The Grax Domain

18 Aug 2008 iPhone 3G Review

9 Jul 2008 Kieronononon Review

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

Sometimes you can get bored or frustrated with the common bands and genres in the mainstream music society. People turn to Internet Social Networks like MySpace to satisfy their needs for something totally random. Sometimes they get lucky and discover a band like Kieronononon.

Band members Orta, Float Star Point (pronounced (float*)(p->x) ) and Goat-Boy spewed out a new music genre for all to enjoy; Brutal Techno Punk.

Kierononon's brutal techno punk sound is an angry, aggressive sound, with a hint of odd humour. Now you might be forgiven to think that this a bunch of random noise because it's unlike anything you will ever hear in the mainstream charts, or even outside the mainstream charts. To me when I first heard Kierononon, it sounded like three guys with a couple of guitars and a drum synthesizer kit making random noise, and I didn't really give it the time of the day. But then I gave it a second chance and I listened to it again. And then somehow it fitted together and actually started to sound decent. Now I could see that it was three guys just messing about with a couple of guitars and a drums synthesizer producing and recording something decent.

Kierononon have improved with time and experience and this is evident in their newest album "Brutaltechnopunk". The sound quality is vastly improved compared to their earlier albums "More Interesting than nik Naks" and "More boring than Poison". It's as if one of the band members was fiddling about with the sound editing software, found some new settings, unticked the "suck ass" checkbox and cranked up the "bad ass" slider to max.

However the music is only part of the story. You see Kierononon at their best when they play live. I watched Kierononon perform live at a local pub in Leamington Spa. This was their final ever tour... just like the last tour... and the tour before that.... There's something about the thumping noise from the big speakers, the bass player Float twanging his strings and fiddling with knobs, the front man Orta screeching and mincing in front of everyone, the Goatboy being all.... Goatboy-ish that brought a smile to my face. You can tell that they're enjoying themselves on stage and that only helps to improve the music.There was a large crowd surrounding the stage area at the begining of the show. By the end of the show the number had shrunk to about half. But that's ok, Kierononon is only for awesome people.

When you first hear Kierononon you might get put off and decide to run from it like a mental patient running away from the doctors with their medication and their straight jackets. But this band is a grower. Give it a few more tries and it may broaden your mind to what can be done with music.

If you're not put off initially by the sounds of this brutal techno punk then that makes you pretty awesome.

To find out more on Kieronononon head to their MySpace page at http://www.myspace.com/kieronononon or head to their record label's website at http://www.roxxor2.co.uk/.

Man someone should really write a wikipedia entry for this band.

15 May 2008 Iron Man movie review

They release a movie based upon a comic character that you're not exactly a huge fan of. Oh sure you might have a couple of their issues and they may make the odd cameo appearance in your usual comics, but nothing that would make you take notice. Then you see the trailer for said comic character that makes the movie look totally kick-ass (like the trailer is designed to). What do you do? In my case I took a risk and watched Iron Man at the cinema.

Fortunately Iron Man was just as good as the trailer promised.

There's lots of different sides to the story. Yes there's Iron Man in action. But there's also Tony Stark, the arrogant yet loveable prick that makes people smile because he's that damn good. There's Tony Stark, the guy who get the life changing experience and gains the responsibilities of a super-hero (as you do). Robert Downey Jr. does a fantastic job in his role.

The pacing of the movie was good too. They did the old 'Tell the whole origin story but condense it into a short space of time and yet lose none of the details' trick, which makes it very accessible for everyone. You've not going to get lost with confusing in this plot. On the other hand there were lots of tibbets for Marvel fan that'll make 'em smile, not to mention all the hints they drop that scream "sequel!" (which they're gonna do) or "spin-off!" (which I believe they are also gonna do).

Iron Man is a movie I can easily recommend to people to watch. Even more so to comic fans. It had me smiling throughout. This movie has helped to restore my faith in Marvel movie again. Maybe now they'll stop making bad Marvel movies like Daredevil and Spider-Man 2 & 3 and keep making high quality movies like Iron Man.

Whatever you do, stay till after the credits.

18 Nov 2007 Waking Life movie review

Waking Life is the story about a man who is experiencing a series of dreams one after the other. That's the best way to describe it because there isn't really a plot in the movie in the traditional sense. Throughout the movie is a series of shorts that talk about deep, philosophical ideas, ranging from life, reality, consciousness, religion, society, dreams, and many other subjects. You not so much watching a story but more like taking part in a deep intellectual exercise.

And the way movie presents itself can only be described as art. Rather than being traditional video, the movie is essentially hand drawn over each frame of the video to create a cartoon, art experience. This allows for some very artist effects. The scenery shifts and changes, peoples features become exaggerate as they speak, clouds of symbolism appear subtly out of peoples mouths. The whole thing really does look like a dream.

This is not a brain-dead movie that you sit down to and mindlessly enjoy. Yes you can simply observe the pretty colours and movement but then you miss out of so much depth. If you take on board the assault of big words and expressions then you discover a whole world of ideas that, even though you mind not have heard of them often, somehow it makes perfect sense and you wonder why you don't hear it more often.

I really enjoyed watching this movie and I cannot recommend watching this enough. It's one of those things that people should experience at least once. At the end it'll make you think about life in a different way and think "Hmm, maybe I can give this whole 'waking dream' thing a go".

GRAX RATING : 5/5

28 Oct 2007 TMNT review

There really isn't that much to say about this film, which is about four mutant turtles getting caught up in an ancient warrior's desire to create a vortex to a parallel dimension to harness its power, whilst at the same time Leonardo and Raphael having their own brotherly feud.

The animation style reminded me of The Incredibles, which pleases me.

When things really heated up between Leonardo and Raphael it pleased me.

The fact that Donatello and Michaelangelo got disproportionately less air time than the other two brothers displeases me.

The story itself is adequate, though it's not going to win any awards.

The whole thing is quite serious and not childish, which pleases me. The fact that the movie is nothing like the 90's cartoon series pleases me even more.

In summery TMNT is a good film to kill around an hour and 15 minutes of your time. Certainly worth a rent but unless you are a huge fan of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles it'll probably only get watched once or twice.

Still, it would be nice to see some kind of sequel of TMNT.

