The Grax Domain

30 Jun 2004 Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday..

It was my birthday yesterday. I'm an old man of 22 now (still the youngest out of my friends though). To celebrate I figured I'd got out with my friends to a nightclub called Time. I'd never been before and I wondered what it was like. I did get annoyed though when we go to the club and it turned out to be closed! We'd forgot that when all the university students are gone outside term time, Portsmouth turns into a damn ghost-town. Still it wasn't a complete lost. We managed to find somewhere else to go and ended up having a good time, despite not everything going to plan (nothing ever does really, does it?) T'was much drinking, dancing, grooving, etc. What more could a boy want? Roll on 25.

24 Jun 2004 Behold the terrible power!

I made an online Magic 8 Ball for all to play with. If you ever need a yes/no type question to be answered then this is the thing to use.

Oh by the way, I created this application using ASP. Who's Code-Fu is rusty now? ^_^

23 Jun 2004 I had a dream last night....

I don't remember most of it. I remember dreaming I had a cat, my late-cat 'Mustard' (a lovely ginger cat whom I loved many years ago). For some reason he appeared out of nowhere and I had fogotten to feed it for days. So I'm looking around for food to give to poor Mustard. Then I woke up. The funny thing is for a few seconds after waking I still believed I had to feed Mustard. Then I remembered that I don't have a cat... This is the third time over the past few months I've had this dream with the same reaction.

I wondered what this could mean so I looked in a Dream Dictionary I had, as well as looked at DreamMoods.com for answers:

CAT - "To see a cat in your dream, signifies much misfortune, treachery, and bad luck. However, for the cat lover, cats signifies an independent spirit, feminine sexuality, creativity, and power...."

FEEDING - "To dream of feeding children or animals is an omen of prosperity..." The thing is I didn't actually get to feed my cat. So maybe the opposite of this statement is true; an omen of Anti-Proserity! (or whatever the opposite of prosperity is. I could be wrong though.)

RECURRING DREAMS - "Persistent or recurring dreams can be traced, almost invariably, to some physical or physcological cause and as a rule have no prophetic significance. However, a dream that recurs only two or three times is a different matter and should be seriously considered."

So judging by these statements it looks like something bad will happen to me in the future, which could cause me to loose something valuable or cause me to not progress in life. This doesn't look good...

Anyone have another view on this?

21 Jun 2004 My Code-Fu is rusty!

Man, I didn't realise how bad my skills had become in ASP till today. I was asked to do write a simple website in ASP with a database for a job. They said it wouldn't take more than an hour and a half. "Sounds good" I thought, "after all I did this for over a year in a job and I got a whole personal site made of the stuff. I can do this"... A few hours later I had finally completed the three-paged website. It took twice as long as expected! I spent most of the time look up site and bashing my head shouting "How do you do that again?" or "Why won't you work??? Spawn of Satan's rectum!!". I hadn't used ASP in months, not since I've been playing around in PHP making stuff (it's so much easier to make web pages and stuff in it). But the more I wrote out the ASP code, the more I could remember, which is nice. I must do more training soon.

20 Jun 2004 This is just a (Fathers Day) tribute

Whilst my car was having its MOT test on Friday (it failed the test by the way) I was reminded that it's Fathers Day this Sunday 20th June. But my dad's not the kind of person that's into the whole commercialsm of these kinds of holidays/celebrations/whatever you call 'em. So I thought "Hey, instead of buyinh him a crappy card, why don't I make him a crappy card? Give him something from the heart". So I got the raw materials and draw some portraits of my dad. Then assembled them into something that looked like a greeting card and sent it off in the post. You can see the pictures I drew in the Art of Grax, under the Friends Art section (hmm... maybe I should rename that section to "Family and Friends"...)

My dad and I don't get to talk much, seeing as he lives in a different city miles and miles away. Which is a shame, because I don't get to say how great he his to me. He helps me in so many ways, even when I probably don't deserve it. He always been there to help, even if we don't see each other or talk to each other often (such is the way of men relationships, not in a gay way). Man, I sound like every other guy ranting about their dads trying to make up for all the time they don't get to talk to each other.

Chances are he won't see this little rant, so I'd probably should give him a call later to say "Happy Fathers Day" and thanks for everything, even if he's not into that sort of thing.

"My Dad; what a guy". A tribute by his son.

19 Jun 2004 Picture Time

Hey everybody. I've got a new picture in the SimpleImg category in the Art of Grax. Check it out.

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.

14 Jun 2004 A Link to the Past

I've decided to add a couple more links to the Links section, because I felt it has been negleted. One of those links is to X-Entertainment. The main reason why it's been added is because of all the '80s relics it has.

It was great to be reminded of all the cool things that I grew up with in the 80s. They were mainly toys like M.U.S.C.L.E Men,. G.I Joe, Battle Beast (my face lit up with joy when I saw them again ^_^), the list goes on. And there are also film clips of 80 adverts. You've gotta check out the singing California Raisins. Ah memories...

