I'm sleeping in about an hour, tomorrow I hop on a plane (one that's comically oversized, of course) and go off to Malaysia for three weeks.

Internet access during that time will be anywhere from intermittent to non-existent. So until next year, Merry Christmas, stay well and don't upload too much art!

^{(If you really need to contact me, email alexandergrey@aggag.biz!)}

The last protest of the year for me, and it was pretty damn fun. I took some photos too, that will be littered throughout.

Granted, there was masses of violence from both police and protesters, especially the several occasions when police (both on foot and horse-mounted) charged at protesters. Overall 8 police were injured, in excess of 100 protesters were injured, from which over 40 were hospitalised. One individual received life threatening injuries after a police charge and required three hours of brain surgery to save his life.

Numbers from the protesters first aid area are unavailable, although the student doctor there reported several head injuries that required hospital treatment. Two people from my travel group were hospitalised with head injuries.

[Photo] A man injured in the first police charge

Police spent a great deal of time acting suspiciously - at least in my eyes. At one point those nearest to Parliament simultaneously dropped shields and started moving barriers, although nothing came out of that.

The most suspicious tactic that I witnessed was when riot police allowed protesters into Whitehall, then kettled and charged at them repeatedly, pressing them against police vans that had conveniently been left behind. Police voluntarily relinquishing control of a cordon they had kept for five hours for no reason? That's bloody suspicious.

[PHOTO] The view down Whitehall after police allowed protesters through
[PHOTO] A line of riot police on Whitehall, just prior to charging

Funnily enough I was hit in the chest during one of those charges, I'm absolutely fine though.

It was awesome to see such a diverse mix of people at the protest. Yes there was the students and the anarchists (who go to every protest ever), but there was also a healthy dose of university staff, people who had become unemployed during the recession, seasoned protesters (who actually live on Parliament Square) and the random well-dressed old man shouting for violent revolution.

[PHOTO] Well-dressed old man shouting for violent revolution

And now, because I can't think of anything else to talk about, have some more pictures.

[PHOTO] Protesters around Parliament
[PHOTO] More older protesters
[PHOTO] A line of police surrounding Whitehall, Portcullis House and Parliament
[PHOTO] Protesters retaliate against police charges, using fences as shields
[PHOTO] Starting fires to keep warm

Be back in a few hours.

Or potentially 7-8 hours in the bitter cold, without food, water or toilet facilities if the police decide to kettle people again.

This is a warning.

As of the 13th of December (which is just under two weeks, calendar fans!) I am going to be gone. Absolutely vanished from the face of the Internet. Gone. Vamoose.

No, I'm not leaving the fandom forever, I'm going on holiday. The every-four-years family trip to Malaysia, what is a some 15,000 mile round trip no less. I even drew a map to illustrate this point. linky.

So yeah, from December 13th until some time in January (I think the 7th or 8th) I won't be around and will for the most part be utterly uncontactable.

I am, of course, flying Beluga class.

You have been warned.

I'm a creep,
I'm a weirdo,
What the hell am I doin' here?
I don't belong here.

Well, I probably do.
FA is full of creepy weirdos.

Well that totally sorts out all the legal grey areas that FA dwelled in in various parts of the globe.

Ask me questions about my fursona (Why is he grey, where'd the name come from, etc. etc.) and I'll answer 'em.

Go go go!

 SapphireAMoerlevad
The abbreviation "lb" used for to measure pounds in weight comes from the Latin "Libra Pondo", a monetary unit in Ancient Rome.

 DnaMadness
Election day in the United States is constitutionally mandated to occur on the Tuesday following the first Monday in November. Because of this, the election can never take place on the 1st of November.

 ZhirVolk
Koalas and humans are the only species with finger prints.

 kirihito
Male fruit flies will only mate with females who are still virgins.

 Valoo32
In 1912, the Archbishop of Paris declared dancing the tango as a sin.

