The Grax Domain

24 Nov 2008 LifeAsRose dot Ca review

17 Nov 2008 Proof that all religions are lies?

If you can't watch the video above this is what I said:

A friend of mine showed me the other day a movie that was on the Internet. And frankly, it blew me away.

It's called Zeitgeist. It's a film that discusses three topics which are connected; the truth behind religion, the truth behind 9/11, and the truth behind the history of the federal bank and the wars. But the subject I want to talk about today is the first part; religion.

After a series of negative images ranging from misery, war, destruction and so on (I mean this part lasts for about 9 minutes so you might wanna skip this part) we get kicking off with the discussion of religion and it starts off with an interesting quote from Jordan Maxwell. Then we are given a history lesson.

Zeitgeist talks about how the ancient people understood the importance the sun was, the provider of light, heat, life. And they also understood the importance of the stars for determining special events. Things like solar eclipses. The ancient people understood and had great respect and admiration for the stars and the sun and thusly they personified them into what is known as the Sun God and the Zodiac that we know them today.

Then the film starts discussing Egyptian religion, namely Horus. It talks about Horus' traits, namely being born on December 25th, being baptised, being crucified and then being resurrected. Then it talks about the other 'messiahs' of other religions including Attis of Greek religion, Krishna of Indian religion and Jesus of Christianity. After stating that all these messiahs have essentially the same characteristics the film starts to examine Jesus Christ.

This movie dissects and examines the classic stories and characteristics of Jesus Christ, including being born to a virgin on December 25th, being the 3 kings, being crucified and being resurrected, and so on and so forth. This film also examines some misconceptions from the bible, focusing on the main misconception of "The end of the world". And the film highlights some certain traits from other religions that Christianity plagiarises, including Paganism.

Finally around the 37 minute mark of the film it make a bold statement of how Christianity was created and encouraged by the Roman Empire as a way to control the masses.

Zeitgeist is a very strong film with a very, very bold claim. The evidence it seems to presents seems to be black and white. However it is possible that the entire film is just propaganda. After all this is something I did find on the Internet. I've always felt, even before I watched Zeitgeist, that there are many similarities between all these religions and it can't be just coincidence.

This film does not destroy the idea of God and other spiritual or supernatural ideas. This film presents evidence of how religions are created by the small few, the few elite to control the masses. I don't know if this evidence here is to be the truth but it shows that the evidence is out there to be checked and to be cross referenced. This film encourages us to question the norm and to think for ourselves.

I would highly recommend people to watch Zeitgeist: The Movie and to then draw their own conclusions.

And if people still don't think that religion is a means to control people I've got just one word for you.

Scientology.

31 Oct 2008 mmmm.... brains.....

I knew I shouldn't have petted that Sumatran Rat-Monkey before going to work today....

26 Oct 2008 Snowdon Hike October 2008

If you can't watch the video above I said:

So what does a guy do when he's got a week off work and doesn't have much to do? Why he goes off hiking up the tallest mountain in England and Wales apparently. Last Thursday I got a spontaneous invite from a work colleague, J, to go hiking and camping up Snowdon, in North Wales, for the weekend. I thought "Yeah, I'll give it a go. Good exercise. How hard can it be?"

On Saturday morning, after a hearty breakfast, we all drove to our starting point at the foot of the mountain. But the car park was full and they were not letting anymore people in. So we had to pull over and quickly rethink our starting point (which incidentally worked out in my favour because it meant us starting on the easiest hike route, rather than the hard bastard route that J had in mind).

Once we reached the foot of the mountain and did our final check of our camping gear we began our hike up Snowdon. And man, it was hard.

Still it was a sunny day, we got to see the sights (which included sheep, grass and the train that ran up and down the mountain), and we were heading to the top of the mountain, which was deep in the clouds.

We stopped by a cafe that is about halfway up the mountain for a quick snack and to check on the map exactly where we were.

Then we continued with the hike. By this point my rucksack full of camping gear was getting very heavy, my legs were straining under the pressure, and I was lagging behind.

Then we actually walked into the clouds [show video] and the nice weather was gone, to be replaced with low visibility, cold winds and spitting showers. But the bastard hard part was stepping up those bloody stepping stones, the ones that made you lift your legs and knees up on every step, for what felt like an eternity. Suffice to say Grax was tired.

Mind you I did find it odd that there were various people walking down the mountain with less clothes than us. Even people with shorts! Not to mention all the crazy people mountain biking down the track in the wet, cloudy weather. One thing that did make me chuckle was watching this little girl bawling her eyes out as her dad took her down the mountain.

In the end we made it to the top of the Snowdon mountain. And there is photographic evidence of us at the top. We rested our hands on the sun dial thingy that was at the top.

We shortly found a quiet spot to rest up and began digging into our rations, which had a surprizingly good spread of food. I tell you Solid Snake has the good life if his rations were as good as what the MoD provide their troops. We took the time to reflect upon how the hiking has gone so far.

Feeling temporarily recharged we made our way back down the mountain, [show video] through the dense fog and with me lagging behind again. One disappointing aspect of the hike was there wasn't enough time to stop and admire the scenery and the views (even though there wasn't exactly much to see). Despite looking like a scene straight out of Silent Hill I felt strangely calm and tranquil and I just wanted to sit down, relax, and take it all in. Even if it was spitting.

But no, I was to be denied this luxury because we had to reach the bottom of the mountain before nightfall to set up camp. We all pressed on through the cloud. Quite literally; when we came out the other side we found out that the weather for all the people at the bottom was still the sunny day we had at the start of the hike. Bugger. But we were still only halfway until we reached the foot of the mountain. Bugger.

Anyways, we made it to the foot just as it was getting dark. We then drove to the nearest campsite, set up camp, finished our rations for dinner and stayed up late drinking rum and whisky whilst playing this cool dice game. I think it's called Hot Dice, but I bet it has many names.

Despite all the strain, sweat, panting, and aching muscles (my calfs are still aching a bit) it was a bloody great hike. It was me first proper hike and I'm quite looking forward to me next hike, wherever it might be.