GRAX RATING: 3/5

4 Aug 2007 Transformers The Movie (2007) review

I didn't want to like this. When I first heard that they were gonna be making a live action/cgi movie on the transformers, I had feelings of dread thinking that they would ruin the franchise. And yet I heard on the streets that Michael Bay has done a good job at it. Even the more harsh critics thought it was good. So I had no choice but to brave it and sacrifice £7 to see what all the fuss is about.

It's actually a good film. A really good film.

It's not 'drag your girlfriend' good, but still very good.

Obviously the effects are spot on, but there's more to it than that. Shia LaBeouf is good, and has funny moments too. Peter Cullen, the original voice of Optimus Prime, is in it. The transformers, though each have new looks, they all look realistic, like you would accept that it would happen in the real world. There are Transformers quotes in the movie.

There's lots of nice touches that made me smile on more than on occasion.

It's definately one of those films that you can quite happily see more than once. A feast for the eyes.

Sometimes I hate being wrong about things.

GRAX RATING: 4/5

14 May 2007 Spider-Man 3 movie review

Sometimes it can be a pain being a comic book fanboy, especially when it comes to movies. It makes you go to the cinema to watch the movie adaptation ignoring the inner voices telling you that it is an abomination.I myself have recently put myself through watching all of Spider-Man 3 just so I can get a glimpse of what someone else thinks Venom (one of my all time favourite fave comic characters) should look like on the silver screen. Fortunately the rest of the movie was not so bad.

Spider-man 3 sees our friendly neighbourhood Spider-Person enjoying the perks of having it all, a city that cheers for the hero, a beautiful girlfriend he plans to marry; then it starts to go all downhill, partly due to an certain extra-terrestrial symbiote. Not to mention a couple of other super-villains.

One of the good points of the film is the action sequences when Spidey gets fighting one of the villains. It does a good job of keeping the audience entertained, smiling at the computer-generated stunts, wincing at the rather painful looking collisions that occur. However the movie starts to suffer when it's out of the action sequences and starts to get into the story, where the story dragged on, the ending got very sloppy, and people where looking at their watches wondering when Venom will make his appearance.

What, you think people paid £7 to see Sandman? I think not.

Speaking of Venom I think Topher Grace did a god job portraying him despite his somewhat limited air time. He got the point across that he believes Peter Parker screwed him over life and wanted to make him suffer. And the CGI Venom was also pretty good, even though you only get to see about 20 minutes or so of him. And the fact he's not as bulky as this comic counterpart. Other than those minor points Venom was a good addition and deserves much more airtime. The other two villains, Sandman and The Green Goblin (Harry Osborn), I felt were shoe-horned into the movie to make the story work so I'm not going to talk about them. Me being biased towards Venom? I tend to agree.

Even though I enjoyed Spider-man 3 a lot more than Spider-man 2, which I felt had way really cheesy acting and Spider-man suffering from reveal-his-secret-identity-to-everyone-itis, I can only recommend you wait for the DVD release or even wait until it comes to TV. Of course my words of caution won't deter all those Venom fans out there, they're going to go see him at the cinema anyway. Hell I wouldn't follow my own advice either.

Oh one last thing to the people who made Spider-man 3. Giving Peter Parker an emo fringe does not make him a bad-ass; it gets him laughed at! I swear he wore a little eye-liner at one point too. I don't blame you Tobey Maguire. After all you were only doing your job.

GRAX RATING: 3/5 (less if you're not a Venom fan).

11 May 2007 Pandora's music box

I've recently found this rather funky online music player. It's called Pandora and it's created by the Music Genome Project. What it is in a nutshell is a Flash based music player that plays music based upon what the music sounds like and what other bands have a similar sound. Or something like that.

For example my favourite band is Alice in Chains. I create a station using the band's name as a criteria. Then Pandora plays music either by Alice in Chains themselves or other bands that sound similar to them. It also works on song titles too. It's a pretty bad-ass way of discovering new bands that you may never would have considered. You can create as many stations as you like and mix and match them as you like.

On top of that you can rate each song being played by whether you like it or not. If you like it the station will play that song more often, if you don't then the station will not play that song ever again.

The only minor negative points I have about Pandora are that sometime it tends to loop through some of the song you like a bit too often (but you can say that you're bored of the song and then it won't appear again for a month) and that because of some licensing issues you can only skip a certain number of tracks per hour per station (but you can simply change stations at that point).

Pandora is a great little online music player to use if you're bored of your music collection, or if you fancy listening out for some new tracks.

Give Pandora a try, you might discover a little musical gem.

GRAX RATING: 4/5

6 Apr 2007 Mambo CMS review

Mambo is the biggest pile of shit I have ever come across. It is difficult to use, even harder to work with, incredibly rigid, not standard compliant, the list goes on. It angers my blood! It's made my life a little less enjoyable to live. It ruined my last relationship with my ex-girlfriend¹! I wish I never met Mambo version 4.53.

GRAX RATING: 0/5

I suppose you'll be wanting a bit more than the summary. Let me explain.

Mambo is an open-source CMS that allows people to easily manage any part of their website without in-depth knowledge of web programming skills. The idea is you install all the necessary files and database on your server, then using the admin system you populate the site with content, choose a layout and you're done. It's suppose to be quick and simple.

This sounded very appealing because it would be great to give to clients who wanted to change every aspect of their website but are not IT literate. One of the advantages is that it is completely free to use due to some open-source rules, so people can modify any part of the Mambo system to work any way they wish. Indeed there are many plug-in modules made by the community to do many different and wonderfully usefully things.

The version I tested out was version 4.53 because it was recommended to be the most stable, even more stable than the latest version that was released (something like 4.62).

Let me list all the things wrong with Mambo, in no particular order...

Not W3C Standards Compliant
Mambo does not follow these standards. Run the validation test and see the huge list of errors that follows.

Uses TABLE tags for web layout
There is virtually no use of CSS to generate it's layout. You're practically stuck with the layout format you're given. Not given much room to flex those creative muscles. And I'm sure many web programmers out there will understand how much of a pain in the ass it is to try and modify anything in tables.

