The Grax Domain

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!

14 Jul 2007 Naked avatar in America and the chocolate dessert fiasco

In my dream I was at work...

Somehow I had found out that my Second Life avatar Grax Bishop was arresting in America for some public nudity offense, or some sort of sexual offense. Grax Bishop, a computer character, being arrested in real life America. Obviously I was annoyed and intrigued.

I tried to find out what was going on by looking it up on a SL forum, this forum in fact. I tried to post an entry on the forum but it was proving to be extremely difficult, with various problems including stupidly slow connections and time-out errors. Also I discovered that this forum had some pornography, something which I'd never seen in the forum before.

Then somehow I ended up at my work cantine. I think something happened in-between but I can't remember what.

So I was at this cantine with two of my work colleagues and we were loading our trays with food. I had myself a plate of spaghetti bolognese and one of my colleges, Sparky, was having a tiny bowl of mousse chocolate pudding, kinda like Angel Delight. I was really annoyed that Sparky got such a tiny portion of dessert. So I rudely grabbed the tub of chocolate pudding and poured a huge dollop onto Sparky's tray. Sparky was laughing he head off whilst trying to tell me to stop. Then I grabbed huge handfuls of cocoa powder and mixed it into my spaghetti bolognese . I'm talking getting my hands really messy.

The cantine lady got really annoyed with me making a huge mess everywhere. However there was this oriental guy, who was the manager of the place, and he laughed at the whole thing. Then he happily got my food replaced.

Then I woke up.

Hmmm... adding cocoa powder to spaghetti bolognese ... I guess there's been crazier ideas.

11 Jul 2007 (Belate) Grax Domain gift 2007

See? I told you that I was gonna get you a gift señor Grax Domain and I have. Behold the fruits of my labour:



Like it? It's a drawing of my Second Life avatar, Grax Bishop.

I can't take all the credit. My friend in Second Life AshleyNicole helped me out with the text logo. So thanks a bunch Ash.

See my little humble website, I still care about you. Unlike the rest of the people out there. *Points out to the cruel, uncaring world*

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.