8 Oct 2008 God prefers who now?

As much as this little comic strip made me chuckle, I do wonder if it's on to something...



Click here to see the comic strip and read other people's comments.

2 Oct 2008 Dream of Evanescence and ALF

Click here to go to YouTube to watch this entry if you can't watch it here. For whatever bizarre reason.

27 Sep 2008 iPhone 3G Activation Guide

23 Sep 2008 Life skills worth having: Car mechanics

Boy I've had a very expensive week.

My car (Nissan Primera) has had a loose exhaust for nearly half a year now (or it had a hole in it, I have no idea to be honest). I didn't get it fixed immediately because I couldn't afford to and it wasn't greatly affecting my driving performance, so I thought I'd put of off for a while. Well that off-putting attitude finally caught up with me. Two weekends ago my car pretty much packed up. It wouldn't accelerate when you put your foot down on the accelerator, it actually decelerated.

So I took it to a Nissan garage, they told me there were various problems with the exhaust system, they fixed it, and then raped me for £570. It did sting and pretty much means I won't be able to afford to do anything fun for a month, but at least the car got fixed and it felt like it did when I first got the car. So all is well.

Actually no, all is not well.

A few days of driving later the "Malfunction Indicator" warning light turn on in my car. I despise the Malfunction Indicator light. It doesn't tell you anything except to take the vehicle to a Nissan garage. It pretty much says that in the car manual, word for word. So I took it back to the same Nissan garage and asked them to take alook at my car again to see if they'd missed anything.

Later that same afternoon I get a phonecall from the garage and they inform me that the exhaust catalyst part has to be replaced (or something like that). And that it'll cost me £590 to replace.

...

So I've just spent under £1,100 getting my car operational again.... I'm still pissed off about it as I write this entry.

...

If anyone tells me that I could have bought a car with that money I will slap them.

But I'm not writing here just to vent out. Here's a few tips for life that I feel the urge to speak out to everyone to try and avoid my pain.

1. If you spot that there is something wrong with your car don't put off getting it repaired. The sooner it's done, the cheaper it may be.
2. If you can avoid it, don't immediate give the garage the go-ahead to fix your vehicle. Ask around for a better quote.
3. Befriend a mechanic. That way they'll be able to fix your car cheaper and give you a more honest opinion. Even if you have to do them a favour yourself.
4. Learn some car mechanic skills. Even the basic skills would save you money and heart ache as you do it yourself.
5. While your at it, encourage your children to learn car mechanic skills. They'll thank you in the long run.

Now please excuse me while I go fume for a bit.

22 Sep 2008 September 08 Update

19 Sep 2008 International Talk Like A Pirate Day 2008

International Talk Like A Pirate Day

28 Aug 2008 What if God was a Scientist?

19 Aug 2008 Face Grax's Manga

Curse you Mitu for highlighting a little avatar making website where you can create manga style avatars at Face Your Manga. *shakes fist*

Curse me for wasting some time on said site and creating a couple of avatars. *shakes fist*





Curse Face Your Manga for not having a "no pupils or iris" eyes option, thus forcing me to rub out my eyes with image editing software. *shakes fist*

Curses!

Curses!

Curses!

*shakes fist*

18 Aug 2008 iPhone 3G Review

13 Aug 2008 Parenting thought: Be strict or they grow up stupid

I was visiting my mum last weekend for a family barbecue. There were also babies and kids there due to my brother and step sister having kids of their own. I made a comment to my brother regarding how hard it must be being strict to kids and laying down the rules for them. His reply was:

"You've got to be strict with kids. Otherwise they grow up stupid and they won't know why."

I thought about what he said and it made sense. It was a good quote I thought.

What are your thoughts on the subject? Discuss!

12 Aug 2008 Reporting From The Temporary House

1 Aug 2008 Moving to a temporary place

You never really comprehend how much crap you have in your home until you move out of it. That's something I've come to terms with now that I've moved into my temporary home.

I've been evicted out of my previous home I'm renting. In fact all my housemates have been evicted. The reason for this is because my landlord and lady wants to tart up the property for renting, only this time they want to live in it too. Well it would be silly to try and sell it now, what with the falling house prices and everything.

I needed a new place to stay and I do have friends that I will be staying with. The problem is they won'tbe coming back to Oxford until September for various reasons. So I needed a place for August. After looking at some various house renting websites I found a room that would do. It's a student house off Cowley Road. It's only available for a month because I'm "house covering" for someone that month while they do their thing. In other words Im paying and staying in their room for a month while they move on.

Being a typical student house it's... Small and shitty. But it's only for a month.

So after spending all week slowly packing up all my things and tidying up the place (well it was my housemates mum that did most of the work. We didn't ask her to, it was pure mother instincts!) it was time to move out. After filling a Vauxhall Big Van™ with half my stuff and lugging it all upstairs I realized that not everything was going to fit in my room. And that bungelows are awesome. So I filled the van up with the other half of my crap and drove it to my mums house, which is an hour and a half away.

It was 3:30pm and I'd reached my mums house. It was within a few minutes of arriving that mother panicked me when I told her that I had to return the van by 6:00pm. "Grax you'll never make it!" she wailed and rushed me to call up the van hire company to find out what time the van was due back.

Turns out the van didn't need to be back till the next morning. Everyone's blood pressure returned to normal.

Mum and I sat down to lunch and she did the typical mum thing of making sure I was well fed. "Do you want another roll Grax? Do you want a hot cross bun Grax? A cup of tea? I've made shepherds pie because I wasn't sure if you'd be hungry or not. Are you sure you don't want another roll Grax?"

Just imagine what it would be like if a guy was trying to seduce a woman...

"Would you like a shag? Do you want to give me a hand job? How about if I go down on you? I bought a twelve pack of condoms and a bottle of lube because I wasn't sure if you want to try anal. Are you sure you don't want a shag?"

Oy...

