recepticle=Saturday, August 31, 2002
it never ends
i swear, i'll stop posting search engine results as soon as they stop being so fucking ridiculous. which dirty little child ended up here after searching for 'telford sex shop'? and, once again, coming up real high for 'flacid penis'... although the fact that i've mentioned the term 'flacid penis' bringing me up before is what has made me rank ever so much higher this time. and the fact that i have typed out 'flacid penis' three times in this entry alone will guarantee that people searching for limp dicks will come here first. excellent.
...although, that's not quite so ego-boosting as fifth for 'freakishly large penis'. what is it with me and these penis searches? i don't even have one.
*cough*
- posted by lawrie at 7:07 PM ~ comments
Friday, August 30, 2002
school's in, i'm off
i have no idea what that subject line means, but it sounded pretty good in my head. the other day i saw a couple of kids walking past my house, obviously on their way home from gartree high school, which unfortunately shares it's name with a rather well-known prison. it's the school i was forced to go to between the ages of 10 and 14, and i tell you now; it was one of the darkest periods of my life. if i had known about goths back then, i totally would have become one.
there's no single reason why my time at gartree was so fucking horrific, but i just remember being stressed almost 100% of the time, being ill, or pretending to be ill (and not just the occasional 'tummy-ache' to get the day off; i was attempting to skip whole terms), getting detentions, getting horrendous reports... and then there was the family curse.
i come from a very small clan; in fact, of my massively over-extended family, there are only three malens; my dadoo, my grandma, and myself. the family curse only affected two generations - me and my pa - but was nonetheless a terrible affliction... and it's name was mrs. beagley. mrs. beagley was my humanities teacher, but she also taught my dad geography, 25 years previously. apparently, she's always looked 70 years old. she gave my dad his first detention, and he fucking hated her. although she didn't give me my first detention, she did make me cry on numerous occasions by being a callous old hag, bent on ridiculing me in front of my entire class (although admittedly i was a weepy kid), and she kept calling me graeme (my pa's name). hello? how can you continually make that kind of mistake with two people seperated by a generation gap of 25 years? i could understand if my dad was my brother... wait, that sounded a bit southern.
so where did the gartree/mrs. 'beaky' beagley rant come from? well, as i saw these two kids walking past my house on their first day back at gartree after having 8 weeks break, i just thought 'you poor little bastards'... and immediately realised how utterly jaded i was by my time in that school, it's not even funny. but, if anyone in the midlands area is interested, tomorrow i intend to construct a nine-foot high wicker replica of mrs. beagley and place it in her front yard, and then pay people to torch and throw rocks at it until it collapses on her house and burns it to the ground.
- posted by lawrie at 5:27 PM ~ comments
Thursday, August 29, 2002
hit-whore? me?
yes, yes - it's all true. for the first time since may, the jedi quiz doesn't actually take up 95% of my referral log; the crown now belongs to this man (for those of you that read yesterday's entry, it's tom coates of plasticbag.org again), who has sent me so many hits in the past 24 hours, you could fill up an oversized crocodile with them, call it 'snapper I' and launch it into space.
of course, this link is reciprocal, because i've given tom quite a few hits too. in this way, i feel we have become great friends, in the way that you can become great friends with someone without meeting, speaking or communicating with them via any means whatsoever.
- posted by lawrie at 2:02 PM ~ comments
Wednesday, August 28, 2002
hmmm, interesting...
i found an interesting email debate between tom coates of plastic bag.org (which is a site i've never been to before, and i fucking love the design), and some... person at the guardian. tom certainly makes some very good points, just about all of which i agree with, while the guardian guy seems kind of... well, guarded. none of this has stopped me from entering myself for the guardian's 'best british blog' competition, of course.
if it were up to a public vote, a la the bloggies, i most certainly wouldn't win, but with a panel of judges i've definitely got a chance. of the eight judges, i've sent five of them a mince pie in the post, and i threatened anita roddick with throwing rocks at customers of the local bodyshop unless i get her vote. this one's in the bag.
- posted by lawrie at 4:19 PM ~ comments
and now on the bbc.... me!
fucking brilliant. i've been linked by the bbc. look on the right hand side, and it's a link to the jedi quiz. in a mildy related topic; almost a quarter of a million people have taken the jedi test, and today i received my first complaint about it being offensive. i would reply to this person, but at the moment i'm too busy doing my 'i'm-on-the-bbc' dance.
- posted by lawrie at 12:07 PM ~ comments
Tuesday, August 27, 2002
pistachio
i don't think i've ever done this before, but i was mightily impressed by the layout of a site a found while blog-hopping*. so; random plug for sherbet massacre.
blog-hopping: the process of following links from one blog to another, and then pouring a bleach-petroleum mixture and a lit zippo lighter into your disk drive, all the while humming 'burn baby burn' by ash.
- posted by lawrie at 9:23 PM ~ comments
i'm a disgrace
a weekend visitor sent three seperate emails, all about a minute apart, and had this to say:
from the_last_dance_is_fake@hotmail.com
'idiot gay twat ego your shitty system cant recognise a dodgy e-mail
ahahahahah perhaps u should invent another one' and...
'i didnt think anybody from the uk was as big headed as you it
seems that i was mistaken your a discrace' and...
