The Grax Domain

29 Jun 2005 Happy Birthday to me!

Happy Birthday to me
Happy Birthday to me
Happy Birthday dear Graxie
Happy Birthday to me!

... and many more....

26 Jun 2005 Another Page in the Book of Me

Well I guess that animation I did for the job interview was good enough. I got the job! My first day will be the 27th June two days before my birthday. Guess I really didn't think about the whole birthday thing. Thing is the job is in Andover, which is a good hours drive away from my house. So I decided to move to a closer location. Just like that. I don't have many ties in my old town so it won't be too emotional. Plus I won't be far from the people I know so its all good.

The thing is the rent of the place is about £60 more than what I was paying before in the old house. But seeing as it's only 5-10mins walking distance from the place I'm working thusly saving petrol money, I figure it's a good trade-off. The other bad thing is there's currently no internet connection at the house yet so I'll have to sort that one out.

What? No internet again?? What will you all do without me? Don't worry; I've made a little something for you all to remember me by while I'm gone. Let's just say it's something for all my lady fans out there. All three of them, you know who you are ;-)

Good Morning Ladies

Hmm... There's a website skin in that drawing...

I've updated the "How to make a cup of tea" flash animation, just like I said I would! The things I did include fixing the narration/subtitle sync, animated the milk being poured, tweaked the shape of my head at the end, added some credits and I threw in an extra scene after step 7. There is one more scene that I wanted to add but I think it's at a satisfactory level now. Maybe I'll add the scene after I move into my new house and submit the animation to Newground to see what the public think. Any problems with the animation please let me know.

Hot to make a cup of tea (update)

I've also written a few movie reviews for you to browse through.

I think that's everything I need to say and do. Talk to y'all soon.

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

15 Jun 2005 My First Flash Animation

.... Apart from the stuff I did for Nezis.co.uk, which could be argued as Flash animation...

I was told that I had to make a Flash animation for a job interview as a web developer, to show off what I am capable of. It was to be an animation on "How to make a cup of tea". This shouldn't take too long I thought... 28 hours later and I cobble something together for the interview. Suffice to say they liked it a lot.

How to make a cup of tea Note: the subtitles may be out of sync with the narration.

The thing is I'm not 100% happy with it. Sure it was hard work and a lot of fun to make, I just feel it could be so much better. Technically it's not even finished yet. The subtitles and other possible bugs must be fixed, I wanted to add music to the whole presentation, the milk doesn't come out of the bottle, I had to cut out some scenes because I ran out of time, and the guy at the end (which is supposed to be me, Grax) simply looks shit. So many things that I want to do to the animation... No wait, that's pretty much all I wanted to do.

I'm going to carry on working on it.

*UPDATE* - I've updated the animation. The things I did include fixing the narration/subtitle sync, animated the milk being poured, tweaked the shape of my head at the end, added some credits and I threw in an extra scene after step 7. Any problems please let me know.

How to make a cup of tea (update)

4 Jun 2005 Scary Dreams of a Drunk

I went to a pub/nightclub last night and, well, I drank a lot and became a sleepy drunk. At the end of the evening, once I had a greasy lamb donor kebab and stumbled back to my friend's house at 4:00am, I passed out of on their sofa. I then had two dreams. The first dream I can't fully remembered what happened, except that I got to kiss a female friend of mine, so we'll ignore that dream. This is the dream that I do mostly remember...

I was back in my old house when I was a student; except that the layout was different (windows were in different place for example). It was night time; dark, scary, and the sound of thunderstorms in the distance. I was with some friends and the power to the house was cut for about five minutes. We were all frightened.

Suddenly there was a flash of lightning and a crash of thunder, in the classic horror movie style of something to scare the shit out of the people before the real bad thing happens. Then suddenly there was a werewolf bashing at the window snarling ferociously. It had taken the form of a Dire-Wolf (a really big and scary wolf) and we all screamed. We tried to escape but there were more werewolves and they surrounded us. They took us hostage; I don't know what for though.

Then I was in the kitchen with one of the werewolves, now in human form. We got to talking about stuff including why they were holding us hostage. Then we started talking about vampires and how the werewolves are better than them. I even remember what he said to me in relation to that: "We are werewolf, we are alive. They are dead [talking about the vampires]". Then I woke up.

The thing is I love werewolves. I think they're so cool, much better than all the other supernatural stuff like Vampires. But I remember being so incredibly scared. Anyway I had a quick scan on Dream Moods to see what the dream meant and this is some of the things I've come up with. NOTE: These dreams cannot be taken seriously for the purpose of things like predicting the future as I was under the influence of alcohol, lack of sleep and a greasy donor kebab.


Werewolf
To see a werewolf in your dream, indicates that something in your life is not what it seems. It is symbolic of fear, repressed anger, and uncontrollable violence.

Hostage
To dream that you are a hostage, indicates that you are feeling victimized and powerlessness. You may also be feeling limited in your choices or physically immobilized. Perhaps this dream is paralleling some situation/difficulties in your daily life or relationship. Alternatively, it suggests that a part of yourself is not be fully expressed.

Lightning
To see lightning in your dream, signifies sudden awareness, insight, and purification. Alternatively, lightning may imply a shocking turn of events. It suggests the many forces governing your life may be beyond your control.

Kiss
To dream of a kiss, denotes love, affection, tranquillity, harmony, and contentment...If you are kissing a close friend, then it represents your respect and adoration for your friend. It may or may not signify a romantic interest for him or her.