After lunch and unpacking she showed me the extension she and my step dad did to the house. It's quite an amazing job they did. You'd think it was aways a part of the house. This led on to the repeated lecture of me getting a mortgage to buy a house to rent out to other people even though I can't actually afford to do so. And I'd was a bit surprised by their reaction when I told that one of my good friends that I'm moving in with this September just finished university and doesn't have a job yet (partly because I wasn't that bothered about if she had a job or not).

I mean, I know mum and step dad love me and they mean well. It's just that it would be nice if they didn't sound so worryingly disappointed in me.

Don't worry, it's the last stretch of the story.

It came to 5:30 and I drove back home, feeling less than content. In fact the more I thought about it the more angry I got because I still needs to tidy my room, it was gonna be 7:00ish before I got back to Oxford, I thought I could have actually fitted everything in my room, the whole trip was starting to feel like a waste of time (although looking back in hindsight I know this not to be the case). I became more stressed out with the situation.

Getting back to the house I found out the landlord and lady had arrived and were staying the night. Panic packing ensued. Filling bin bags with crap I was keeping I threw them into the car and began work sweeping up the carpet of dust, toenails and bodyhair that was on my wooden floor. Finally I finished with my room, drove to my squatters hole, pile the last of my things into it my room and collapse into bed.

It was around midnight when I finally went to bed and peaceically passed out through exhaustion.

The whole thing was much more stressful than it should have been. Still, I'm here now surrounded by a wall of boxed stuff, hoping to find something for next month so I can do the whole moving again.

Is it September yet?

26 Jul 2008 A response to T2 Risk Taking

Seems like my rant about T2Darlantan's Player Hater entry has caused quite a reaction. The first part has received dozens of comments, ranging from praises to hate-mail to even "WTF is with your eyes??" The second part has only received a handful of comments, which tells me that the majority of people didn't bother to watch part 2 of my rant (which is kinda important to watch as it rounds off my rant). It certainly seem to be case judging by some of the comments that have the vibe of "Don't you tell T2 how to live his life, fuck you!"

And if that wasn't enough T2Darlantan himself made a video response to my video response.



So there are lessons to be learnt from this exercise.

1. Don't split your videos into multiple parts; people will probably stop watching after the first part and ignore the rest
2. If you want lots of comments and subscribers on your YouTube account target a person that has a huge fan base, leave a video response to one of his entries and have him to respond back

23 Jul 2008 T2 Risk Taking

I found some guy calling himself T2Darlantan on YouTube one day ranting about having fun (in relation to what other people think) and risk taking. Or something like that. You can see what T2 said at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbB7AlgJTTI.

I did this video blog to try and argue against his idea, that to have a fun and full life you need to take risks. Instead my video blog entry ended up being quite dull and not exactly supporting my argument.

Anyway you can watch the video here. Be warned, it's a two part ramble. If you can't see the videos below then you can watch part one here and watch part two here.

11 Jul 2008 Run Twinkletoes Run!

If you can't watch the video above, you can read what I said below:

Hi there. My name's Grax and I have a friend that is going to be attempting something quite spectacuar in a few months time.

On Sunday 12th October 2008 my friend Mitu will be attempting the London Parks Half Marathon. And the reason she's doing this? She's doing it for The Right To Play.

Right To Play is a charity that uses the power of 'play' to improve health, build life skills, and foster peace for children and communities affected by war, poverty and disease. Using their specially designed sports and play programmes, and working in both the humanitarian and development contexts, Right To Play has projects in more than 20 countries in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.

Now this is a sponsored run and Mitu would like everyone to give their donations towards this run. She has set herself a minimum target of £500 and I would like to do my part for her run.

So Mitu, a message for you, I've added my sponsor money to your run. And I hope it goes towards a good cause.

Now Mitu has also created a website for her to keep a video diary of her progress at www.runmiturun.com. Since she's created this website a couple months ago she a grand total of two video entries. Which is a shame really because I personally would like to see more or Mitu and see more of her video entries.

In fact, here's an idea Mitu. You can use it as an incentive to get more people to give more donations. How about this: for every £10 towards the £500 goal you recieve you'll release a new video blog. I mean it doesn't even have to be anything amazing. It can be something crap. Why it could even be something like....

"Hi everyone! Mitu here and I just got out of bed ready for my morning run! Except it's 7:15pm now and I... kinda... missed it.... Still, nevermind! I got my music player, I got my trainers, I got my Ready Brek, and I'm ready for action! It's gonna be awesome!!!"

Well... it's a thought.

If you would like to give your donation towards this sponsored run then you can. By going to www.justgiving.com/mitu. Alternatively if you would like to check out her progress you can take a look at Mitu's website at www.runmiturun.com. And hopefully by the time she sees this message she'll create some more video blogs for our amusement.

Please give as much as you can towards this sponsored run. Every penny can go a long way for the right to play.

Thank you.

9 Jul 2008 Kieronononon Review

If you can't watch the video review above, you can read what I said below:

Sometimes you can get bored or frustrated with the common bands and genres in the mainstream music society. People turn to Internet Social Networks like MySpace to satisfy their needs for something totally random. Sometimes they get lucky and discover a band like Kieronononon.

Band members Orta, Float Star Point (pronounced (float*)(p->x) ) and Goat-Boy spewed out a new music genre for all to enjoy; Brutal Techno Punk.

Kierononon's brutal techno punk sound is an angry, aggressive sound, with a hint of odd humour. Now you might be forgiven to think that this a bunch of random noise because it's unlike anything you will ever hear in the mainstream charts, or even outside the mainstream charts. To me when I first heard Kierononon, it sounded like three guys with a couple of guitars and a drum synthesizer kit making random noise, and I didn't really give it the time of the day. But then I gave it a second chance and I listened to it again. And then somehow it fitted together and actually started to sound decent. Now I could see that it was three guys just messing about with a couple of guitars and a drums synthesizer producing and recording something decent.

Kierononon have improved with time and experience and this is evident in their newest album "Brutaltechnopunk". The sound quality is vastly improved compared to their earlier albums "More Interesting than nik Naks" and "More boring than Poison". It's as if one of the band members was fiddling about with the sound editing software, found some new settings, unticked the "suck ass" checkbox and cranked up the "bad ass" slider to max.