I've had this video in my head for days now...
https://youtu.be/4VXQSs1Qfcc

...and promptly smashed the hell out of everything.

GOOD TIMES! :D

I very often (practically every day) take a good look around my Guest Art Gallery (the AGGAG, as I call it). It's very humbling, and is a great reminder to me that people care about me when I'm in periods of loneliness or downliness.

So what the hey, I thought I'd share some of the various statistics that are bourne out of other people's generosity. Why? No sodding idea, but I'm bored and have a class called Information Design, so it's something to do.

As of writing there is currently 260 images in the gallery.

Most popular species
Easily a bat. There have been 156 drawings of Grey in his bat form, making up 60% of the AGGAG.
Compared to 71 (27.32%) for folf and 27 (10.37%) for wolf.
The remaining 6 (2.31%) are of other one-off species - including humans, dragons and ducks.

Most popular theme
This may not come as a surprise, but it's fat.
There are 141 fatty themed arts in the gallery, that's 54.25% of all images.
Below this there are 99 "general" themed images (38.08%) and 32 inflation themed (12.31%).
(The clever ones among you may have noticed that this already adds up to over 260, please check the notice at the bottom of the journal)
34 images (13.08%) images are classed under other themes such as slob, transformation and vore.

Most popular motif
If you've known me for long, you would know that I like to give Grey particular themes or external attributes (typically clothing) to spice up what is otherwise a bland, grey butterball. There are two themes currently in use, the fedora and the goggles - which appear in 0.77% and 34.62% of images respectively.
The first motif was the "orangeshirt", which is in 10.38% of artworks, and still continues today (in spirit), by the orange glow of Grey's goggles.
9.23% of images contain other less-common motifs, such as the Communist era beret and folfish dog collar.

Most contributing artists
I feel like calling 'em out, so I will. These are the people who have churned out the most masterpieces containing Grey. I stress that this is measured solely by quantity and not by any other metric.
1. samael (21 submissions; 8.08% of overall)
2. fatglaz (20; 7.69%)
3. blue (17; 6.34%)
4. bunglebear (15; 5.77%)
5. tolstoy (13; 5.00%)

Most popular additions
I only started collecting metric information about individual submissions about 6-8 months ago, however a few images are clearly more popular than others.
1. Slobby types rejoice, this pic by Glaz is the most viewed piece in the gallery - by quite a way too!
2. The official reference sheet by Khatoblepas comes second. Unsurprising, as gets passed around quite liberally.
3. Blue's fattening flash animation comes in third, only just behind the reference sheet.
4. My little section in Zee's "Manhunt" series pulls in fourth!
5. Slobbishness wins the day, as more sweat-slathered goodness by Glaz takes fifth (filth, surely?).

Most popular additions by year
Just something random I thought I'd do. Here's what's popular, according to the year they came about.
2006. The first guest Grey ever made tops the list for my first year in the fandom.
2007. Lasso, one of the first inflation pieces featuring Grey, is far and away the most popular addition of this year.
2008. It's a tight battle in '08, however this little cameo clinches the #1 spot.
2009. It may seem redundant to name it, seeing as it's the most popular piece on the whole gallery, but Glaz's slobby pile of picture easily outnumbers the competition.

Notable submissions
* The first picture of Grey (not drawn by my horrific hand) is by okina
* This piece so far remains the only "physical" piece of art I've received, in this case, a collage.
* Blue's fattening animation is the only Flash-based animation in the entire gallery.
* In a similar vein, Tolstoy's unfinished Robomilk Project is the only audio entry into the gallery thus far.
* Cyan (formerly at the account renastuffer) was the first person to art-i-cise Grey in both the years 2008 and 2009.
* decker was the first person to draw both the goggles and the neckerchief motifs. The former stuck around, the latter didn't - Decker was the only person to ever use it.
* samael has drawn the most transformed Greys - having arted up Grey as a giant clam, squid, slug, cyclops, caterpillar, whale, orca, shark, sealion, snake, walrus, dragon, a bat-whale-dragon-raven hybrid, a baseball bat, an apple, seaweed, a sausage and the planet Earth.

