recepticle=Monday, April 29, 2002
oh, jesus christ
i went out flyering today for make:out:club this evening, absolutely busting a gut to get to the copyshop in time to have the flyers actually made. i rang them up earlier and asked about the price of 100 monochrome copies onto gloss paper. 18p a copy, plus vat - but we only do colour copies onto gloss, she says. fine, i says. so i modified the flyers slightly so it had the nice blue 3d 'x' that people should associate with leicester/music in the background. so i burst into the copyshop, flyer sheet in hand, and she says "oh, did you want a4? i thought you wanted a3." 'bonus,' i think. 'they're going to be cheaper'. so, she wanders off to the machine for 100 a4 copies onto gloss while i go to the cash machine. the price went down to a not-very-much-lower 15p a copy, no vat, but i wasn't too fussed. so i come back, cash in hand, and she's just cut them. they're fine, apart from the fact that a) they're not in colour, and b) they really don't look very glossy at all. but at this time i'm figuring that beggars can't be choosers, so i take them and begin my mission.
i dump some in bossa and the chip shop that always has flyers and posters for stuff, before realising that i should double back and dump some into my old place of work, stayfree (deathtrap) rehearsal rooms. so i wander in and suzanne is on reception. i leave some flyers, have a bit of a chat, then wander upstairs to leave some on the 2nd and 3rd floors. arriving on the 3rd floor, i see a poster for leigh's band orange boodle, and they're on tonight at the charlotte. that made my mind up; i was staying in town and going to catch some boodle tunes.
i bumped into leigh on my way out and spoke to him for a bit, then set off plastering flyers in appropriate places, although some bars won't take them because, quote, "we're still open - it's competition, see?". well, i might understand, were it not for the fact that this coming thursday i'm running an acoustic night, and on the same night you're running a happy house hardcore trance night. i think people might make a choice between the two; it's not like i'm running an acoustic night and you're running a soft jazz night. you dummy.
anyway, i end up staying in the orange tree for a while because it's started to piss it down, and kate and her friend were in there. left the orange tree, left some flyers in the musician, the shed and big wheel, and then went to the charlotte. where i also left some flyers. obviously. the boodles were pretty good, and i left after them so i could get the last bus home. i considered walking, then thought that perhaps i wouldn't.
so; i get back into oadby, and i got off the bus on the parade, which is the little strip with prefab 50s buildings that all have shops in them. usually i'll get off by the church or on the corner of my road, but i fancied a walk tonight. so i get off the bus, and i'm just passing this little arcade thing when i see a flashing red sign. this flashing red sign appears t have been put up by the council. i take a closer look, and it says:
oadby and wigston borough council
would like to wish you:
happiness and good health
um... what? it was one of those flashy signs that you see in the windows of building societies: come in and find out how low our mortgage rates are! not low at all! now, i have programmed a couple of these signs before, and i know it's an obvious prank... but i really really want to reprogram it.
oadby and wigston borough council
would like to wish you:
death and pestilence
- posted by lawrie at 10:50 PM ~ comments
Thursday, April 25, 2002
the 'cheers' gang was not a *real* gang
i can't describe it... the sheer beauty and brilliance in the way the internet works; i went off searching for a javascript fix to something that was pissing me off with a new site i'm building (it was actually just a really simple modification to the body tag.. a slap-my-forehead-that's-too-fucking-easy job). so anyway, off i go, searching for javascript fixes... and what do i find? a meg & mog fan club! most excellent. i had a bunch of meg & mog books when i was a kid. i also had busby the bird(?) - he was a character developed by midland bank, i think. anyway, busby was in a band, and i think he was the drummer. i'm going to see if i can find him now.
- posted by lawrie at 6:36 PM ~ comments
Monday, April 22, 2002
holy fucking shit
that's right baby! i update my templates. what do you mean you can't tell? i joined a clique, and i changed a link.
um, etc etc... blogger just lost me this last post because it's been shitting it's pants over archiving. no idea why. the point being that i couldn't be bothered to retype a whole post that wasn't even very interesting in the first place.
ooh - apart from the fact that i intend to have the lawrie:malen online game up and functional by 23rd of may, which is my birthday. i hope you all got me something nice.