However the music is only part of the story. You see Kierononon at their best when they play live. I watched Kierononon perform live at a local pub in Leamington Spa. This was their final ever tour... just like the last tour... and the tour before that.... There's something about the thumping noise from the big speakers, the bass player Float twanging his strings and fiddling with knobs, the front man Orta screeching and mincing in front of everyone, the Goatboy being all.... Goatboy-ish that brought a smile to my face. You can tell that they're enjoying themselves on stage and that only helps to improve the music.There was a large crowd surrounding the stage area at the begining of the show. By the end of the show the number had shrunk to about half. But that's ok, Kierononon is only for awesome people.

When you first hear Kierononon you might get put off and decide to run from it like a mental patient running away from the doctors with their medication and their straight jackets. But this band is a grower. Give it a few more tries and it may broaden your mind to what can be done with music.

If you're not put off initially by the sounds of this brutal techno punk then that makes you pretty awesome.

To find out more on Kieronononon head to their MySpace page at http://www.myspace.com/kieronononon or head to their record label's website at http://www.roxxor2.co.uk/.

Man someone should really write a wikipedia entry for this band.

7 Jul 2008 Cowley Road Carnival 2008

Last Sunday I attended the Cowley Road Carnival in Oxford. Well it was just down the street from where I live, so I thought I'd see what all the hub-bub was about.

If you can see the video clips below you can watch them on YouTube by clicking here and clicking here.

3 Jul 2008 Why should picture frames be plugged into the wall?

I was thinking about those picture frame that display pictures from a SD card. Initially I think they are a great idea and I would like to get one myself. Hell I even contemplated getting them as presents for my family. But there's one design flaw which really, really bugs me about them. Most picture frame models you have to plug them into the wall to keep them powered up.

Why should they be plugged into the wall sockets?

It doesn't make much sense to me. Because they have to be plugged into the wall there are only a limited number of places you can put the picture frame. And the wires are just bloody inconvenient.

Also If you keep the frame switched on all the time you're constantly draining electricity. This is not only bad for the environment but, more importantly, is costing you money to maintain.

I mean, how much power do these things need? Surely it can't be that much. I've seen models where you can charge them up via a USB cable, but that doesn't cut it for me because you still need to take the frame to some power source and plug it in.

I was thinking of another alternative source of power for SD picture frames; solar power.

Surely you can dedicate some picture frame real estate for adding solar panels. Most SD frames I've seen have a thick border, around 3 inch's. Fill up that space with solar panels, gets constant energy from a light source to keep the display going. Now you can put the SD picture frame wherever you like. Hell, why not throw in a spare USB charger for when there really is no sunlight.

Surely it can't be that hard to design and make a solar powered SD picture frame.

... Wait a second.... I've just had a brainstorm whilst writing this blog entry out...

Get a USB charging SD picture frame, get a solar panel charger that connects with a USB connector, plug one to the other and switch both on. That sounds like a good idea to me.

It's a bit of a work-around hack idea but it might do the job well enough until somebody creates a SD card picture frame with built-in solar panels. The only flaw in that plan is if the USB charging process puts the picture frame in 'sleep/charging mode and you don't actually see the picture, which would defeat the whole point of the solar power-ness of it all.

Who wants to give that hack idea a try?

30 Jun 2008 One Word Blog Day

Belch

23 Jun 2008 Executing The Other Idea

Guess what I did to myself yesterday....

21 Jun 2008 Another Grax??

You can watch this entry on YouTube by clicking here.

21 Jun 2008 RE: Commercial Contest

This is my YouTube entry for the Grax's Games commercial contest. So what if it's about a year late...

Enjoy!

16 Jun 2008 Red Head

Oh my....

What has Grax done to himself?

I had a friend visit over last weekend. Whilst walking through town she came up with the idea of dying my hair a different colour. I thought to myself "Hell why not. When's the next time I'm gonna do this again?". So I got some red hair dye and got it on my bleach blonde hair.

But don't get too comfortable with this red hair. It's only semi permanent, so it'll come out eventually.

Besides, this is not my other plan I had in mind. That's still left to come.

Till then....

Stay tuned.

12 Jun 2008 Advance Hair Studio session: What really happens

It seems like there's various other sources regarding Advance Hair Studio:
Sex Life - Advanced Hair Studio - I was conned!!!
BBC Watchdog - Advanced Hair Studio - Strand by Strand
Men's Health Discussion boards - Advanced Hair Studio

8 Jun 2008 Tester video entry

If you can't watch the video above, you can read what I said in the video below:

Hi this is Grax and I'm doing a little tester video entry.

Now I wanted to do something a bit more than just 'record myself on a digital camera and then upload it onto the Internet'. But the only video editing software that I do have is the Movie Maker thing you get with Windows XP. However I do have Adobe Flash. And I know how to use Adobe Flash.

So I thought I'd mess around with it and see what I can do.

I can import for video into it, edit it and export it out as a flv, which gets accepted by YouTube, Facebook and other bits and places like that. So that means I can create... potentially create all sorts of effects like drawing things on the screen, putting text to the screen, and of course... I can add music.

Now there's two main reasons why I wanted to do this. The first reason is I was doing a search on my video entries on Google and I did "advance", "hair", "studio" and "grax". And lo and behold my YouTube entry got turned up on some other random site. I dunno what it was. I'm guessing it was some collaboration site. The trouble was there was no immediate way upon it to see who I was or how to get to my website. So from now for all new video entries I'm going to be adding a kind of watermark so you can link to my address.

The second reason is regarding my new years resolution I made at the start. Now I said I wanted to play around a bit more with Flash and one of the ideas I had was to create Flash blog entries (or Flogs as I named them). Now the trouble was I kinda quickly realised that this would require a lot of time and effort and I had neither of those (certainly in the case of motivation). However I can do video entries and such. Now I can do that I can essentially churn them out. It's quick, it's simple to do and I can do all sorts of Flash effect on them (if this works). So I'm killing two birds with one stone as it were. I'm keeping up my side of the bargain and I trying to keep it a bit more entertaining.