Now wasn't that fun?
_{(Waits for the hails of "NO!)}

---

Please note: The statistics may not completely add up due to rounding and how images can be placed under more than one tag on the gallery system, potentially leading to duplicates in different groups.

Watchers be trippin' balls, baby.

 FusionPup
Research has found that monkeys really like hard rock music.

 gullible
53% of men and 85% of women claim to be happier following divorce.

 SpecOpsBear
Arkansas is the only US state to have legally specified the pronunciation of its name (AR-kan-saw).

 Magnumugus
A woodchuck can chuck 361.924 cubic centimetres of wood per day.

 dakon_suruchi
The average Facebook user has 130 friends.

 Gigamajora
Phobatrivaphobia is the fear of trivia about phobias.

Hello there new peeps!

 lightsguydave
In America, the richest 40% of the population own 95% of the wealth.

 Poiznjaw
Every day, 6.7 million people commute to work into Manhattan.

 sonic5566
The lion that appears in the MGM logo is named Volney.

Hah, I just got reminded that I was supposed to mess about with the fursona last month.
It utterly slipped my mind

Anyway, I never planned for the changes to be drastic, and I've watered them down even more since the journal posted in July. Grey will no longer be dropping the weight, and shall remain just as much of a blubberball as he was - although I'll still change how extreme that is depending on my mood and who's concerned. Base weight remains in excess of a ton though.

The main changes will be in clothing. For a very, very long time I was a wuff-thing with blue jeans and an orange shirt. When the bat era came around this was replaced with black jeans and (eventually) orange goggles, carrying on the little tradition of orange being the only interesting colour I have.

So yeah, I'm working on clothing mostly - only to be worn when it actually fits, of course - it'll probably be something fairly smart-casual, cause I'm a sucker for a nice shirt and tie combo. And a hat. I need a motherguffing hat. Hats are awesome. Hell, I might end up with a beret again.

Right, that's all I can think of, back to work~ *waddles off back to coding*

I've been wanting to do this for a while, so what the hell, I might as well.

A) How fat is your fursona under normal circumstances?
1) I’m not fat at all.
2) Just chubby.
3) I’m fat.
4) Obese.
5) Immobile fat.
6) Engulf the state/province/shire fat.
7) Galactic fat

I cover all bases, although anywhere from 2-6 under "normal" circumstances.


B) What do you want to do once you reach your goal?
1) Lounge around all day, eating and keeping your weight up.
2) Take a stroll, showing off your obesity for the world to see. Visit the beach and show off. Visit the air-conditioned mall and get ice cream.
3) Enjoy time with your followers/minions, letting them take care of your every need and desire.
4) Struggle with your weight. Get stuck in doorways, break chairs, visit buffets and watch the normal folk stare and gawk at you. Going to work and trying to do your normal job also falls into this category.
5) Exercise and (try to) lose the weight.
6) Try on those old clothes and reminisce about how slim you used to be.

1, 3, and most especially 4. c:


C) What do you want to wear, fatso?
1) Comfortable set of jeans or shorts and a shirt.
2) Sweatpants and an old, ratty t shirt.
3) Bib overalls. Flannel shirt optional.
4) Tight shorts, small shirt.
5) Tight uniform and tie.
6) Formal shirt and pants.
7) Feminine clothes.
8) Nothing at all.

1 when "skinny", 8 otherwise.


D) What’s for dinner?
1) Italian: Pasta, pizza, sauce, meatballs and bread.
2) Chinese food (you’ll be hungry again in an hour).
3) Burgers, fries, sandwiches and other fast food.
4) Tacos, burritos, quesadillas and tortas (Taco Bell doesn’t count!).
5) Exotic food from other parts of the world.
6) Old fashioned steak, potatoes, turkey, biscuits and stuffing.
7) Fruits, veggies, leaves and grass (for all you grazers).
8) Live food.
9) Your fat friends.

