. The kind of place you just want to lounge around on those sleepy days and not do much, especially in front of the log fire. So it was ok that it rained most of the time. The only real complaint about the place was the parking. It was like trying to slide in between two round people at the supermarket, only their flesh is not soft but more like jagged rocks that'll scratch your paintwork if you mess up. The danger was there almost every day. Very cramped indeed.

A lot of time was spent lounging around the house but we did get to do other things. We saw friends in Plymouth and I was shown around the shopping centre and The Barbican, the older part of the city near the coast filled with trinket shops and other oddities. The whole place reminded me of Southsea in Portsmouth, only more posh and smarter.

I also did something that I don't do very often; I walked around the area. We set off on mini-hike around the area to take in the country atmosphere, as well as the rocky beaches nearby. I was even given a cheap pair of wellies for my feet by my girlfriend, so I could stomp around in the mud. Which I did.

I felt like how I looked; dashing.

On the day before the day we had to return home we went to our last destination; The Eden Project in Cornwall. It's essentially a huge garden in an old expired clay mine area in Cornwall with a couple of bio-domes that contain more exotic plants from place like the tropics and the Mediterranean. Again the weather was rainy and miserable but it didn't dampen our experience one bit. It was a shame there were no animals save for a few robins that managed to get into the domes but I guess the focus is plants so it's to be expected. Despite my initial reservations I ended up enjoying the whole experience, being around nature (in an artificial way). Even after I learnt another interesting fact about myself when I was skating around the ice rink:

I can't skate very well.

In fact it took me 40 minutes, the entire session, for me to actually do baby-steps (or is it baby-skates) around the ice rink rather than flaying my arms around like it was going out of style, gripping on the edge for dear life, and generally causing a traffic jam.

The last day came and we had to drive home, but not until we stop by some tourist traps, namely the Otters and Butterfly sanctuary and the House of Marbles.

So that was my week off.

8 Nov 2006 Oh S---, we ain't in Kansas no more

Last Friday was the same week as Halloween and a few days before Guy Fawkes Day, so naturally there was a Halloween/fireworks party involved. Any old excuse to get dressed up right? Anyway my girlfriend and I were invited to this party hosted by a couple of friends of ours and we thought it'd be good to go as one theme, like a couple and stuff. We decided on The Wizard of Oz, she went as the Wicked Witch of the West and she looked pretty darn good too. But what was I to go as?

Then I had a brainwave.

And this is the result...




Not the best photos ever but you get the idea. Thankfully there are some better photos taken by other.

Anyway we attended the party and it was rather spiffy. Everyone made a really good effort dressing up as various things (including a guy dressed up as Dr. Frank-N-Furter from the Rocky Horror Picture Show). For some reason the hostess couldn't stop laughing at my costume. I thought I looked rather good actually.

After a few drink a few of us decided to do a test run on the fireworks in the back garden. So a rocket was planted at the end of the garden about 5 metres away from everyone. It was a bitter cold night and I was feeling the full effects of it. Still I suffered to look good. The rocket was lit and it started to shoot up into the air.

But something went wrong.

Somehow the end of the rocket got knocked and it started spinning wildly out of control. And it headed straight for us! We all tried to scatter away from the sparkly banger but there wasn't much room. I remember doing nothing more than stepping a few steps away and cowering, fearing for my limbs. Sparks were flying and the hissing of the rocket could be heard, time was running out.

It then went off. With a nice big bang and a white flash. I bet it's the closest thing I'll get to experiencing a flash bang grenade going off near me.

We all looked around to see if anyone was hurt. Luckily no one was hurt, just a little bit deaf and shooken up. However my pretty dress got burnt and I had a hole in it! Not good.

Still the party carried on, we all mingled and had fun and we even ended the night with more fireworks, although some of us stayed indoors for safety.

Now, what am I going to do with my ruby-red Vans?

24 Oct 2006 Grax has left his mark

I wrote my entry on the History Matters website. It's going through moderation I believe and when it's available to view I'll stick on the link to it for all to see.

... Man, it was a pretty dull day. I doubt anyone from the future will get anything out of it.

EDIT: Aha! Found it. I found my entry on the History Matters website for all to see. You might learn something.

