The Grax Domain

28 Mar 2008 Grax Wish List: New eyes

Aw man, I have got to get me a pair of these. Does anyone have a spare £180 they can give me?

24 Mar 2008 Grax's Easter Holiday 2008

Well this week didn't go according to plan, but it's been a good week none the less. I had the week before easter off work. So for me it's been a 8 day long weekend for me. The second half of that time off was spent sleeping, which I'm not too proud off. Y'know when you get the feeling that you've wasted half the day when you wake up at 1:00pm, because in a way you have wasted half a day? But the stuff when I was doing stuff it was pretty enjoyable. And it all started two Friday nights ago.

That Friday evening two main things happened to me; 1) I was taught the art of being able to hear conversation on a noisy dance floor by plugging ones earholes and 2) I got to chatting to a random drunk girl down one of the Oxford roads on the way home. Long story short she wanted some cigarettes, I couldn't help her out then, her 5 friends left her cos they got bored waiting, I took her home, bought her some cheap ciagrettes along the way (the cheapest possible. Let it not be said that I ain't a nice guy), she let me into her house, and she unloaded a bunch of rants about all the negative aspects of her life till daybreak whilst we had Natural Born Killers playing in the background. There was no bedroom action involved during this time but I found it strangely pleasant trying to be her agony aunt for the night, even though technically in all seriousness what the hell could I possibly say or do to make everything better for her. After all, she had a 10 inch kitchen knife in her purse. Well a girl's gotta keep herself safe and all.

In other news I am now officially and uncle and you all shall now refer to me as uncle Grax. For it is written... Right at this moment in time. My nephew was born 9 days earlier than expected (I had booked the week off expecting to see him during the middle of the week) so I went and visited him and my brother on Sunday along with my mum. Let me tell you something; 6 day old babies don't tend to do much. All baby nephew did when I was there was sleep, pull the occasional weird yawny stretch thing, sleep, wake up for a feeding, not really realise what was going on, stuff like that. I guess the major action happens as babies get older.

Mum was super excited about the baby as has been since the moment he was born. She would be squealing with joy proclaiming that he was so cute and so perfect and "He looks just like you and your brother did when you were babies". Every 5 minutes. Well its good to know that he going to grow up a good looking lad, just like his uncle. I tried to hold him and, at first, I didn't wuite get the hang of it cos my nephew was squirming and resisting in my arm, which I was not use to. After a little guidance from my brother my nephew calmed down and was dozing blissfully in my arm. The thing that caught my interest is how my brother seemed to be so good at being a dad, like he knew exactly what he was doing. I guess I imagined that I would be the first to have kids.

Lastly I spent some time catching up with some old friends. It was a mixture of watching DVDs, eating unhealthily, screwing around, and a birthday trip to Alton Towers with my ex girlfriend, her new boyfriend (who didn't really say too much to me, but then I didn't really want to be the hunky third wheel to his and her love-fest of uh.... sexy.... couple.... thingy... thing.... what couples do) and the rest of her crew. It was all good apart from the crappy video thing at Alton Towers not working on the day. And I was so looking forwards to doing some kick ass poses for the camera. It would have been awesome I tell thee.

Ah well, no time to reminisce. I gotta head back to work tomorrow. I wonder if anything got done there...

23 Mar 2008 The Wilderness

I had a dream last night. I cannot remember every detail because I fell back to sleep before I had a chance to write down fully what I had dreamt. But these are the things that I do remember.

I remember being in a rocky wilderness somewhere at night time. There were trees scattered all over the place. I think they were pine trees. I remember the area having two main colours; tree green and stone grey. I saw a dark entrance to a cave.

I remember there was a small tribe near me. They were Caucasian and they wore feral clothing with wolf pelts, it looked very tribal. I had a strong feeling of... wolf. It wasn't at anything specific, I just felt it when I was at this cave enterance with this small tribe. I also remember my ex girlfriend, Princess, being in the mix for some reason.

I entered the cave with everyone else. It was dark in there. Very dark, almost pitch black. I found it difficult to see anything in front of me. I started to panic and become fearful, I didn't know what was in the darkness. I felt better after Princess reassured me that everything was OK. She was being a bit patronising about how cute my fear of the dark was, but I didn't mind because it wasn't such a bad comment. Eventually we entered a room in the caves. It was a large and rocky room, but there were scattered wooden planks and wooden support pillars and beams around the place. The room was deserted, but it was clear that there was some human activity in here.

Then some stuff happened that I can't remember. But I remember the next bit.