1 - 7. I don't really "do" vore, it's not had massive appeal to me.


E) Clean or slob?
1) Squeaky-clean. Shower twice a day.
2) Normal. One shower a day is enough.
3) Slightly smelly. Sweat isn’t so bad.
4) Very smelly. Once a week is enough.
5) SD slob. Shower in urine.

All of the above. :>


F) What do you want to see in your fatty?
1) A big, clean, well dressed and posh fatty.
2) Casual fatty.
3) Worker fatty dressed in a work uniform or coveralls while on the job. A fat cop perhaps.
4) Lazy fatty. Old, baggy clothing and a messy headfur.
5) Fat slob. Smelly, unshaven fellow wearing a wife beater t shirt and boxers. Perhaps smoking a cigar. Messy headfur and stubble are a must.

Also all of the above. :>>

I have taken the decision to temporarily "leave" (or rather, halt my involvement and communication with) the furry fandom. With this includes ceasing use of Fur Affinity, Twitter and instant messaging programs - the methods I most frequently use to communicate with furries.

I will still be using Skype and Steam, as well as Facebook. Although I would prefer that - if I'm needed - that contact is made via email directed to shaun.hargreaves@gmail.com. My furry-centric websites will not be updated in this time.

Feel free to joke about how I'll be back before the end of the week, I may well be, but regardless, I need a break. I need to sort out my life. I need to get back to reality and stay there for a while.

Toodles fandom, it was fun, once upon a time.

What is this, two weeks late?
Yes. Yes it is.

 redx
World War I ended yesterday, when Germany finally paid off it's remaining debt from the Treaty of Versaille.

 Ilius
Riding roller-coasters helps in the treatment of asthma.

 hiro
There are approximately ten thousand trillion (10,000,000,000,000,000) ants in the world.

And now I'm high.

Also, it's my birthday in two days - wink wink, nudge nudge. I'll have to get a cake at some point, although it probably won't be as big as the one I got last year.

Oh well, life goes on :P

So I'm all moved in, all unpacked, and pretty well settled in. soshimojunai moved in a couple of days after me, but he's a lazy bugger and still hasn't finished unpacking, and generally seems more concerned with fiddling with his _computer bits.

I've been wandering around Bristol and the university a bit and generally finding my way, with dragonface's assistance; we noticed that a lot of places have food-related names, but that might just be us.

minhande is coming on Friday 'til Sunday, that should be some fun :3

But for now, I'm just waiting for the university term to begin and to get into the swing of learning stuff about web design. I still have my doubts about whether this is the right course for me though, as I'm still severely lacking in the motivation dept. when it comes to making websites, which I've been trying to do all summer with only one result - http://ukfurmix.furrified.com/

Birthday is in six days too, sure doesn't feel like it, methinks not having a massive party (like Birthdaycon 2009 or Party Belliachi 2007) has kind of diminished the importance of the anniversary in my mind.

And I've ran out of things to say. So I'll just go shower and stuff now.

Another round of random factness for people who have watched me (the fools!)

 Munchman
About 60 million people are active players of FarmVille, that's 1% of the world's population.

 dragonsteve
A queen bee's stinger is not barbed and can be used repeatedly, unlike a normal bee.

 warriorofthestars86
Humans are the only species to drink the milk of another species.
Prior to 1796, the state of Tennessee was named Franklin.

 malcom667
You use 54 muscles to make one step forwards.

T-minus one hour until the move (should) be starting. I'm all packed up (sans phone and laptop) and ready to go. Now it's just the waiting game...

I may be offline for a short while, depending on whether the Internet is set up or not when I get there.

Not often I talk about life, is it?

Lessie, thanks to the generosity of my mother (and a new credit card) I am now in possession of a new laptop, new mobile phone, and all sorts of furniture and goods to fill out the new house.