It's HUGE
You have to install hundreds upon hundreds of files on your server to use Mambo, not to mention the database filled with a couple dozen tables with a few hundred plus records. Websites are meant to be small and streamline, not a huge lummox. The end result; a website that runs very slowly even with a broadband connect. Which also leads to the next point...

It's a nightmare to debug
I kid you not; there is thousands upon thousands of lines of code. PHP classes and functions from one file that call functions from a different class from a different file in a different directory. You'll be spending a good couple of hours searching in this labyrinth trying to figure out how one of the Mambo pages worth. Before you even try to tackle the bug you're fixing.

Some of the files are practically empty and seem to serve no useful purpose
'nuff said.

Poor use of JavaScript
I'll ignore the fact that it has embedded JavaScript code within the web pages for now, the biggest sin that Mambo commits is using JavaScript to actually make some parts of the website functional. Namely on one part of the Mambo website it used JavaScript to act like a hyperlink... rather than using the actual Anchor tag as a hyper link... So if you have no JavaScript enabled you're kinda stuck.

Admin - Mambo is NOT very intuitive
To create a new page in its own menu category one has to create the new category area, then has to create the static page, then has to link the page to the right menu, then has to make sure the menu is linked ot the right module. I'm IT literate and it took me a while to get use to this pattern.

Admin - Cannot copy and paste bulk text from MS Word into the admin area unless it's IE
So if you're trying to create a new page in any other browser (apart from IE) and you wish to copy and paste a lot of text from a Word document to the text area, it pops up with an message saying "No no no , you can't do that bub. That would be too easy." and then ignores you. How effing random and annoying is that??

The Admin navigation intially broke in IE7
This has been recently fix

It make me groan with dread every time the subject of Mambo comes up in conversation...

Mambo is the biggest pile of shit I have ever come across. It is difficult to use, even harder to work with, incredibly rigid, not standard compliant, the list goes on. It angers my blood! It's made my life a little less enjoyable to live. It ruined my last relationship with my ex-girlfriend¹! I wish I never met Mambo version 4.53.

GRAX RATING: 0/5


¹ - Not really. But it might as well have, it's so bad.

11 Feb 2007 Labtec Ultra Flat Wireless Desktop review

My computer desk is a mess. There's klutter all over the place, blocking access to my keyboard and mouse. So naturally the perfect solution would be for me to get a wireless keyboard and mouse bundle. I didn't want to spend a lot of money on it (an £80 bundle would be silly) so I settled for a Labtec Ultra Flat Wireless Desktop after being drawn to it's slim design and not-too-much-not-too-little price tag.

*sigh* Keyboards and mice should not be this much hassle...

I unpacked the kit, looked at the instructions, plugged in the USB wireless receiver, got the keyboard and mouse connected and everything seemed to be working fine. Thumbs up. I then proceed to install the bloatware on the CD that is provided, after all I figured that's where the hotkey magic comes from and I wanted to encourage my laziness with hotkeys. However trouble struck after I restarted my computer.

The keyboard was working happily, but the mouse would keep cutting out. I'm not talking just a lack of signal, I'm talking the mouse would just loose power and die despite the fresh batteries inside its belly. Pull the batteries out, plug them back in, the mouse works ok for about 5 minutes then dies again. Repeat again and again. I tried uninstalling the bloatware, the drivers for the keyboard and mouse, restarting the computer over and over again, swearing, nothing was working. I must have gotten a dud set.

So I return to where I got the set from and asked for a replacement. After returning home and unpacking everything and plugging everything again I try to connect the mouse. And glory-be it works! It didn't die unexpectedly. Great, now lets get the keyboard working. That should be ok.

Oh no it wasn't...

This new keyboard was very unresponsive, it only registered a key being pressed after the fourth or fifth frustrating attempt. And now it had affect the mouse so that the pointer was jerking all over rather than gliding across the screen. By this point I'd had enough.

I was drawn to the though of having the freedom to browse the Internet from the comforts of my bed. I loved the slim, laptop-esque design with the handy hotkeys. I could quite happily ignore the slight pause from the mouse as you moved it from its idle mode. I really wanted this to work.

I am very unimpressed with this shoddy attempt at wireless keyboard and mouse technology. I returned it from whence it came and got my money back. I shall search through the internet for this product and add a negative review to the small but significant pile of negative reviews as a warning. Oh why didn't I heed their warnings? And finally I shall end this review with a bad mark for the Labtec Ultra Flat Wireless Desktop set. Shame on you Labtec. You make such adequate speakers, why did you go and ruin my experience with wireless desktops?

GRAX RATING: 0/5

One last note; you don't want to be using a wireless keyboard if you play games like FPS. The slight pause with the mouse and keyboard every time you leave them idle will ruin your game. Stick to the wired sets.

4 Dec 2006 Wicked the novel review

After watching the musical and being told that it had changed most of the storyline I had the urge to read the book and see the actual story that Gregory Maguire had written. I've finished reading the story and it was indeed greatly distorted in the musical. For you see the story in the book is much, much darker...

This is a story of a green-skinned woman named Elphaba. Born into a family that hated her (a preacher of a father, a harlot of a mother, a sister with a handicap, and a brother that hardly gets mentioned) the story unfolds through Elphaba's childhood, her time at University (where she meet Glinda), her life in her elder years and finally her confrontation with Dorothy.

This story I liked. I liked the plot and how it all panned out from start to finish with various twist along the way. I liked how the story was written overall. I found it engaging and made you want to read more and more to find out what happened next. I liked how it was all dark and sinister, which the musical was not. Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy the musical for what it is (a family-oriented enjoyment show with a happy ending) but I just prefer darker story-telling.

My only complaint about the book was the last third of the book. I felt the ending was very rushed, as if Gregory Maguire was given a 500 page limit for the book and he'd already used up 400 of those pages to tell half the story. It would have been nice if he had an extra hundred pages or so to expand and enrich the story a bit more rather than rushing to the finally.

Regardless Wicked is a fine book to read if you want to expand your mind along the subject of The Land of Oz. However this book should not be found in the children's section of the book store or library as it is quite adult-orientated.

Well how else would you describe one page of the book dedicated to beastality?

