recepticle=Tuesday, September 30, 2003
happy happy joy joy
if, seven years ago, you were at my house, and you happened to spot an import-only ren %26 stimpy album that i paid a lot of fucking money for and decided to steal it, would you kindly fucking give it back?
elsewhere, i am doing interesting things, but i have no wish to tell you. i won barry's name the tofu competition. he just, uh... forgot to tell me that i won. but it's so obvious. my names were the best.
my dadoo posed an interesting question yesterday; at what point does the murder of a public figure cease being a murder and become an assassination? my answer was that an assassination is invariably of a political figure, and usually for a motive associated with said assassinee. yes, it's a word. now.
and indeed, the griffin savers oxford pocket dictionary defines it as "killing by violent means, usually for political or religious motives". this suggests that, by means of assassination, the assassin would hope to alter whatever influence his target had over politics, religion, or, more broadly, society as a whole.
so here's my question: why the fuck did john hinckley attempt to assassinate ronald reagan? what influence did reagan have over anything? ever? maybe john meant to shoot donald duck instead, who clearly had more influence on the american poitical system, and since they had both been on television, he just got confused? we'll never know.
- posted by lawrie at 6:10 PM ~ comments
Thursday, September 25, 2003
aol and the great consumer scam
i just discovered tonight that, despite cancelling my aol dialup service in jaunary, they have still been charging me. this comes to a total of £119.94 over the past six months.
obvious, i rang up to complain and ask for a refund. at first the lady quibbled with me, then i suggested that she check my user logs and see what my usage was. almost instantly she came back with "oh yes, zero usage since january. let me just have a word with my supervisor."
five minutes later she comes back and says "actually, you have been using the username through the aol homepage." what? "you've logged into the email account via the aol homepage." and you're perfectly willing to charge me £120 for checking an email account maybe four times in the last six months?
to be honest, i was completely surprised that the username was still active after i had cancelled it, but never thought that it might cost me quite so much to send an email. but it turns out they don't even care if i sent an email; the fact that i logged into an email account at all is enough; it suggests net usage, and therefore i should have been charged. and charged i was.
so let's trace this back to the beginning; i cancelled my aol account in january because, thank the lord, i got broadband installed. i ring up to cancel and the aol woman asks me why i'd want to cancel my service. i tell her that, to be perfectly honest, aol's uk diapup service is appalling, and i'm switching to broadband. she offers me a free month. i say, "no thankyou mrs. aol; i'm getting broadband. therefore, i will not need it."
so, she says okay, cancelling your service. then she logs my call as a technical query, doesn't cancel the service and gives me the free month. here's the crucial part; at the end of that month, if i didn't cancel again, the charge would be reinstated. and so it was. and here i am. thoroughly. fucking. pissed.
so i've just spent the last half an hour on the phone to various aol representatives, all of whom seem to find no problem in the logic that, because i used an aol username to check email that i didn't even know should have been deactivated, i should be charged £120. but that charge is for the dialup service, which aol freely admit i haven't used since january.
the woman on the phone also said that aol have a no refunds policy, so even if i never checked my email those five times in six months, i still wouldn't get my money back.
this is a fucking absymal way to treat a customer that aol have had for over three years, and i am not going to let this lie. i am REVENGEANCEFUL.
- posted by lawrie at 9:03 PM ~ comments
Wednesday, September 24, 2003
i am a consumer whore! and how!
i've had the howdy doody theme tune stuck in my head all. fucking. day. my only hope is that i can get the theme tune to top cat stuck in my head instead. i used to watch it all the time on bbc1, when they had five minutes to kill and nothing to show for it, although they would always, without fail, call it "boss cat" because (in case you're foreign (and by that i mean 'american')) you weren't aware, the bbc is paid for by people owning tv licenses, not by advertising, and there was a range of cat food known as "top cat", and the bbc clearly didn't want to advertise it, despite the fact that the theme tune clearly went:
top cat! the mossesseptable
top cat! whose in to let you all
close friends get to call him t.c.
pro fighting is whipped in the tea.
nothing else of note, other than my band finally has a name; we're called super kung-fu action grip. eat it.