22 Oct 2006 A day out at Thrope Park, now with chunky puke

This weekend me and my girlfriend thought it would be grand to spend a day at a theme park, Thorpe Park to be precise. The other motivation was for me to see my old friend Harlandos, whom I haven't seen for a long time and also used to work at Thorpe Park, so he had free tickets and could get us on the rides without queuing. It's good to have connections.

For those people who have never been I would have to say that it is better than Chessington's World of Adventure, Legoland, and Paultons Park (it's a hoot hoot). I'm sure that Alton Towers kicks all buttocks in the field of theme parks but I've not been there yet.

Still the four of us (me, missus, Harlandos, and his missus) braved all the rides and dodgy foods and we all had lots of fun. Even me, despite me being a bit of a pussy...

Because of the Vortex...

Which I went on after having a burger...

I tried to keep it in my mouth for as long as I could but I couldn't stand the chunky stomach juice in my mouth any longer. I had to empty my mouth on the nearest bush. I was reassured that it was better to throw up on the bushes rather than in the bins.

I didn't really want to ride on anything else afterwards.

Still, keeping vomit in my mouth for about a minute. That's gotta be worth some kudos... right....?

18 Oct 2006 Grax will leave his mark

There is a calling out to all the british people. A call to record their day in a nationwide blog for future generations to read. Simply put the History Matters website is giving people the chance to write between 100 and 650 words about their day. It can be about anything, from important political events to the colour of your poo. This window of opportunity is from the 17^th to 31^st October 2006.

I intend to leave my mark in history. And I hope it to be a pretty and smelly mess.

I will leave my mark on Tuesday 24^th October 2006. I predict that day will be most eventful. Well it better be or else I'll be going into stupid levels of detail to fill up the page. But will 650 words be enough? After all, it's taken me 149 words just to write this entry so far.

Hey you Britons, this'll be fun. Why not leave your mark on history by clicking here.

Those poor future generations...

25 Sep 2006 Mystery noise of Andover

On Saturday 23rd September 2006 at precisely 04:00 or 05:00am(ish) my sleep was disturbed by a loud noise. The sound was like a huge explosion had gone off a few miles away from my home, like something had blown up. Feeling curious I donned my dressing gown and went to the front door to see if I can see what the commotion was about. I saw nothing except the night, and then it began to rain heavy. So I went to bed and thought nothing more of it, discarding the noise to be nothing more than heavy thunder.

It wasn't until today, whist at the post office was I reminded of that night. I had overheard some old man's conversation about a loud noise that went off that night. I interrupted and stated that I heard the same noise too. The more I asked the locals the more I realised that I was not the only person to be disturbed by the noise.

However it did rain heavy after the loud noise, so most people thought it was just thunder.

... But what if it wasn't just thunder....?

... What if it was something else....?

14 Sep 2006 Pancake: test run

I've just done a test run of making pancakes (wholemeal style). I've used the recipe described at cooks.com.

I've eaten one of the pancakes.

I feel like I've gained 50 lbs instantly.

I've still got another 8 pancakes to get rid of.

A good test run methinks. ^_^

5 Sep 2006 Steve Irwin: RIP

Steve Irwin died on the weekend of the 2^nd September 2006. He died from a stingray attack.

The world has lost a truly entertaining man and a gentleman. He will be missed.

5 Sep 2006 5 day weekend, featuring Patrick Stewart and Cardiff

Ah the Bank Holiday Weekend of August, the last English bank holiday that we get for the year. Many people take this opportunity to go away somewhere for a break, a mini vacation if you will. Course I'm no different.

MY girlfriend (M) and I decided to go away for the weekend, taking a couple days off work to give us lots of time. The vacation came in two halves; the first half (handled by me) was to head on up to Stratford-Upon-Avon to see a theatre performance, whilst the second half (handled by her) was to stay round her friends house near Cardiff, Wales and to chill for a few days, take in the local sites, etc. So how did the two halves fit together? How was it? Was it all jolly?