So this is my tester entry in the world of video blogs. And I think it turned out OK.

Edit: Oooh, turns out you can export things in Flash as an avi file anyways. No flv malarkey for me. Awesome.

31 May 2008 One Word Blog Day

Commitment.

(...not that anyone does this kind of thing anymore)

23 May 2008 Wii thievery

My Nintendo Wii was stolen from my lounge on Thursday 16th May.

I didn't actually notice it was gone until the following Friday evening when I got back from work. But I didn't think anything of it, I just assumed one of my housemates borrowed it without asking. There was no one in the house to ask so I went about my business and went away to a friends house for the weekend as planned.

It wasn't until I got back that everyone in the house told me that none of them borrowed it. So someone stole it. Bastards.

There were two things that struck me as odd about the crime. Firstly there was no sign of forced entry. No broken windows, no damaged door, nothing. So I'm assuming that someone left the back door open so the burglar could just walk in (we've all gotten back into the habit of double locking again). But that could also imply that the burglar is someone who has already been in the house and knew where the Wii was.

Which leads me to the second odd thing about the crime. The only thing that was stolen was the Wii, two wiimotes, Mario Kart Wii (because in was in the console at the time) and the power cable. They left the composite cable to connect the Wii to the TV, they left the sensor bar and they left the CD case full of games. So what they nabbed is kinda useless (although you can get replacement sensor bars and TV connectors easily enough). But they also left the crappy TV itself, the Playstation 2, the stack of DVDs next to the TV. The burglar left a whole bunch of stuff. Either he was startled and left with what he could, or he's just a shitty robber.

I mean c'mon! If you've gonna robbed a place take everything you can!!

So that Monday I called the police. Not the emergency 999 number because, well, it's not an emergency. They said they would send someone over that evening, or the following evening.

Wednesday morning I get a call from them apologising that no one came on Monday or Tuesday and saying that someone will be coming that Wednesday evening. I don't really blame them for taking a while to get to my case. With all these many crimes and understaffed, overworked police force that are being tied down by paperwork; it's not exactly high on their priority list to see the guy who got most of his Wii stuff knicked.

So a policewoman came round my house on that Wednesday evening, after having the courtesy of asking if now was a good time for her to come over whilst the football final was on TV. Which... I thought was kinda odd of her, but nevermind. I told her what happened, told her a list of what was taken, and gave her some kind of way of identifying the Wii if they came across one (I didn't have the console's serial number written down, but I did have the Wii number written down). She took a statement, she gave me a "sorry you've been burgled" pack (complete with UV pen), mention that she'll pass the details to the burglary team of the force, mentioned something about how it might not be worth sending in the SOCO team for fingerprinting due to many housemates and the lounge was tidied up before I reported the crime to the police, aaaand.... that was about it really. Her demeanour was pleasant but I got the impression the whole thing was a bit "I'm sorry that your Wii was stolen, but there's not a lot that we can actually do about it."

The thing is I doubt I'll see my Wii back again, no matter how much I cross my fingers, and I can't replace it for a while because A) I have no home insurance and B) I have no spare cash to buy a new one. Which is a bit crappy really. Very crappy.

15 May 2008 Iron Man movie review

They release a movie based upon a comic character that you're not exactly a huge fan of. Oh sure you might have a couple of their issues and they may make the odd cameo appearance in your usual comics, but nothing that would make you take notice. Then you see the trailer for said comic character that makes the movie look totally kick-ass (like the trailer is designed to). What do you do? In my case I took a risk and watched Iron Man at the cinema.

Fortunately Iron Man was just as good as the trailer promised.

There's lots of different sides to the story. Yes there's Iron Man in action. But there's also Tony Stark, the arrogant yet loveable prick that makes people smile because he's that damn good. There's Tony Stark, the guy who get the life changing experience and gains the responsibilities of a super-hero (as you do). Robert Downey Jr. does a fantastic job in his role.

The pacing of the movie was good too. They did the old 'Tell the whole origin story but condense it into a short space of time and yet lose none of the details' trick, which makes it very accessible for everyone. You've not going to get lost with confusing in this plot. On the other hand there were lots of tibbets for Marvel fan that'll make 'em smile, not to mention all the hints they drop that scream "sequel!" (which they're gonna do) or "spin-off!" (which I believe they are also gonna do).

Iron Man is a movie I can easily recommend to people to watch. Even more so to comic fans. It had me smiling throughout. This movie has helped to restore my faith in Marvel movie again. Maybe now they'll stop making bad Marvel movies like Daredevil and Spider-Man 2 & 3 and keep making high quality movies like Iron Man.

Whatever you do, stay till after the credits.

11 May 2008 Pre wedding vlogs

Before my dad's second wedding back in mid April I did some preparation for my outfit. I recorded my activities as a vlog for a laugh and to show it off to people. Who knows, there might be some value to these videos. Enjoy.

Warning: the following vlogs may contain strong language and product placements.

7 May 2008 The thing about sleeping around...

... Is that it can be much more damaging than people realise, not just to an individual but for every single person in the world.

I'm sure many people remember a time in their lives when they were new to the relationship scene. They heard about this thing called love, this sweet union between two souls, and thought to themselves "I want in on that". But then they end up sleeping with the wrong person, hoping that this is The One™. When they open up to this person and say the 'L' word they get rejected. This can be for whatever excuse they feel like saying at the time. Perhaps they were just looking for sex, none of this lovey-dovey crap. After the first knock down you pick yourself up, learn whatever lessons you may learn and try again, hoping that the next one will be better. The next one is bound to be The One™.

But with each rejection, each mistakes, each "sleeping with the wrong one"; it chips away at ones self-esteem and expectations. Soon one starts to think "Actually no one is looking for love. No one will ever love me for who I am; they just want to fuck me". So they give up the quest for love and indulge in the act of sleeping around. After all everyone else is doing it, you might as well go with the flow. It has its advantages and disadvantages. And with a somewhat jaded opinion on human relationships you continue being content with having sex with different partners. Why? Because sex is fun, and having fun is awesome.