- posted by lawrie at 1:23 PM ~ comments
Friday, September 19, 2003
eat my consciousness
i just realised that i haven't posted in almost a week. sorry. so, instead of posting anything that is... y'know... real, i instead decided that i'm going to type out a stream-of-consciousness poem. so, let us begin.
"look into my eyes;
they fill the skies
with lots of pies.
friday pies.
FRIDAY PIES.
seeing you, sitting there
trying to make a crow out of spaghetti
i wonder
what the fuck are you doing.
it looks shit.
give up.
tuesday is my day to be me,
so who am i on the other five days?
can i even count?
i guess i must be rod hull.
except he is dead.
and so is his fucking emu.
let's pretend
i'm at and end.
the end of the line.
the phone line.
hello, is lawrie there?
no, he's out.
out where?
out there. with a bear.
the bear of hope.
rupert the bear.
give me some eyes.
eyes like pies.
friday pies.
FRIDAY PIES.
- posted by lawrie at 5:04 PM ~ comments
Saturday, September 13, 2003
the hstory of a man... not a very sporty one
i recently told a story that i hadn't thought about in years. it's the story of a younger lawrie; a lawrie who has far to go; a lawrie who did not shower enough.
when i was at school, i wasn't exactly the athletic type. i would say that i'm not actually useless at sports, but the following story will completely negate this and prove that i am, in fact, completely shit. i was fairly skinny, and didn't have the muscles like 'woah' i gots on me now (well, muscles like 'meh'). and i was always picked first for football... out of the guys who never got picked for football. there was always our group of bipedular-challenged muppets galloping uselessly up and down the muddy field, trying valiantly to look like we knew what we were doing. i wasn't utterly useless, but i just didn't fucking care about sports. some people like strawberry icecream; some people like football. i'm neither of those, uh... peoples.
this was reflected by my 'participation' in the annual sports day events. i didn't want to volunteer for jack shit; i couldn't run the fastest, i couldn't jump the longest, i couldn't throw the farthest, and i sure as shitfire couldn't throw a fucking discus. but that's exactly what i ended up doing. you see, i was in a bind; either i don't volunteer for anything, and get frowned upon by everyone for 'not being part of the team' and losing my class and my half-year group vauable points, or i volunteer for something and make a mockery of myself.
thank god for peer pressure.
so, on a cold, windy, rainy june morning, i jog out the discus... thing (is it a discus pit? a cage? what the hell do you call it?) and wait to be called. i had already devised a brilliant strategy with my friend mitesh; all he had to do was wind me up by telling me what a pussy i was and how i looked like a wanker in my black shorts, and then i would get really angry and throw the discus really far. we'd already tried it, and it worked.
problem: mitesh doesn't show up. my name is called, and a nervous, sweaty little lawrie steps into the cage, discus in hand. i start to spin, go a bit wobbly, let go... and watch the discus not so much 'fly' as 'fail'. bugger. i start to feel like a twat, the other discus-throwers standing around me, mostly the really-thick-but-also-really-hard kids, looking at me and smirking. i start to get angry at mitesh for leaving me in the lurch when he knew he was supposed to come out and call me a wanker. i pick up my discus, not caring anymore, i start to spin around, baring my teeth and without even looking where i was pointing, i just let the fucker fly. and fly it does! i watched in amazement as my little discus flw out beyond the furthest marker! eat that, owen 'being-hard-makes-up-for-being-a-tard' johnson! i start to grin, stepping out of the cage...
fuck.
i don't know if you're aware, but there's a certain way you have to step out of a discus cage, and it's the rules. you have to turn around touch the ground, jump up in the air, stand on one leg andf touch your nose with your tongue... or some such stupid fucking thing... or you forfeit that throw. and that's exactly what i did. bye-bye, olympic-standard throw - hello darkness, my old friend. needless to say, my dispirited final throw was less than pathetic... but that didn't stop me from being surprised two days later...