GRAX RATING: 4/5

12 Nov 2006 Wicked: The untold story of the Witches of Oz Musical review

I'm not going to say that it's wicked. That would be far too easy and I bet that witty remark has been said to death a thousand times before.

But it was very good, that much is true.

It is based on the novel Wicked It is a story that tells the tale of the Wicked Witch of the West (aka Elfaba Elphaba) in her earlier years before her confrontation with Dorothy.

It sheds a different light on the Wicked Witch of the West.

It has a bit of a weak start (standard issue 'background filler' storytelling), but quickly developed into an enjoyable show.

It has great music, spectacular sets, eye-catching costumes and fantastic singing; especially from the stand-in for the lead role WWOTW (note the stand-in, not the official lead actress).

It was a very good show to watch that captured the essence of the novel.

But, according to various sources that have both seen the musical and read the novel, the musical's first half skips over large chunks of the story in the book and the second half was completely re-written for the musical. It's been speculated that it has something to do with making the musical a more family-orientated show, whilst the book is much darker and more adult.

Hmm... it makes me want to read the book now. And all the other Oz books too.

Anyway, Wicked is a good musical and it's worth going to see on stage.

GRAX RATING: 3.5/5

I bet there will be a movie based on this musical, like they did with The Producers. Which is a bit of a shame as I'd rather they based it on the darker novel.

1 Nov 2006 X-Men 3 movie review

Remember when I ranted on about how I felt that X-Men 3 was going to be rubbish because of a whole bunch of fan-boy reasons? Well, turns out it wasn't that bad.

I mean it's not award-winning material, but it wasn't that bad.

The plot for this movie in a nutshell is the government has developed a way of permanently neutralising the mutant gene, which turns mutants into normal humans (or 'curing' them in their words). Naturally this causes a bit of an upset in the mutant community, and the X-Men get involved. Oh and Jean Grey is alive but is much more powerful and has a split personality called Phoenix, who is very mean indeed.

I quite liked this film because it made an obvious statement that says "This has nothing to do with the Marvel Universe. We're going to change lots of things but it's got nothing to do with the Marvel Universe so quite yer whining". For example (I don't want to give away too much detail of the movie) there are a few major characters that die. It makes you take notice and think "Oh... They're actually dead... They're not coming back... How controversal". It was rather refreshing.

I was right about The Juggernaut though. He was rather pants. He wasn't big, he shouldn't be a mutant and the in-joke reference was a little uncalled for.

Bottom line is X-Men is an ok movie. You down really need to watch the previous X-Men movies, well you down really need to watch this movie to be honest, it won't enrich your lives any more than it is. It's a bit of no-brain fun. Fanboy and non-fanboy alike will feel equally indifferent about it.

A DVD rental at the most if you can get it for a buck or something.

GRAX RATING: 2/5

... Oh yeah, Hugh Jackman was pretty awesome. But then I quite like him anyway.

19 Jul 2006 Rocky Horror Picture Show Review

There's one word that comes to mind when I think of the Rocky Horror Picture Show stage musical; fun.

The basic plotline is a newly engaged couple called Brad (asshole) and Janet (slut) have a breakdown in an isolated area and must pay a call to the bizarre residence of Dr. Frank-N-Furter. Well, it's not that bizarre really if you often see sweet transvestive mad scientists in persue of making "the perfect man", along with cross-gender sex scenes, aliens from Transylvania, and lots of singing and dancing.

The whole experience was brilliant from start to finish. The actors were all true to their characters and they had really strong singing voices. The performace was entertaining and engaging. I didn't know at the time but the audience were allowed (nay, encouraged) to shout out at the actor in an attempt to put them off (which did breifly happen on some occasions).

Speaking of audience participation, some of the people in the audience dressed up as the characters in the musical. I was warned about this in advance. So I joined in and dressed up as Eddie (or more like a variation of Eddie. Nothing quite screams out 80s like a denim jacket):





I look stunning in my custom denim jacket, wouldn't you agree?

The only minor complaint I had with the whole thing was the actor playing at Dr. Frank-N-Furter, and its only cos I'm comparing it to the movie's doctor performed by Tim Curry. Sure the guy had the look, but his voice was... I dunno... too manly. There wasn't a hint of gay campness in his voice, like there is with Tim Curry's voice. But that's cos I'm spoilt by the perfection that is Tim Curry as the good doctor. It didn't spoil the overall experience really.

Bottom line is if you haven't seen it for God sake go see it. Better yet, go rent the DVD, watch it, re-watch it with the "audience participation" feature activated, learn yer lines, dress up, and then go watch the stage show. Your life will be that little bit more fun because of it.

GRAX RATING: 5/5

18 Apr 2006 Second Life (or how I'm wasting my life away)

Hey.

It's been a while since I've written stuff down and there's one main reason why this is so. Back in mid February I decided to try out a free trial period of the PC game called Second Life. I think it was one of those low moments due to it being Valentines week and the women of the world had passed up a great looking guy AGAIN. They just don't know a great deal when they see one I guess. =/

Anyway it's been over two months since the trial period ran out and I'm still playing it. So I'm writing to review, partly to warn you all that it's a little bit addictive...

When I first logged in after choosing my name (Grax of course) I was initially overwhelmed. Initially unclear controls, no instruction manual, basic choppy graphics (I am a graphics whore, faster is better in my books) I was about to give it all up within ten minutes of playing. But I gave it another chance. I stumbled to the tutorial area, I asked the locals for help and they gave me a hand. Now I was able to alter my avatar to look nearly like my handsome Graxly self (Not 100% mind) and shaping things using the given tools.

The basic idea of the game Second Life is that you can do anything you want, be anything you want. You are given the tools to achieve this somewhat daunting feat. There is a simple 3D modelling tool, not unlike a simple version of 3D Studio MAX, which allows you to make 3D objects within this virtual. It may feel limited at first, but then you realise that the people in Second Life have created marvellous thing using a series of simple primitive objects. There is a programming language built into this virtual world that is similar to JAVA, which allows you to program some life into the objects that you create. Also worth noting is the fact that there is a real-life stock market within the game. You can pour real life money into the game and, if you happen to make a lot of in-game money, you can withdraw the virtual money for real cash. Got a business idea, make a real life profit in a virtual world.