Then you sleep with someone who doesn't just want sex. They want something lasting, they want a relationship, they want love. But when they open themselves up to you after the act of shagging they get rejected by you because you don't believe that they are being serious. No one does this thing called love. And so this genuine person loses a bit of herself and starts to join the orgy of the masses that no longer believes in love. Thus the vicious circle continues.

Bringing someone down like that is a nasty thing to do because it hurts them, no matter how much they hide it. Also it makes it harder for them to find true love because they get the impression that everyone of that gender is a bastard (this applies to both men and women). Keeping people from this form of happiness is a cruel thing to do.

But the problem is bigger than that. Soon this shagging mentality spreads with each person that gets rejected, like a virus. No love and true happiness, only indulgence. Humanity becomes darker and less fulfilled in life and the world becomes a more depressing place to live in.

Not exactly a good mindset to be in, is it?

29 Apr 2008 Three Part Nightmare

The other night I had three dreams. But instead of blogging about them I thought I would try something different and vlog about them instead.

So after making notes, doing some recordings on my crappy digital camera and uploading them onto YouTube, this is the result:

22 Apr 2008 Questionable horoscope

I just so happened to noticed what my Horoscope says for the day on me iGoogle:



I may be reading too much into this but... Is it me or does today's horoscope for Cancerians sound a bit... homo-erotic?

20 Apr 2008 RSS feeds are now fixed

Oh dear. Looks like little Grax was a bit silly...

It would appear that people we unable to leave any comments on my site if they were to click through to a page via an RSS feed, with claims of odd 404 error pages. It happened a few times before in the past and I kinda ignored it, but it wasn't until Vixx came along and told me exactly when it was breaking (thanks again poppet) that I actually investigated some more. Why did it break? Well I'd rather not say... *grumble grumble pointing to the wrong URL grumble*

But good news! It was a simple fix to fix and I fixed it. So now it's safe to leave comments if you enter via an RSS feed. It's all going to be alright. Come on now, don't be shy.

So to celebrate, and because Elyse tag me and everyone else to do so, I'm gonna do one of those Meme thingys.

Here’s how you play: Once you’ve been tagged you have to write a blog with 10 weird, random facts, habits, or goals about yourself– at the end choose 5 people to be tagged. Don’t forget to leave them a comment saying (You’re It!) and to go read your blog. You cannot tag the person that tagged you. Yes I copied and pasted this paragraph from Elyse's page.

1. I'm very much a listener rather than a talker. I love listening to other people talking about their life.
2. I'm a shy guy that hides it through silly confidence and blunt honesty. Like everyone else I bet.
3. I believe that you can do anything (and I mean anything) you want in life, whether it be good or bad. You just have to be able to live with the consequences.
4. At my worse I used to weight 18 stone (252 lbs) and have a crappy beard to try and hide my fat neck. Now I'm a relatively healthy 13 stone (182 lbs) with optional clean shaven or manly stubble.
5. I feel that finding the right partner is more important (and much harder to do) than getting the right job.
6. I like to flirt badly with people, things like "That's a lovely dress, it would look good on my bedroom floor". I find it comical and easy to do, especially when you know that nothing will come of it. And really, people like to hear things like "You've got a really pretty face".
7. I've managed to get some people I know to call me Grax rather than my real name. I'm tempted to start introducing myself to new people as Grax and see how many people I can get to call me Grax.
8. I like to go out of my house to do stuff. For example I like to go to the office to do work, or I like to go to a gym to exercise. I don't like doing things like that at home because there's too many things at home to distract me, namely the Internet.
9. I find watching snooker or darts on the TV quite enjoyable and quite relaxing. Much better than any other sport on TV
10. After wearing temporary tattoos and colour contacts out in public I felt like I wanted people to come up to me and make comments about my appearance. Therefore a goal I could try is I'm going to try and approach more people that look plain different and compliment them.

As for passing this Meme on I think I'll pass it on to..... YOU!

Yes you!

Well go on then. I haven't got all day.

19 Apr 2008 The new look and the wedding: The photos

I mentioned earlier this week that I attended my Dad's second wedding and that I was allowed to post up some photos of the big wedding day. Well after a hefty set of "I'm really bloody busy at work getting the demo stuff ready for demo day" with hints of "I've just got to squeeze in my ass-grooving lessons" and "wait, how does Flickr work again?" I've uploaded some photos for all to see.

It's not all the photos from the wedding day (I didn't get permission from everyone that attending the wedding) but it's the best selection of the happy couple. You can see the second wedding photo set here.

But here's one of the photo's to wet your appetite:


Did I mention how proud I am of my dad? ^_^

15 Apr 2008 The new look and the wedding

So I went to my dad's second wedding last Saturday and it was pretty fantastic.

My dad met this woman a few years ago and, to cut a long story short, she proposed to him last summer and he accepted. The date was set; 12th April 2008. Now my dad is not the usual kind of dad (as people who have seen and met him will clarify). He lives in London and he is kinda cyber-goth... or cyber-punk, I'm not too sure how to classify him (if he is classifiable at all). So the wedding was not going to be a traditional church wedding, but more like... a fancy dress party.

Therefore I wanted to do something different with my look. If I was to turn up to the wedding dressed up like I normally do I would have stuck out like a sore thumb. So after a couple weeks thinking about it and with some consultation from my dad I came up with my outfit for the wedding. And here it is:




It's amazing what some hair bleach, white contacts and temporary tattoos can do for a guy's look huh?

So I was ready for the wedding and eager to take part in the fun. This is what happened next.



However there is good news. I have been given permission by my dad to post up some of the photos of the wedding. As soon as I dust off my old Flickr account I'll be able to share with you more photos.

9 Apr 2008 Let me see you stripped down to the bone

Happy CSS Naked Day everybody!

To celebrate this day of web geekery I'm exposing to you all what only a few people that can be arsed get to see. Now you get to see what this site is made of, whether you want to or not!

Of course you can always change the layout to one of the skin selections below.