- posted by lawrie at 9:12 PM ~ comments
Wednesday, April 17, 2002
questionairres part deux
and here we go again.
smoke? nope. i'm straightedge.
do drugs? nope. see above, dummy.
have sex? loads, thanks. you?
sleep with stuffed animals? only if i'm sleeping with emily. and not because she's a stuffed animal, but she has plenty.
have a crush? sometimes i crush emily
have a boyfriend/girlfriend? uh.... emily. obviously. didn't i already say that?
have a dream that keeps coming back? there's the one about the russians and play-dough mountain.
play an instrument? loads.
believe there is life on other planets? no. if there was, then how come mr universe is always from earth?
remember your first love? teela from he-man.
still love him/her? not since my sisters told me she and he-man weren't real.
read the newspaper? *the* newspaper? is there only one?
have any gay or lesbian friends? you could have shortened that sentence by two words just by using the word 'homosexual'.
believe in miracles? like jesus miracles? no.
believe it's possible to remain faithful forever? well, until you die. after that, i'm not responsible for where worms and small vermin drag parts of my carcass.
consider yourself tolerant of others? not at all. i'm horrible and condescending. i abhore stupid people. sometimes i hurt them in nasty ways.
consider police a friend or foe? rod-ney king!
like the taste of alcohol? pure, undiluted alcohol? i love it.
believe in magic? like wizbit magic? absolutely.
believe in god? like jesus god? nope.
have any secrets? yes... i used to put my cats head in my mouth, when she was a teeny kitty. now she has, um, issues.
have any pets? bob the cat, kiedis the kitty
do well in school? better than you.
go to or plan to go to college? that would be a really stupid question if i was like 50. but i'm not. so no.
have a degree? yes, i have a degree in theory. from oxbridge university.
talk to strangers who instant message you? you're one of those people who randomly messages people like mumfy and ask a barrage of questions relentlessly in the hope of some cybersex aren't you? twat.
wear hats? not unless i want to look like a homeless chemo patient.
have any piercings? no, but someone took my out of it's socket once.
have any tattoos? no. have any drugs?
hate yourself? not as much as i hate you.
have a horny spot? well, if i arch my back my vertebrae kinda stick out and makes me look like a prepubescent stegosaurus.
get horny easily? no, it hurts my back.
have a best friend? god, these questions are lame.
wish on stars? not since one fell out of the sky and destroyed the east coast of america.
like your handwriting? sometimes it looks kind of psychopathic. especially when i write ransom notes.
how do you look? with my eyes, stupid.
believe in satan? not really. although i do have the satanic bible. none of those spells work.
believe in ghosts? like casper? no.
believe in santa? i want to, but since he's been an employee of coca cola since the thirties, and disney and hallmark bought all the rights to happiness and joy in the fifties, then it's hard.
have a second family? both of my parents are remarried. god, i hate christmas.
trust others easily? no - everyone is cheating scum.
like sarcasm? it's super.
take walks in the rain? no. that's crap. and wet.
kiss with your eyes closed? yep, unless i have my eyelids duck-taped to my forehead. then, no.
sing in the shower? you assume that i know where my shower is and that i am hygenic.
own handcuffs? you're trying to cyber with me, aren't you?
have any scars? lots. from being in prison. for terrible crimes. fear me.
do you wear rings? yes. sometimes. rarely. never.
do you like to sing? i know a song that will get on your nerves, get on your nerves, get on your nerves! i know a song that will get on your nerves, get get get on your nerves!
- posted by lawrie at 5:26 PM ~ comments
Tuesday, April 16, 2002
i love questionairres
i just got a call from a guy in wigston - he runs a bodyguard firm, and he's looked after the queen, prince charles, a1 (ahem...) and many others, has supplied work for people in bejing and la, and he wants a website. from me. excellent. apparently he called me "because i saw the name of your company [gaijin design], and i've spent quite a lot of time in china. gaijin obviously meaning 'white ghost'." "oh, obviously," i replied. gaijin is actually a japanese word, and literally translated means 'not japanese'. i believe he was thinking of 'gwei lo', which does mean 'white ghost', and they sound kinda similar, and actually mean pretty much the same thing; to the japanese, 'gaijin' is a foreign person, and 'gwei lo' in chinese means much the same thing. easy mistake to make.
anyway; i found a site, and it had an excellent domain name, and the referal came from quite a decent source. i think the site in question was powered by greymatter and took an age to load the content... but i digress. basically, i thought the site might be cool and funny, but it was all a bit straight and narrow and - how do i say this without being offensive? - christian. you know what, i know some people that are christians and they're great, but something about believing in a god-like entity seems to sap the humour out of people. so, she answers these questions, but she answers them straight, with conscientious and thoughtful answers. how gay is that? here they are, and here's my answers:
a close friend will be interviewed for a job with your employer. he asks you for a list of the questions in advance. do you supply it?
yes. but only after i've changed all of them to questions like "if you were a paperclip, what would your aspirations be?" and recommended that he wear a top hat and some spats.
