The Grax Domain

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.

15 Aug 2007 Friends in a fast food joint, real life hotwheels and domestic violence

I had this dream a couple weekends ago.

I remember dreaming of a fast food restaurant.

There was a group of friends in this restaurant, three men and one woman all in their 30s or 40s (for the purpose of this story lets call them A, B, C and the woman D). They were all strangely familiar, as if they were TV actors. In fact I think this dream was some sort of TV show or sitcom, only without the canned audience laughter.

Outside the restaurant was a short guy with grey hair and a deep 5 o'clock shadow trying to fix his car in the car park. It was a shiny new blue car that was kitted up to make it look bling; alloy wheels, spoilers, the works. But his car would start up. B (the goofball but friendly type) decided to go out and help this guy out, opening up the bonnet and looking at the engine. The short guy is furious and screams out things including "You can't fix it you idiot! It's not like ordinary cars!". B cheerfully dismissed this claim and lifts up a part of the engine. The car breaks apart and liquid starts bubbling from the engine. By this point the short guy is ready to explode with rage.

Of course B was all apologetic about this and invited the Short Guy to join them eating at the fast food restaurant. The Short Guy accepted with a grumpy huff and he joined the four people at the table. The Short Guy then asked the other three how they ended up knowing the imbecile B. The first guy, A (he was the charismatic 'leader' or the group), smile and made some analogy about friendship and sharing and stuff (I wish I could remember it now. It was a really good one). He then took out a half full bottle of whisky, to which the four friends dipped their fingers into it and mixed it into their milkshakes.

Then my dream changed...

I remember seeing this impossibly huge racetrack. Think along the line of those Hotwheels race tracks crazy loops and all, but think scaled to real life size and stretching for as far as the eye could see. It was dark and cloudy all around. At the start of the track, which was on top of a steep hill, was a caravan, a bus, an ordinary car, and a couple of RC cars. But these were no ordinary RC cars. They were super charged to go as far as a real car, if not faster.

All these different vehicles at the starting line.

The green light flashes and away they go.

The bus, caravan, car and rc cars are speeding across the infinite-spanning track, doing impossible twists, turns, jump, stunts, you name it they were doing it. And the camera was capturing everything. And I heard a director coordinating all the camera shot. I then heard the director tell the cameramen something like "You better not screw up and show them the wrong footage. We'll be in big trouble if you screw up."

Then somebody screwed up.

The camera screen crackled with static and the image changed. When the static cleared I was shown images of some sort of domestic violence in place. I don't remember the exact details, there was a woman with long, curly, dark ginger hair being verbally and physically beaten by a man. I remember the deafening awkward silence as I was watching this scene unfold in front of me. I wasn't suppose to be watching this, I didn't know what to do or say. But still I watched this woman getting shouted at and beaten on the television screen.

I don't remember anything after that. By that point I guess I woke up.

10 Aug 2007 Let's Paint, Exercise, Cook and Play Chess TV!

Let's Paint, Exercise, Cook & Play Chess!

Oh man this is a genius idea! My face was hurting trying to stop myself laughing out loud at work.

I wish I thought of this idea first.

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