6 Apr 2008 Freaky April Weather 2008

So I walked out my front door today and I saw this...


... and this...


...and this...


... I mean what the hell???


It's the middle of Spring. We shouldn't be confronted with this much snow in Britain an this time of the year...


Still it did make me smile. And I thought "Ah well, when in Rome..."

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.

27 Feb 2008 But we're in the middle of a plate!

Did anyone else feel that earthquake last night as well?

26 Feb 2008 Grax all over your face.... book

Grax Domain been pimped out to the masses.

I just so happened to be browsing along Facebook and I noticed an interesting little app called Flog Blog. It's nothing more than a simple RSS feed reader with a Facebook skin on it, but I figured it would be a good way of getting more site exposure.

So now you can read my latest blog entries on my Facebook profile.

That is all.

20 Feb 2008 Breaking news of female pleasures

Good news for mankind; there is a scientific way of finding the existance of the Gräfenberg spot of a woman via ultrasound. Now all they need to do is bring in this technology into foreplay...

I've got it.

Ultrasound dildo's.

No wait wait wait I've got it...

The Sonic Dildo™

Well I couldn't call it The Sonic Screwdriver could I? That name's been taken already.

18 Feb 2008 Grax Domain Birthday and the meaning of flumpy

Say, it's the Grax Domain's birthday today! It's actually 4 (count 'em) years old. So in traditional tradition I've done a little bit of artwork.

I've been playing a lot of Team Fortress 2 and the picture's based on Heavy Weapons Guy, my fave class.

I also found out a new meaning for a word: Flumpy.

I was sitting around at work and a colleague (who shall be named Collie) approached me. The conversation went something like this...

Collie: Y'alright? How's it going?
Me: I dunno. I just feel... Flumpy. I don't know how to describe it.
Collie: Well maybe if you used a real word.
Me: It is a real word (I didn't think it was a word, but I played with the idea)! Look I'll prove it. Google'll know. Google knows all.
Does a Google search for the word Flump
Me: Ha! See? I told you it was a real word.... uh-oh....
Clicks on the Urbandictionary.com link
Me: "Flumpy: the act of oral sex perform on a human while taking a shit".... Hmm... I'm not gonna live that one down am I?
Collie: Nope.

So yeah, apparantly that's how I'm feeling right now; flumpy. Anyone got any ideas how I can get out of this mood?

12 Feb 2008 How much of my brain do I use?

I stumbled upon a blog the other day called Let Me Go On And On; a blog from a woman called Debra, who wrote a book about praying and healing or something like that. One of her blog entries talks about the possibility of deceased relatives communicating via dreams. I made a comment about how these dreams could simply be the brain refiling its data during sleep. Which lead to her mentioning that 10% of the human brain actually gets used, which lead to a reply of that's probably not true, with a slight off-topic mention of vampires and werewolves.

So rather than continuing the brain talks on a blog entry about dead people getting their last words via dreams, I figured I'd address the brain issue here.

After a little research on the Internet I found several places which states that the 10% brain activity idea is pretty much a myth. In fact there's a Wikipedia entry that mentions this misconception. So it would appear that every part of the brain is used, which does makes sense. Why would any part of the brain be turned off, let alone 90% of the electrifying flesh-bag? It's like a TV on standby. It may appear off, but it's still buzzing with power, ready to be activated.

But just because we know that 100% of the brain is in use, doesn't mean we fully know what each part of it is doing... does it?

Whilst parts of the brain have been mapped for certain functions like speech, logical thinking, voluntary and involuntary body movement and so on, there are still parts of the brain that people haven't figured out what the hell it does. Certainly New Age proponents take this opportunity to say that the human brain is capable of superhuman feats, such as psychic powers and alternative perception. What if they're right?

Lets play with this idea for a possible scenario. Lets assume that in fact only about 10% of the brain gets used. What could be in the 90%? Could it be untapped knowledge? Information that human beings are simply born knowing; all the maths, science, language, culture, we already know it. Arachnids know how to spin a web immediately from birth do they not? Maybe we actually know everything and don't realise it.

So I think I use 100% of my brain. I just don't fully know what it's doing in my head.

5 Feb 2008 Mother Nature and my childhood bedroom

I had a dream last night. It was an odd dream, but in a good way. Full of emotions. It's a shame that I cannot remember it all, but this what I do remember.

I was at my old house back in my old home town. We have a driveway for the cars and a hedge blocking the view of most pedestrians. There is a large bush in the middle of the drive, taller than myself. I saw a woman at the top of this bush.

The best way to describe her is that she looked like Galadriel from the Lord of the Rings movie, only more playful and cheery. She was very friendly towards me and we had fun together, playing, kissing and so on. No sex mind you. I remember feeling love for her. Not just any old love, but the whole spectrum of love. From the love for a friend, to the love for a sensual lover, to even a love for a child, I felt it all for her. It was a wonderful feeling that pulsed through my very being.

I think she was Mother Nature personified. I don’t fully think that it actually was Mother Nature personified but it’s the closest thing I can describe who she was. Not necessarily by what she looked like, it was… kinda like a feeling I got from her.

After a while she took me somewhere outside my old house. Everything around it had a worn, overgrown feel to it, like no one had maintained it for years. She showed me a small door that lead to a tunnel. You needed to get on your hands and knees to get through. The whole area had a hint of eerie-ness about it (and the thought of the horror movie Ring did come to mind) but she made me feel safe. So we crawled through the tunnel and we entered a room.

I instantly recognised it as being my old bedroom (even though it looked nothing like my old bedroom in my old home town). My eyes lit up and I grew a smile from ear to ear. Memories flooded back to me as a wave of nostalgia washed over me. I was pointing out things with glee; "Aw man I remember this!" and "*gasp* My old comic annuals!" and so on.

The room and all the things inside had the same run-down look but it was my old bedroom untouched. The walls were coloured with two tones; blue and yellow. I'm taking #000066 blue and #FFCC00 yellow (yes I am using HTML hex code to describe colours, look them up on Google).

I think there was a random man in the room with us, about as tall as a child, but I don't think either Mother Nature or I saw this as odd.