you work for an optical store. jimmy has broken his glasses and his parents are agonizing over the price of replacements. a competitor is selling identical glasses for half-price. Do you send jimmy's parents there?
arf. no. instead, i advise jimmy's parents that they beat jimmy severely for being such a clumsy, thoughtless oaf, and if he wanted to see better then why wasn't he more careful? then i'd sell them some timmy mallett cast-offs from 1987.
you are a reporter. the family of a murder victim has refused your requests for picture and interview. your editor demands that you keep calling them. do you?
no, because this would involve some real work on my part. instead, i would make up the entire interview, colouring it with some inventive plot involving alligators and parmesan, and create a picture using abraham lincoln and ilse koch's faces, and put them on some swimmer's bodies using photoshop.
- posted by lawrie at 8:55 PM ~ comments
Thursday, April 11, 2002
fux0r
hoofuckingray. after not hearing from this company in london last week (this comany wanted a website designed in-house, hence large callout fee for me and happy lawrie), i decided to ring them. here is a transcript of that conversation:
(please note that this is not what i said, but rather what i was thinking while my mouth did other things)
london: hello, jennifer sutton.
lawrie: hi, this is lawrie from gaijin design.
london: oh... [slight pause] hi, hi lawrie. how are you?
lawrie: bollocks. i've not got the job, have i?
london: did i email you?
lawrie: of course you didn't, and you never had any intention of doing so.
london: oh i thought i did. oh wait, i did, but i never sent it.
lawrie: i see. in the same way that i thought about fighting in the vietnam war, except it was over before i was born?
london: well, martin and i have decided to stick with the firm that's doing our re-branding.
lawrie: hmm... well it strikes me that they're not web designers, otherwise you would have gone with them from the start. they're just graphic designers with delusions of html, aren't they?
london: sorry about that.
lawrie: no, that's fine.
london: i'll definitely keep your details on file.
lawrie: oh really? the round file marked 'dustbin'?
london: bye.
lawrie: bollocks.
and such was my afternoon. would i have been more blissful in my ignorance? i don't think so. this just means that i can't afford to insure my car now. crap.
- posted by lawrie at 3:27 PM ~ comments
russian bands and hurting hands
heh. that was my great attempt at a rhyming subject line. i though it ever so witty, especially since i've only been up an hour and a half, and i was awoken from a dream about hell dogs breaking into the house and biting my cats by a sales call from yell.com.
let's see now... russian bands? well, i'm doing a site for a band called obscure and while i sat in the kitchen trying to think of a decent design, i just came up with the crimson, black and red colour scheme, and the idea of a hammer & sickle watermark. no idea why, but i found this excellent ussr hat pin in the shape of a star and i traced it and it looks bad-ass. also, i modified my aol samples of joanna lumley saying "welcome to aol" and "goodbye" by running them through a distorted carrier wave, and now she sounds like a cylon from battlestar galactica.
speaking of joanna lumley - did anyone see 'up in town' yesterday? it was a 5-minute monologue by hugo blick on bbc2 just before 10. it was excellent. i don't know why i ask, of course, because no one is going to tell me they saw it, because only 4 people come here to read my blog. and that's only if you count me twice. plus no one emails me back. self-pity. wallow in the mire. come on baby light my fire. ha. ha.
- posted by lawrie at 11:00 AM ~ comments
Friday, April 05, 2002
all of my porno friends
i haven't been at my own house a great deal recently, especially in the evenings. the reasons for this are two-fold; a: mumfy is on uni holiday, and so i (obviously) am sleeping at hers a lot, and b: if you look at my last entry about my abscess, you'll see that the last time i did stay in my bed, i got bitten by fleas from my cats that seemingly decided to take up residence under my sheets in my absence.
in the time that i have not been here, aol on the family computer (p1mmx 166 32m ram 2.4g hd = pants) has gone fubar, and so the rest of the family have been using my machine while i'm not here. i didn't have a major problem with this until odd things started to happen... for example, i suddenly seem to have microsoft network support installed permanently on my machine, and if i remove it it just reinstalls itself on startup.
this i can live with, but what does seem rather perturbing is that some personal sites (such as mumfy's, and rich donnachie's) seem to have become sponsored by porn. that's right. the last time i looked at mumfy's site hosted on her university server, i got 4 porno popups. and today, i just went to visit rich donnachie's new site, and i was offered a premium rate porno dialup service (one of those that automatically downloads the dialup adapter to your computer). what has happened? seriously, if any of you are that desperate for cash i can lend you a pound.
- posted by lawrie at 11:20 AM ~ comments