After spending a night in Warwick in a cheap motel we headed out to Stratford-Upon-Avon to get to the Royal Shakespeare Company theatre. It was my first time in Stratford and I quite liked what I saw. Old school Victorian look to the buildings, quirky street performances and monuments, generally clean. I didn't understand why some high-brow newspapers called Stratford a money-grabbing hell hole. Though the crank driven ferry to cross a 5 meter river that you had to pay 50p a head, when there was a bridge that crossed the river ten minutes walk away, was a bit too gimmicky for my liking.

Anyway we got to the theatre in plenty of time and sat in our seat ready to see the performance. What were we to see? Shakespeare's last ever play, The Tempest. Why? My reason was because it had Patrick Stewart as the one of the main actors! Damn straight! And he was, nay is a fine actor indeed. The way he acted made you forget all his previous works and concentrate on the now. My only regret was that we were too far to see him in great detail. Go see him if you ever get the chance.

After seeing the show M and I had several hours left until we needed to drive to Wales. So we decided to look at a few things, have a meal and even do a little bit of rowing on the river. We hired out a boat, I grabbed onto the oars and I began our voyage. It was then I learn something about myself.

I'm very, very bad at rowing.

And that my girlfriend is better at rowing than me.

As she smugly confirmed as she took over and spent most of the time rowing us around the river.

(Course what she might not tell you is that she sails a lot in her spare time so of course she's had lot of practice. It was my first time.... essentially. That's my excuse.)

After our fun time in Stratford we headed off to M's friends house in Wales. So two hours, lots of singing to music in the car and several calls from a stalker girl later (which my girlfriend handled beautifully by answering the phone and confusing the stalker) we arrive. For the next three days we spent our time chilling, watching DVDs, looking round shop, taking in the local countryside (which is beautiful mountain range), and drinking lots of wine. Not to get completely bladdered, but it was a case of drinking wine at every moment. We only saw things near the Cardiff area, it'd be nice to see more of Wales.

We even managed to get a chance to visit the Avebury Stones as a detour before going home. As well as the usual stone sights there was a stand that was selling yearly memberships to the National Trust. M and I looked at each and though "This is something you join when you're officially old."

It was a pretty fun 5 day Bank Holiday weekend. Granted that was on the 25^th-29^th August, two weeks ago. But hell, I've been busy with stuff. Including cooking my first ever roast over the last weekend. I am truly a man of the house!

25 Aug 2006 Twinkies: The final verdict

In my teenage years I went to the USA with my Dad and his girlfriend at the time for a holiday. I also took my old school friend along. We had
fun during the two weeks. One day my Dad bought a twelve pack of twinkies. I was excited; I was going to get the infamous twinkie I've
heard so much about on TV (mainly the Simpsons quote made by Apu "Silly customer, you cannot hurt a twinkie!")

However my dreams were to be shattered when I discovered my friend had eaten them all like a glutton. I didn't even get to look at a twinkie,
let alone try one. To this day I still hold a faint feeling of animosity towards him, and a heavy feeling in my heart that I may never get to try
the golden treat in my lifetime...

Until now. Thanks to my girlfriend, after her two week training/holiday in America, she brought me back a packet of twinkies! My face lit up with joy. Ladies and gentlemen I present to you The Twinkie™:



I unwrapped the packaging like a child on Easter with a grin on my face. I carefully peeled one from the wrapper and I took a bite out of it...

It was the taste of disappointment.

It didn't taste very good at all. The cake and the cream had a really nasty chemically sensation. It felt really artificial in my mouth. The
more I chewed the less I liked but I had to finish the twinkie I had in my hand. So I ended it, thus my dreams of enjoying a twinkie had ended too.

All this for a buck 25. My girlfriend and I got ripped-off.

This is the cake-like delight that has Americans ranting on about it? It's nasty! What's wrong with you people??

15 Aug 2006 It's a-coming... Something... Newer...

Bear with me a while will ya?

I'm working on an update for a part of the Grax Domain. Fact is I've been working on-off it for the past few months (mostly because I've been distracted by everything).

Anyway, there's a fair bit to do but it's the home stretch.

Here's hoping I get something by the end of this weekend. ^_^

6 Aug 2006 [insert good title here]

*Steal funny idea for entry from this site*

[Insert funny and witty entry here]

*Feel a wee bit shameful and naughty*

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