So with all this potential it easy to see why people are lured into this game (although the word 'game' is misleading in this context, it's more like a virtual world or an over glorified chat room). Who wouldn't want to do or be anything they want? I myself wanted to make various droids and what not, like I did when playing Star Wars Galaxies only this time they would actually do more. I wanted to create! So now what am I doing...? I'm spending all my free time gambling my money, going to nightclubs and womanizing strippers... Yeah, really doing well there.

(But in my defence doing the strip club thing in Second Life is no worse than doing it in Real Life, in fact it could be arguably better. I've been to a real life strip club once and was given a dance. 5-10 minutes of sitting there with you hands behind you back, not allowed to touch, she swaying and teasing you, then you're short ™20. In Second Life you sit staring at your screen not being able to touch the Poser quality avatar doing the same animation loop over and over whilst they type in sexy words into the chat window all night. All for about ™2.00 worth of game money. See? You're no worse off.)

I have done other things in the game to earn some petty cash, like hosting events and being a DJ at events (which simply consists of downloading some broadcasting software, playing music one after the other, and talking shit on the mic). It's just wasn't what I was expecting to be doing in the game.

The thing I'm hooked on is the chat room mentality of it all. It's so easy to go into an area of some sort and just start chatting away to a random person for hours. And everyone is so friendly. There are the occasional pricks that ruin it for everyone by acting like dicks, but they serve as a way to shake things up a bit; keeping people on their toes. It's like being in the chat rooms of yesteryear, when you just starting out on AOL because you didn't know better. You don't get this kind of social interaction in other MMORPGs like World of Warcraft because you're bogged down with doing missions.

The thing is it's all too good. I'm spending all my free time playing on rather than doing the other stuff I should be doing, like out-of-work-hours work, showering and eating. The only time I normally stop playing and go outside is when I have to go to work. It's gotten to the point where I've paid for my monthly subscription in advance. Four months worth! I've never done that for a game before. My name is Grax and I am addicted to Second Life.

I read a gaming review about this game and it summed it up nicely in one sentence; so I'm going to paraphrase it. To get the most out of the game you have to buy into the game; you need to allow yourself to be fully engulfed in this virtual fantasy world where the resident really do create the content. Other wise you might end up wonder what the big deal is.

As for people with addictive personalities like me, it's best not to start or you'll won't be getting out in a while.

GRAX RATING: 4/5 (2/5 if you don't believe in it)

17 Dec 2005 Open Waters Review

There are times where I don't like my job as a reviewer. It's the times where it becomes a chore to expose myself to the boring medium that I think "Why do I bother?" That was one of the many negative feelings I had when I watching Open Waters, along with "This is crap" and "Why the hell is that shot in the movie?? This scene does nothing for the movie". A movie that tried to capture the thriller feel of The Blair Witch Project but fails to do so.

So here's the full story; a couple go on holiday for an open water scuba diving experience, they get left behind due to a stupid error in head counting by the staff, they float around... float around some more.... have pointless arguments... flaot some more........ Oh yeah they get stung by jellyfish and get nibbled at by fish.... float some more.... vomit and piss themselves... float... gets dark.... man gets eaten by sharks.... women gives up and dies.... the end.... So nothing really happens.

The whole thing is boring to watch and you just don't care for the characters. Even at the end with all the (two) deaths you couldn't care less about the characters. I even think the film was padding out with pointless shots at random things because they just didn't have enough tape material. "Oooh I know, lets film that seagull for a minute, that'll buy us some time".

I even got bored writing this review! While I was writing this I got bored so I watched a bit of The House of the Dead movie and then proceeded to punish myself with a barbed whip.

In short, don't waste your money watching this movie. You'll demand your money and your 80 minutes of your life back from the video rental store.

GRAX RATING: 0/5

4 Sep 2005 House of the Dead movie review

There has been many many movies that have been based on successful video games. Movies like Resident Evil, Street Fighter (with Van-Damn), and Mortal Kombat: Annihilation. These movies sucked so much! To even mention their name is to call forth a choir of verbal abuse to the film and to yourself for mentioning the name. The House of the Dead movie falls into this category of badness.

The storyline goes something along the lines of 4 college buddies goes to a mysterious island for a rave, it's mysteriously empty, they find zombies, they run away, they find more survivors, they each die one by one, they kill off many zombies, try to survive, yadda yadda yadda. The cast include a few college guys, three or four college girls (with token black girl and token Chinese girl who knows martial arts. Hey all Chinese people automatically know martial arts, fact), a salty sailor, a captain of a boat/smuggler, a female cop, and zombies. There is more to the storyline, but it's not important.

So where does this movie go wrong? Let me count the ways...

The first that happened when I slapped the DVD into my computer was that I was greeted by the "The House of the Dead" sound bite from the original HOTD video game. Wha? Where did that come from?? And when you press play and throughout the entire film you are shown clips from the HOTD2 video game. What the hell's going on? Is it so badly lacking decent material that they felt that had to pad it out with game footage? I think that when the original producers/director begged SEGA to do this movie the people at SEGA said "Fine, we'll let you make this, but you have to put in clips of the game. Sales of HOTD2 on the Dreamcast have been slow. Oh and you have to put on our corporate logo at the start of the movie". But that's not the worst of it.

The acting is appalling. It's like all the actors went to the "Resident Evil School of Bad Acting™" and failed it they're so bad! One of the characters, the female cop, doesn't even act! She talked all her lines, showing no emotions in her tone or in her face. Where the hell did they picked this woman from?? I bet this was a typical scene that the directors had difficulties with. The only character that I did like was the salty sea sailor who's name sounded like Sally. He knew that this film was going to be shit so he thought "Ah what the hell I'll be cheesy and crap. I'm still getting paid by those fools". All the zombies move about like broadway dancers, jazz hands and all, which is not necessarily a bad thing. I'm all for the performing arts being used more and more in the world of media. Everyone should know the joys of dance.