I saw my old bed next to a wall. That area of the room did had the same shape as my old real life room, as the ceiling was low and at an angle due to the roof being the typical triangle shape roof. The bed was dusty and had a few dust-covered cobwebs over it. But I didn’t mind, it was my old bed. So I lightly dusted it off and jumped right into bed. Mother Nature smiled playfully and joined me in bed.

I think something else happened after that but then I woke up.

I did try and fall back asleep to pick up the dream where I left off but it didn't work.

2 Feb 2008 You know you've been doing too much XML when...

30 Jan 2008 I don't like needles....

Apparently I did something amazing today. I donated some of my own blood.

Me, a guy who loathes having needles shoved into him for a mere moment, chose to allow a tube inserted into my arm and drain me for five minutes.

It wasn't the run down community centre that was bad. It wasn't the pin prick on my finger to get a drop of blood for an iron level test that was bad, though I did hesitate to begin with. It wasn't the overworked mature nurse that was talking to various patients that made me lose my cool. It wasn't the build up that freaked me out. It wasn't even the point just after the needle went into my arm that I panicked (I looked away at this point), although my lower half of my body did start to tingle for some reason.

It was when I looked at the red tube...

When I saw the needle in my arm...

When I saw how God damn big the was...

That I thought "Oh bum, there's a freaking huge needle in my arm"...

And I went from being slightly anxious to down right scared. Not 'throw your arms up in the air and scream' scared but a good healthy 'shallow breathing, manic laughing and shakes' scared. I was still trembling after 5 minutes and the needle was removed.

Seriously, I thought the draining needle would be thin, like the ones you get for blood tests. Not a freaking hose pipe.

And for what? To possibly save a life? Well the main reason why I did it was I wanted to do something that scared me. Needles scare me. Being brave and yadda yadda. Plus it's always handy to know at parties what your blood type is.

So hey ho, another notch on my belt of life. I hope someone enjoys my blood, with a slight ting of anxiety for flavour.

25 Jan 2008 One of the greatest t-shirts known to mankind

Ladies and gentlemen.... BEHOLD!



Thanks to the folks at the Penny Arcade Store I have in possession one of the greatest t-shirts known to mankind. Granted you need to be a Street Fighter fan to get any appreciation out of this. But seriously, if you're not a fan of the game then well... *shun*

In fact this t-shirt is so great it is in fact a replacement for my old and wore one.



Ah my old tee; so worn, so faded. It is time to retire the old dog. Maybe I can give it away to a friend or charity or something.

While I was browsing the store I noticed this t-shirt.


Shoot Him First

I've been playing a lot of Team Fortress 2 recently. So because of that and because of the weak US dollar, I picked up one of these too.

That is all.

20 Jan 2008 Lessons on room decorating

I've just come back from my weekend of helping my friend decorate her living room. From this I have learnt the following:

• Painting a room does not take a couple of hours, but rather many, many hours. No matter how small the room looks.
• It's always handy to have the right tools for the job.
• The size of your tool does bloody matter.
• Attaching a Philips screwdriver head to a long flat-head screwdriver with lots of sticky tape does not turn it into a useable long Philips screwdriver.
• Screws in walls are a good way of release manly grunts and growls.
• Asking for help unscrewing a tight screw in the wall does not undermine ones manliness.
• Painting a room at 2:00am is not for everybody.
• It's lots of fun to completely cover your hands in gloss paint, but it's a bit of a pain to get off your hands. And it makes your hands sticky and tingly.
• Not everyone will appreciate you getting your hands completely covered in gloss paint, not matter how much fun it is.
• Painting a room is bloody boring, no matter how much cheesy disco pop you play in the background.

I'm sure these life lessons will serve me well in the future.

19 Jan 2008 Buy Nothing Day: A way to spread a message

I was talking to my friend yesterday morning during our breakfast run. He talked about how the night before he attended this talk relating to the 9/11 event, the war on Iraq and what can be done against the political conspiracy (or something like that). During the talk he came up with a pretty good idea of spreading the message to politician.

His idea was to take a holiday called Buy Nothing Day and modify it or create a day called something like "Not Buying the War Day". The idea being if enough people bought absolutely nothing on this day it will create an impact on the economy that would make politicians take notice or even be embarrassed.

I thought the idea was intriguing and a good one. It would be pretty cool to see as an experiment what would happen if everyone in the country, if not the world, bought nothing and essentially stopped the flow of money. And of course I believe that no ordinary citizen wanted to go to war to Iraq.

Just imagine it. One person buying nothing will not make any difference. Neither would every person in a town. But if we could get everyone in a county/state to buy nothing that would be something. If we could get a whole country buying nothing for one day, that would be amazing.

If we could get everyone in the developed world buying nothing....

Spread the word, get preparing. Mark November 24h down on your calendars. Whether it be to speak a message or to conduct a massive economic experiment, let's make a difference.

13 Jan 2008 Smelly smoothie

Last week I bought myself a smoothie maker. Taking my healthy living New year's Resolution a bit too seriously I figured that I could get my 5-a-day intake by blitzing some fruit and stuff into a drink and quaff daily. Purely in the name of vitamins and minerals.

So far this week I have had a 5-a-day smoothie every day and it has been a tasty way to get my fix.

My question is despite using only fresh ingredients and the drink tasting great in the end, why does it smell bad in the smoothie maker just after the blitz? It doesn't make sense to me.

...

Yes I wash the smoothie maker before every blitz, so don't get smart with me! *points his finger*

10 Jan 2008 Showing a bit of sympathy for the working man in an evil corporation

It been a difficult few days at work recently. We're in full swing of the 'Test it, debug it, rinse and repeat' stage of our products life cycle. Because of this tedious process the level of team moral is getting a bit low. During one of my breaks I pondered over the possibility of over companies that are going through the same process as we are.

Then I thought about the evil corporations of TV and film. It occurred to me that most of the time their products, from the Mega Death Ray to the Super Soldier, failed when it mattered the most.

You've seen the scenarios. Some evil corporation has created this diabolical produ