Oh, you didn't know about the house? I'm renting a house with soshimojunai in Bristol; I'm moving in on Saturday. It's taken a ton of financial manage-things for me to do lately, this stuff is haaaard D:

I begin university (doing a four year sandwich course - mmm, sandwiches - in website design) on the 20th, followed by my 19th birthday on the 22nd, hopefully gonna have a person or two around to give it a bit of celebration.

My motivation for drawing and all that jazz has worn pretty thin, I just can't bring myself to make anything. It may be distractions, or just being so busy with setting things up, or just stress from the impending move away from the parental home.

I'm terrified.

This is a quick hello there to those recent watchers, another journal is gonna be following this one shortly.

 Joshi2853
Luke Skywalker's surname was originally "Starkiller", they changed it at the last moment to make it sound less violent.

 Axel_Vii
Popcorn was invented by the native Americans.

 alansoftbelly90
There are 20 million microscopic creatures living on every one square inch of human skin.

It occurred to me that I've never properly documented what cyborg-ish parts Mr Grey has on his person; some people know a lot of them, some are probably only familiar with one or two. So yeah, for prosperity and time's sake, let's have a good long look at what makes a bat into a partially-robotic bat.

The Fangs
The fangs may look innocent enough, however those two prominent toothy pegs home two small vacuum pumps, which can suck up liquid at a fairly steady pace. These liquids are ejected straight back into the mouth, and merely serve as a quicker way of drinking things (and sucking my fruity victims dry). From the mouth it goes to...

The Digestive Tract
The entirety of my digestive system from the intestines to the stomach is lined with nanomachines whose only reason for existence is to digest those big chunks of food and expel the nutrients they hold. Being efficient in their method, no waste matter is produced, and any excess matter is instead converted into energy for both the organic and cybernetic aspects of the body - aka, the power source. Excess energy is stored as fat.

The abundance of these nanomachines mean that they work with somewhat extreme speed, allowing almost instantaneous digestion of matter of any sorts. The nanomachines can be controlled and deactivated, using the interface provided by...

The Goggles
The most prominent and easily visible attachment is the goggles. As well as being stylish and vision-correcting, they also serve as Grey's interface with his own body and the outside world, allowing him to properly comprehend what's going on with his cybernetic implants and what is going on around the locality.

While removable from the face, they interface with the brain via a connection in the back of the head which is hidden by hair... speaking of which...

The Brain
Grey's brain is entirely cybernetic, it's just one big block of circuits capable of processing 200 trillion (200,000,000,000,000) instructions per second across four CPUs, complemented by 500 terabytes of solid state memory and 32 terabytes of RAM.

This computer is - naturally - completely self-aware, and is capable of mimicking everything from movement to emotion. However it has somewhat poor security controls, but it does have wi-fi.

Besides the goggles-to-brain interface port, there's also...

The USB Interface
There is a USB port located in the back of the neck - normally hidden by hair - that can be interfaced with by a standard computer or any USB compatible device.

The Nose
The most long-standing cybernetic part of Mr Grey, the nosepump has been around for a good few years. This pressure-sensitive air pump rapidly sucks in a massive amount of air from the surrounding environment when it is pushed; it was installed for multiple purposes, from assisting when struggling to breathe normally, to acting as an emergency floatation device. Air inhaled is spread evenly thoughout the body, held in by...

The Skin
On the outside it looks perfectly normal - and it is - the outer layer is organic. Under the flesh however is an elastic rubber coat which can stretch with the body, in place to protect the sensitive internal implants from being damaged by electrical or magnetic interference (such as electrocution) that occurs outside of the body.

The Wings
To quote the wisdom of Batfink, "My wings are a shield of steel!". Grey's wings are steel-plated on the outer side, adding strength to their normally fragile structure, while layered thin enough to maintain some amount of flexibility.

The Belly Button
it may be an innie, but you can push it just like a button. What it does is a mystery.