But as for all the characters, talk about stupid! All the characters are a bunch of stupid fucks, with death wishes. A prime example is when the Scooby gang return to the deserted rave scene. Suddenly the black girl turns off screen and said "Guys, what is that?", the camera turns to what she sees.... And it's a port-a-loo. A God damn port-a-loo! I even screamed at her saying "It's a port-a-loo you dumb fuck!" Another moment of suicide stupidity is when they're trying to get back to the boat that is infested with zombies and the gang can see this, but STILL one of the guys run to the boat like a lemming! Idiot! They all pointlessly act as bait. This strip sums up exactly what I'm talking about.

Now the tagline that goes with this film is "The Matrix meets Dawn of the Dead" (another sign that it's going to be a bad film). The only reason for this is one scene. Halfway through the film the Scooby gang need to get back into a house but it's completely overrun by zombies. Luckily the captain of the boat just so happened to have a big box of guns for everyone to play with. Full lock and loaded they storm in and start shooting everything that moves. This is where the producers blew a lot of their budget. What follows is a series of people walking slowly shooting at an endless stream of zombies, with the camera panning around them 360 style, with the odd "bullet time effect" throw in for good measure, to some random gansta rap soundtrack, for about 4 minutes! Man it's so dull. I kept looking at my watch going "Is it over yet?"

I felt so cheated at the end of the movie. I didn't rent this movie and I still wanted my money back. I went to my friend whom I borrowed the film off, I told him "I want my money back bitch!" and punched him in the nuts! Well I didn't punch him to be fair, but I did demand a refund.

Avoid this film. Don't say I didn't warn ya.

GRAX RATING: 0/5

At least there are a lot of naked boobies in the film, although they were not very big. They can't even get that right!

26 Jun 2005 Movie reviews on the fly: Sin City, Star Wars Episode 3, and Batman Begins

Right you 'orrible lot, I haven't done a review for a while and I saw three movies a few weeks ago. But I don't want to bore you with all the details because quite frankly, I can't be arsed to write a lot. So I'll just bottom-line each film for ease of reading and evaluating.

Star Wars Episode 3: Ultimately it a good movie and I did enjoy watching it. Much better than the previous two. The bad points are the shoddy dialogue, plot flaws, and other annoying bits. The point is this; I could have done a better job with the film than George. GRAX RATING: 3/5.

Batman Begins: Surprizingly well done. This film breaks the trend of crappy Batman Movies. The story, the action, and the actors were all spot on (except for Katie Holmes, she's just deadweight in the film). You can even ignore the glaringly obvious plot flaw in the movie it's that good. I imagine I would like the film less if I knew much about Batman and the DC comic universe, but I don't so it's all good. GRAX RATING: 4/5.

Sin City: Style, pure style. Easily the best film out of the three. It makes me want to see it again and not a lot of films do that to me. Go and see this movie, you won't regret it. GRAX RATING 4.5/5

10 Apr 2005 The Syndicate Supernightclub, Blackpool Review

For Stag weekend in Blackpool we spent every night in The Syndicate superclub. I've gotten a pretty good idea of what it's like so here's a review.

The whole venue is seperate into three rooms, one large and two huge. Each room has a particuar genre of music being played, e.g. mainstream music in one room, R&B/hip-hop in another, dance anthem music, etc. This allows a person to choose the room that matches his musical taste.

The largest of the rooms has huge speakers surrounding the place that are so loud and basey they make the very cells in your body vibrate, just the way I like it. And get this, in this room the dance floor rotates in a circle! This little extra touch only adds to the experience.

I also had the pleasure of seeing the BBC Radio 1 DJ Dave Pierce mixing away on one of the nights. Who is Dave Pierce? I dunno, just some nobody DJ that plays dance tracks.

One thing that ruined the night for me was the cloak room. There was this old fat woman who looks like someone's neglected grandmother working there. I handed over my ticket once the night was over and she gave me some random jacket rather than my suit jacket. After I had a go at her she said that I had to wait until she and another person dealt with everyone else. I had to wait half an hour, thusly creating congestion for everyone else waiting for their jackets, before she even considered looking for mine. Long story short, don't give in your garments to the cloakroom if it's being manned by an old lady, you'll get it lost.

Despite the shortcomings of the cloackroom, The Syndicate is a great place to go if you're ever in Blackpool. And at the door tell them that Grax send you. Then tell me what happens.

GRAX RATING: 4/5

12 Mar 2005 Resident Evil: Apocalypse Review

Two movie reviews in one day? Fun Times!

Picking up where the last film left off Alice (Milla Jovovich) wakes up in Raccoon City, which happens to be overrun by zombies that are infected with the darn T-Virus™ created by Umbrella™. Meanwhile we find Jill Valentine and Carlos Olivera getting quarantined in this stinking city thank to Umbrella™. That's right, unlike the last film the producers decided to try and follow the basic storyline of the computer game and use characters from it (in this case it's Resident Evil 3, they've even got Nemesis in the film). Later on Alice, Jill and Carlos bump into each other and are told by some Scientist in a wheelchair to go get her daughter who's trapped in the city. The gang also bump into Nemesis once or twice. Well it's more like Alice takes on Nemesis. More on that later.

I actually quite like this film. It's much better than the first film, mainly because they've included characters from the games rather than make something up. The film gets a bit action-film cheesy at times but it's forgivable. For example in the beginning Carlos jumps out of an airborne helicopter to rescue a woman from zombies but she commits suicide anyway because she got bitten by a zombie (that ungrateful harlot :P ). As great as it was seeing Jill Valentine in her blue boob tube top, there were still bits that annoyed me, namely the storyline with Alice and Nemesis.