To anyone who grew up in the 80s I recommend this trip down memory lane.

12 Jun 2004 Your Thoughts About My Thoughts

Now you can add comments about the things that I write. This site is becoming more and more like a Blogs journal site rather than a simple portal site.

12 Jun 2004 Blue: live at the Graduation Ball

Now that I've had a bath, feeling all refreshed, I feel I should let y'all know how the Graduation Ball (held by the Student Union, outside of Portsmouth) went last night. My friends and I arrived at the scene fully kitted out. Everyone was looking fabulous including yours truely. There were three large tents, one of those carnival rides where you rotate up-and-down 360 degrees (I forget the name), and bumber cars! And you heard me right; the boy band Blue was there live in all their miming glory. I watched them with some friends (not that I'm a fan of Blue or anything ^_^) and they seemed to enjoy themselves. Even though I didn't see it at the time, I'm sure people were chucking stuff at Blue on stage, including urine-filled bottles. All in all the Ball was good fun. There was much socialising and booze drinking, I blew all my fake money on the fake casino, and I even got to try out the bad chat-up line "Hi, my name's [name here] and I like to f***" (with a success rating of none). But it wasn't as good as last year. The area was smaller compared to last year for one thing. No all of my friends were there unlike last year. And they missed out things that the Union said that they would do, like karaoke (I was quite heart-broken about this)! Besides the Graduation Ball happened in June, yet I don't offically graduate until mid-July, Surely I've celebrated pre-maturly. What if I messed up real bad and I have to redo the year (heaven forbid)? Oh there was also a special breakfast held at the Union, but I didn't attend it cos I was held up on the way back home. Still, no big lost. I probably would have had to pay for a crap breakfast.

11 Jun 2004 A little web cleaning

I got the web creating bug and I had the urge to do something to this web site. So I thought I'd clean it up a bit by adding these little tables around each of the entries. Hopefully it'll make reading each piece of literate genius (ha!) a bit easier to read. Oh, I also corrected a few errors that I spotted. But I bet there some more somewhere. o_o

10 Jun 2004 To the Ball!

I've finished drawing this weeks SimpleImg in the Art of Grax. The reason why I posted the picture earlier this week is because I've got to do some preping for a Graduation Ball I'm going to tomorrow and I doubt I'll have much time to post the picture tomorrow. Hopefully the Ball will be a laugh. Hey, any old excuse to get all dressed up. :)

4 Jun 2004 Picture Time

A new SimpleImg is available in The Art of Grax.

2 Jun 2004 End of (Uni) Days

This is the end... I had my final exam today and now I'm finished! No more Uni life for me. It's weird because in some ways it doesn't feel like I'm done, like there's something else I gotta do. But yeah, in a few weeks I'll be getting a piece of paper that sez that I am a young professional (?!) Now all I have to look forward to is getting a real grown-up job and do grown-up things. :-S

1 Jun 2004 Muscle Men: Blessing or Curse?

I was at the gym today working on the free weights (that's right ladies, I work out ;) ) and I happen to spot a guy with a set of dumbbells. He started lifting 10kg on each hand for about 12 reps. Then as soon as he put them down he moved on to a set of 12.5kg, and did another 10 reps. Then he dropped those and moved onto a set 15kg, same again, then 17.5kg, same again (with fewer reps), then he went down the different sets again! I can only manage about 8 reps with 12.5kg. And this guy had bulging biceps, about 18inch in circumference. His friend also had huge muscles, his neck muscle was resting upon his shoulders, it was the size of a mans arm.

Seeing this feat of strength, I was a little impressed. But it got me thinking; why do we bother with weights?

• To look good for the ladies: While it's true that no lady likes a man with a spare tire around his gut, we men have to be careful not to go too far. I've spoken to a few lady friends and they all agree that bulging muscles is a turn-off. So I guess huge neck-muscles are out.
• To increase strength: It's cool to be able to lift heavy stuff, but do we need to in this age? Unlike our hunting ancestors, the majority of people's habitats include working in a office for long periods sitting down, eating food that is always around us, then veg out at home on the couch where our thumbs gets a work out on the remote. Hardly much opportunity to put our strength to the test (of course there are exceptions, like construction dudes and heavy lifters).
• Work on our self-esteem: This is more like it. It feels good to put all our energies to lift heavy stuff, to release ones destructive, stressful, angry side and turn it into something constructive, i.e. muscles and strength. And studies have proven that doing exercise that help with dealing with mental issues like depression and stress. Of course that energy can be dispersed when you see that guy across the room bench-press over 100kg, making you look like you can manage to bench-press a twig... just!

So despite all these reason against weight lifting why do people bother; why do I bother? Because it feels good to be able to lift heavy things. Because while women are not great fans of muscle men, fat men are probably respected even less from women (so it can't be all bad to have muscle). And there are other minor benefits, like health (but who cares about that nowadays?)

Now I've got that off my chest, I'm off to work on my guns.