because the field events take place before the actual sports day itself, the results were posted as the events took place. and sure enough, one lunchtime i'm standing in the queue for my dinner when i see "RESULTS - DISCUS YR 3" on the board opposite. i step up and take a look, a little hopeful in spite of myself. the names were posted, along with furthest distance and points awarded for their class. "owen... ben... mark... becky... " becky? what the fuck? "sarah... laura... lawrie".
oh yes. not only did i come last for discus... i was beaten by three girls. and one of them was really fucking fat and ugly. i know that's probably not my greatest defence, but goddammit, it's all i have!
- posted by lawrie at 8:45 PM ~ comments
Friday, September 12, 2003
einstein's theory of relativity started out as a dot-to-dot puzzle of a rabbit
i found it again! a tremendous database of lies!
that makes this guy wicked.
- posted by lawrie at 9:26 PM ~ comments
Thursday, September 11, 2003
weebles wobble, but they don't go WHOOSH
i did some designerating. tell me what you think.
- posted by lawrie at 7:02 PM ~ comments
Sunday, September 07, 2003
let's all sue the accident helpline
if you're english, then you'll know what the accident helpline is; if you're american, then you'll get the idea, being in the country responsible for the letigious movement. kind of like the renaissance, but with less actual art and more lawsuits by fat lazy smokers.
in the uk there are a couple of of companies who have glorified the art of ambulance-chasing, and one of them is the accident helpline. not only do they advertise heavily on television, they even have salespeople standing in the street, clipboards in hand, attempting to get in your way, saying "have you had an accident in the last three years?". i can quite honestly say that i haven't had an accident in the last three years; i've never broken a single bone in my body. the only time i ever came close was when a 'friend' threw me over his shoulder and i sprained my wrist, and that was when i was thirteen years old. but that doesn't stop them:
salesmuppet: hi... excuse me, sir... have you had an accident or a fall in the last three years?
me: no.
salesmuppet: are you sure? not in the last three years?
me: no. not in the last three years.
salesmuppet: not at all?
me: not even at christmas.
you get the idea. but i'm digressing; the reason i'm posting this has to do with the adverts on tv. "have you had an accident or fall in the last three years? been injured at work? then you may be entitled to compensation. mrs. clumslylegs was injured at her workplace and received fifteen thousand pounds in compensation."
then we see mrs. clumsylegs talking about her accident. now, here's the crucial part; they show you a reconstruction... and the person who had the accident is doing it again in the reconstruction: "i was walking across the reception area," (shot of stupid woman crossing the floor) "when i slipped on the wet floor and landed on my knee." (shot of same stupid woman who has already injured her knee slipping on some shiny wet floor, which is clearly marked by a CAUTION: SLIPPERY SURFACE sign, and falling down. again. for the sake of reconstruction.)
surely if these people have already been injured in this manner, they most certainly should not be making any attempt at reconstructing the 'accident'. and it happens time and again; mr. backinjury, who injured his back lifting something (he injured his own back by incorrectly lifting something! he did it to himself!) is shown lifting what is clearly a rather large steel container, then bending over double and making a face like he's injured his back. well shit, mister; that's what you get for doing it again.
so i think these 'victims' should rise up en masse and sue the everloving crap out of the accident helpline for making them relive these tortuous incidents purely for the sake of a televisual representation of how you, too, may have been injured at home or at work in the last three years.
afterthought: who in the holy blue fuck are you going to sue if you get injured at home? your wife? your kids? the house? fuck right off.
- posted by lawrie at 11:19 AM ~ comments
Tuesday, September 02, 2003
as if it wasn't confusing enough
take a look at this. now tell me how easy is it to confuse badgers with badges? even the experts don't know! it's a fucking loop-de-loop krazy-with-a-k world we live in.
- posted by lawrie at 6:52 PM ~ comments