Turns out that Alice remembers that she use to work for Umbrella™ and they experimented on her and turned her into some sort of super-soldier. Y'know enhanced strength, endurance, speed, senses, the usual stuff. They did the same to Nemesis, though he ended up looking ugly in a cool way. Anyway Umbrella™ wanted to see which of these two weapons were better so they pitched them against each other. In fact later on the film the big boss of Umbrella captures the gang and forces Alice to fight Nemesis Mortal Kombat style. The scene went something like this:

[Big Boss and Alice are facing each other with Jill, Carlos, the daughter, the scientist, and some random civilian being held captive]
Big Boss: Now I have you in my grasp Alice. I want you to find Nemesis over there Mortal Kombat Style.
Alice: What?
Big Boss: You heard me. Fight Nemesis to the death. He's standing right over there.
Nemesis: S.T.A.R.S
Alice: Why should I?
Big Boss: Because that's why you were made. We here at Umbrella™ need to find out which out of you two is the best.
Nemesis: S.T.A.R.S
Alice: Yeah right. You're just making us fight because you couldn't think of anything better to do with this crappy storyline. Plus you're hoping that I'll get my clothes torn off and you'll get to see nipples!
Big Boss: That's not true
Alice: Yes it is you perv!
Nemesis: S.T.A.R.S.
Alice and Big Boss: SHUT UP!!
Nemesis: [cowers] ..... S.T.A.R.S?
Big Boss: Look just fight him. Overwise I'll kill one of your friends over there.
Alice: You think I care about them?
[Big Boss smiles and shoots the scientist. Daughter cries]
Alice: ... You know you could've shot that civilian over there. He's kinda annoying.
Civilian: Hey!
Alice: *sigh* Fine, I'll fight Nemesis to the death.
Big Boss: [hunches over like Mr Burns] Excellent.
[Alice and Nemesis move into fighting position. The battle theme music from the Kirk/Lizard guy fight scene from Star Trek kicks in]

And that's exactly how the scene played out. In my mind. Anyway I feel that they should have dropped the whole Alice storyline completely and concentrated on Jill and Carlos. Y'know make the story more like the game. That would have made this not bad film better.

Hell you might as well go see this film. It's not the best film ever made, but it's a good alternative if there's nothing else to rent from the video store.

GRAX RATING: 3/5

12 Mar 2005 Shark Tale review

When a film studio produces a great film that pleases everyone, it can be seen as a curse as well as a blessing. More often than not it means that whatever the studio makes just won't be the same. With this in mind here's my review of Shark Tale, from the creators of the great Shrek™ series.

The basic story is that Oscar (Will Smith) teams up with a closet-vegetarian Shark (Jack Black) and create the lie that Oscar is a Shark Slayer, even though he's quite the nobody. It's your generic "A little white lie that goes wildly out of control with 'funny' results" storyline, you've heard this story loads of time. Throw in a few other stars like Robert De Niro, Renée Zellweger, Angelina Jolie and make up some crappy remix song for the film (FYI, Missy Elliott and Christina Aguilera make a cameo appearance, albeit in cheesy characterised fishy form) and that about wraps it up. I've probably ruined the film for you now by telling you that it's a generic storyline. After all you know what happens in those stories, including all those cheesy puns that go along with it. I probably should say that I'm sorry but that would be lying.

That's the major problem with this film; it's all been done before. They could have condensed this into a 30-45mins television show and it wouldn't have lost anything in its transaction. Don't get me wrong, it's not a crap film. I'm sure that this'll make some kid or someone who has never been exposed to a little thing called television really happy. But this film is not for me. I'm a twenty-something man that has been scarred through years of TV exposure, a man who has man-desires (I wish I could say that without it making me sounds gay). I ain't got time for kid's shows.... Unless it's cool, like old school Transformers or even Centurions. Now that kicked ass and I defy anyone who disagrees!

I definitely wouldn't recommend seeing this at the cinema, though it's a bit late now seeing as it's gone to DVD now. Bottom line is I wouldn't recommend paying to watch this. Get your sucker friend to get this. Or you can wait until it comes out on TV.

GRAX RATING: 2/5

15 Dec 2004 Blade Trinity Movie Review

It's not uncommon for wrestlers to do movies after they become a household name in the ring. After all The Rock has been in several films, Edge made a brief appearance in Highlander: End Game and who could forget the 'fine' performances of Hulk Hogan's career. But what I found out earlier this evening still managed to surprize me when I was at the cinema to watch the new movie.

Triple H; The Game™ (pronounced 'Gaaaa-eeee-mmma!' for all you WWE fans out there) is in Blade Trinity!

What's just as shocking is that Triple H got quite a big role, being the main hired goon for the main vampire lady bitch of the movie. He talks a lot and lasts pretty much up to the end of the film. They musta paid big bucks for that kind of cameo appearance.

..... Oh yeah, the movie. Well it was alright I guess. Good fight scenes, but it's another movie where you REALLY should turn off mentally or you'll pick picking holes at all the way through. And good God it is so cheesy, the guy who kept making wise-cracks; he made me want to hurt him. It was just too much.

I could probably pick more holes in the movie if I read the Blade comics from Marvel. But I don't, so they're safe, for now.

Definately not a go-to-cinema experience. Wait for the DVD if you must.

GRAX RATING: 2/5 (Another sequal that's fallen into the trap of crappy ends of trilogies)

25 Oct 2004 Aliens Vs Predator (the movie) Review

I went to see this film expecting it to be a gross perversion of the Alien and Predator series, much like the Martix sequals. My my was I pleasantly surprise. It's actually pretty darn good.

Set in the not-so-distant future of October 2004, wealthy guy Charles Bishop Weyland (Lance Henriksen) discovers a hidden pyramid in Antartica and wants to make a mark on the content. So he hires a bunch of experts from around the world (hence the different accents) and goes inside the temple. They then realise that the Pyramid is a Predator built hunting grounds for them to hunt Aliens. Then they wind up in a middle of the hunt. Don't they feel silly.

This is one of those films that you go to see if you like to see two brand names going head to head with each other with the use of current film technology. The FX were good (except for the cheesy Martix-style panning of camera that they did once, why did they bother?), the fights were more or less satisfactory, and the plot wasn't important. I think the 'feel' of the film was at a similar level to the original Predator movies.

I'm not too sure about how true to its roots the film is. I've not read many AVP books or comics, and I doubt the movie has too much of a link towards the computer games with the same name. But I'm not too concerned about that.

Aliens Vs Predator is worth going to the cinema to see. It's definately worth renting out once it comes out. Probably in about 3 months time if the film does well at the cinemas.

GRAX RATING: 4/5

I did a little review research after the film to see what other people thought of AVP. Here are some of them I found with an indication of whether it was positive or negative:

• http://www.wordsfromhere.com/movies/77.html - Positive
• http://aggressive-voice.com/zzz181.html - Negative
• http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,64571,00.html - Meh...