I remember seeing a large island on a twilight night, the stars were out and it was as clear as day... only at night. There was a large mountain in the middle and the entire island was covered with tall palm tree/bamboo type pillars. It was like an industrial complex, only made out of wood. The entire island was completely wrapped in a elastic rope, like a bungee cord only thicker and miles longer. I tried to draw what I saw in my dream but it's not entirely accurate:


I was at the end of the rope. I tugged on the rope and I was yanked across the island as the rope untangled itself. I was whizzing throughout the island holding on to dear life, zipping through the various gaps that the rope got tangled in. The camera changed its position to being behind me at a certain angle. Every so often the rope would stop unwravelling. So I would pull on the rope as hard as I could and let the rope continue again with me hanging on. It was so much fun. Eventually I reached the end of the rope and it took me into the centre of the island.

After that I can't remember what happened next. I'm guessing it's cos I woke up.

15 Mar 2008 The most useful technique for the dancefloor

Last night I was taught one of the most incredible techniques that one can do on the dance floor to improve one's hearing and I want to share this knowledge with everyone.

I went out with some friends last night. One of them is an Austrailian girl who has done a lot of traveling in her life. Seen lots of different place around the world. Anyway we all ended up going to a random nightclub and we ended up dancing. I love the dancing part of the dance floor but when I comes to talk I find it next to impossible to hear any words due to the loud music. So when the Aussie girl was talking to (shouting at) me all I could do was the usual "What?" and grin and nod politely after not hearing a single word she said.

After a few attempts of communication the Aussie girl beckoned me close with her index finger. She took my finger and plugged my ear with with. Then she repeated herself into my plugged ear.

I could hear every word that she spoke.

The experience blew my mind.

She gave an explanation along the lines of the finger in ear blocks out the white noise and you hear the bass of the voice. Or something like that. Afterward we carried on talking on the dance floor practically next to the speakers and I was able to understand everything. It was the best conversation on the dance floor I have ever had. It doesn't matter that I don't remember what we talked about as I write this entry, the important thing is now I can enjoy stupidly loud music and a conversation.

I must test this out more. Obviously I'll have to find another way to block my ears. It doesn't look good on your part if you say "WHAT'S THAT LUV? I CAN'T HEAR YOU! HOLD ON, LET ME STICK MY FINGERS IN MY EARS!" I'm wondering if ear plugs are the way to go.

6 Mar 2008 Ceroc you like a hurricane

One of my New Years Resolutions was to treat my body better and one of the ways to do this was to get dancing again. I did Salsa dancing for around 2 years but I stopped doing it for 6 months because I got pinned down with work. But I am determined and I recently started getting back into Salsa again. Last lesson I met this charming girl and she invited me to try a Ceroc dance class in town. Not wanting to turn down the offer of a charming lady (and not willing to admit that I've never heard of Ceroc) I accepted and tried it out for the first time last night.

Turns out it's simple enough for me to look like a bad-ass on the dance floor.

Ceroc, for those who are not in the know (including myself), is a dance form that is based in modern Jive but borrows lots of elements from other dances including Salsa, Swing, Lindy Hop and Merengue. In fact I could spot different Salsa moves when people were dancing freestyle. The main differences between Ceroc and Salsa includes things like the tempo is slower and the footwork doesn't seem to be that important.

After a couple minutes of trying to tell my brain that I am in fact not doing Salsa I was able to pick up the basic routine. In fact I had an edge over most of the other beginners because I knew how to dance Salsa. So I was able to lead and make my many partners do what I wanted. With the occasional shimmy thrown in for good measure.

And the shimmies served me well on the dance floor as it impressed the ladies that I dance with during freestyle... Well... it was more likely due to the face that for a 'beginner' (which in the world of dancing I am not) I was able to hold my own and give the ladies a pleasant dance. Still there's nothing wrong with flaunting your chest a bit.

It felt good to be able to dance well, especially when most of the women I danced with are "Mmm, mmm, mighty fine". But I don't want to get ahead of myself here. Just because I can confidently do one Ceroc dance routine doesn't mean I'm the next [insert dance legend here]. I'm going to keep going to Ceroc lessons until I can confidently remember and do at least four routines during freestyle. Otherwise I'm dead in the water. But still, so far so good.

1 Mar 2008 The Political Compass

Have you ever wondered where you stood in the view of politics? I sure did. I was losing minutes of nap time because of it.

Then I found The Political Compass and now I'm no longer in the dark.

Once you complete a quick test the website generates a graph to indicate not only how left-wing or right-wing you are, but how Authoritarian or Libertarian you are.

And now, without further ado... BEHOLD!


This graph show how I roll.

How about you folk? Take the Political Compass test and find out how you roll.