11 Oct 2004 Affirmation; The power of positive thinking

I recently finished reading The Dilbert Future: Thriving on Business Stupidity in the 21st Century and it was quite a funny read, me being a Dilbert fan and all. But I want to talk about the last chapter. Scott Adams stops being funny and talks about serious, different ways of viewing current theories. namely that time, gravity, action/reaction, and reality could all be optical illusions. Then he goes on about Affirmation, and how it changed his life. This made me curious.

The basic idea behind Affirmation is that you have some control over your enviroment using your thoughts. In other words, using positive thinking to get what you want. One technique Scott used was to write out his goals 15 times using the format:

I, [insert name here], will get/do/achieve whatever.

Accord to Scott, whatever he wrote down doing this technique eventually became true. Really unlikely things. I'm not entirely sure how true or successful this technique is. After all Scott got this information from his friend who read it in a book somewhere. But he says it works and so do his friends who've tried affirmation.

So I figure "What the hell, it doesn't cost anything to try it.". I've spent the last couple of days writing my goal out in the metioned format. Nothing's happened so far, but apparantly these things take time. I'll let you know if it actually works. If anyone else has used or heard of Affirmation techniques before, please let me know how good it is or if it has indeed changed your life for the better. I'm interested to know.

Oh and before I forget; The Dilbert Future: Thriving on Business Stupidity in the 21st Century is a good book. Definately work a read, even if you're not a Dilbert fan. Probably.

GRAX RATING: 3/5

26 Jul 2004 Fahrenheit 911 Review

To help beat the boredom (see Day 4 below) I went to see Michael Moore's recent offering to the movie world, Fahrenheit 911. It's essentially a documentary about the events of 9/11 and all other bits of related stuff, including president George W. Bush's election and the war on Iraq.

This movie sets out to expose the details that the American government and Bush probably don't want you to see. It makes Bush look like the most selfish, incompetent president ever. It also shows things that will shock and/or anger you, like how the tragic 9/11 event could have been prevented but wasn't or why America really went to war with Iraq (you didn't actually believe it was for weapons of mass destruction like Bush said, did you?). Essentially this movie's message is not something that is not already know; that Bush's actions were all about greed, money, power, corruption and oil. But the amount of detail that this movie goes into is an eye opener.

This movie has everything a movie could ever need, comedy, action, real life explosions, tragedy, anger, tears, the lot. Very well done.

Is it worth paying £7 to go see a documentary at the cinema? Hell yeah. If anything, it'll make a nice change from all the mundane summer movies that normally come out this time of the year. If not at the cinema, then it's a definite renter.

GRAX RATING: 4/5

5 Jul 2004 Shrek 2 Review

After watching Shrek 2 at the cinema yesterday, I felt compelled to write my review on it. I was quite surprised at what I saw.

The storyline is pretty standard issue, especially for a sequal. After Shrek and Fiona's honeymoon they go to meet Fiona's parents, the King and Queen of Far Far Away. But not everyone is happy with Shrek's and Fiona's marriage. That's all I can really say without giving away most of the plot. Sorry. But the story is not why you're here, you wanna see good animation and have a laugh.

The computer animation is quite stunning, which I suppose is the norm nowadays. Looking at the characters, you sometimes forget its all computer generated it's that good. It does slip up once or twice during the movie but it's hardly noticeable and doesn't ruin the movie experience.

Shrek 2 overall is pretty funny with some truely brilliant bits torwards the end. Everyone was in stitches from these moments. The best bits to mind were the three blind mice and the Cops parody (whoops, I gave some of it away. Sorry. It's not a major thing, really. Guess you'll have to watch it now.)

Should you bother with it? It's definately worthy of going to the cinema. If you want to save some pennies and have patiences, definately rent it on DVD. It'll be worth watching... Unless you didn't like the first movie.

GRAX RATING: 3/5

17 Jun 2004 Download your music... for a fee

You hear the news? iTunes now avaliable for people in the UK. Now you can buy and download individual tracks for about £0.79 (which is about £0.20 more than everywhere else. Curses! *shakes fist*) So I thought I'd give it a try. Partly because I wanted to see what it was like. Mostly because there was one particuar track I couldn't find online (Beastie Boys - CH-Check it Out). Well I could find it, but it was either the chorus of the song that looped for about 5 minutes, or silence for 10 minutes. And I wasn't gonna pay £5 to buy the single at the shops.

So I downloaded the iTune application, filled in my bank details, downloaded "Ch-Check it Out", and played it in the application. Finally a good copy of the song.

However there was a catch. The file of the track I downloaded was not mp3 like I was expecting, but m4p! That's MPEG-Layer4 Protected for those not in the know, like myself. I knew it was too good to be true (Curses! *shake fist*). I guess it's not a huge hassle, after all iTune can play all other music files like any other music playing software. But dammit, I wanted mp3! It's what I payed £0.79 for.

Still iTune is not a bad little application, especially if your really against the idea of using a P2P program to illegally download your music. And if you have an iPod to put your music in, you're laughing. However, whilst the catalogue of music is quite vast, it's mostly on mainstream music or bands that most people have heard of.

12 May 2004 Val Helsing Review

I just saw Van Helsing at the cinema and I wanna share my opinion of it, seeing as most people I know seems to be doing it. One thing that has to be said about the movie; it's very melodramatic. During the breaks from the action we're left to watch the somewhat cheesy storyline and some over-the-top acting and fake accents from Dracula and his women. Frankenstien's Monster should get an award for his 'extreme' acting. Hugh Jackman did surprizingly well in his role and I liked him. He was the cool bad-ass with the killer clothes and the killer moves. The makers of the movie made the right choice when they chose Hugh to be the man. Well done. The special effects kinda fluxed in quality during the movie. There were parts where you thought "Wow, that's pretty cool" and "what a cool idea", while other time where you thought "The gamma on that CG model is off" or "Blue-Screen...". I could see that most of the budget was spent on the ending of the film. The effects at the end were quite amazing and I started to enjoy the movie. Then it was over. I enter the cinema with fairly low expectation of the film. For the most parts those expectations were confirmed, though there were a couple of good things in the movie (like the end bit and that Werewolves kick ass!). Wait for this to come out onto DVD. That way you can skip the dull bits, you don't need them anyway. GRAX RATING: 2/5