'your a discrace to britan'
that's right folks, i'm a discrace. i know i've said this before, but why are all the most offensive emails written by completely illiterate muppets? after weeping over these emails for a couple of hours, i dried my eyes and realised that there's no such fucking place as BRITAN, you semi-literate, feeble-brained, fuck-witted, probably-ugly, public-ass-scratching cro-magnon throwback.
i would like to know exactly what i did to offend this person though; i can put it in my record of achievement.
- posted by lawrie at 1:09 PM ~ comments
Monday, August 26, 2002
footastic
we didn't really go anywhere but the main stage yesterday, so we saw the hives, ash, sum 41, muse and the foo fighters, who were absolutely fucking amazing. they played a couple of tracks from the forthcoming album, and they sounded fantastic; there were fireworks and everything. about half an hour after we left people started setting fire to pylons, observation towers and the main stage. a bunch of my friends were still there, and were woken up by the sound of a helicopter landing next to them and riot police running away, so about six of them piled into a tiny little fiesta and drove 20 miles away to andy's mom's house in york. paul rang me about lunchtime just to confirm that he was still alive.
me and mumfy are both shattered, but i should be journeying to the shed tonight to meet up with rich, who i haven't spoken to for ages and ages. you when you get a feeling like you've got something perpetually stuck in your throat? i've got that right now and it's driving me fucking nuts. i actually get this every single time i eat a rowntree's wine gum; they're just too hard for regular human consumption. i'll have to hire a monkey to chew them for me first.
- posted by lawrie at 7:27 PM ~ comments
Saturday, August 24, 2002
lmfao
randomly surfing, i found penny arcade. it's fucking brilliant.
- posted by lawrie at 6:29 PM ~ comments
how very silly
so, funny story; for those of you that haven't been following my life, i'm hoping to land a contract making educational flash games to teach chinese people english using a phonetics system. sounds fun, eh? at the moment i'm waiting to hear back from the hong kong government to see if my quote is low enough, and in the past week a very odd thing has happened.
i received an email on monday from an american firm asking me to quote for making a bunch of flash games. fine, i says (gleefully rubbing my hands together), but i need more details. so they write back saying that they want a series of about 30 flash games that will teach english to foreign people working in american firms using a phonetics system. hmm. so i write back, quite innocently, offering basically the same price i gave to hong kong, but i also decided to ring nic at the local company that's facilitating the hong kong deal. suspicious, says nic; he thinks that it's an indian firm (with a registered office in new york, hence the 'american' bullshit) they've outsourced to a couple of times, trying to undercut my quote, by using me, obviously having no idea that i'm already involved. are you following me so far?
so the indian firm come back to meand ask me for a cheaper quote. so here's what we're going to do: this indian company are complete fucking amateurs (as if that wasn't already apparent), and are totally disorganised. i've sent them a quote that's over half the price i originally quoted them, meaning they're spunking in their pants to take it. they then turn around to nic and say they can do it for cheaper than me. they send contracts to me and nic. he signs the contract that states that the indian company will make these flash games. i don't sign my contract and pull out of the deal, meaning the indian company a truly fux0red. the results are threefold; 1) indian company will be contractually obliged to fulfill a deal they have no way of ever completing. 2) nic can sue them for not fulfilling the contract, and 3) we have a jolly good laugh at someone else's expense. tee hee.
in other, completely different news, me and mumfy are going to the leeds festival tomorrow. if you're there, come and find me at: the concrete jungle stage watching get up kids; the evening session stage watching goldfinger; and the main stage watching almost everyone on there.
- posted by lawrie at 11:17 AM ~ comments
Thursday, August 22, 2002
grah!
freaked out this morning by the fact that none of my sites were online. this was down, my work site was down, my backup site was down, and two clients' sites were down. i was at emily's this morning (well, this afternoon - my sleep patterns are going to shit at the moment), and i was trying to ring home to get the company debit card details. unfortunately, my mom was on the phone for about an hour, which meant that i had to travel 7 miles back here just to get a fucking card number. scream.
so now i'm sitting here, drinking some orange juice and trying to chill out before i head off into town again to get my hair cut off and write some emails to some clients. to a couple of you who have asked if i'm ever online on aim; te basic answer is no. this is, as far as i can tell, mainly my computer's fault. i have about 6 aim names, and only two of them ever manage to connect properly anymore. half the shit i've got on here doesn't connect properly, and it's because my computer is being severely abused by other family members. imagine having to reconfigure your machine almost every day just because some computer-illiterate muppet doesn't know what they're screwing with. so, if you want to contact me, your best bet is to use the contact form and email me. and then i'll reply, if your message is longer than 9 words.
- posted by lawrie at 2:18 PM ~ comments
Wednesday, August 21, 2002
bleeeurgh
i've been asked by an american firm to quote for developing some interactive flash games, which is always fun. what's wierded me out about this request is that they want me to do exactly the same as the hong kong job; a series of about 30 flash games that teach foreign people english using phonetics. spooky spoo, no? on the down side, i feel like shit. i mean, i feel really, really, rough. everything aches, my stomach feels all floaty and other-worldly (yes yes, i can apply that adjective to my belly and make sense), and yesterday i went for a poo about 11 times. now, who wishes they hadn't read this far?
i was about to have a little moan about the fact that all the search engine results for the past couple of weeks have been quite lame... but wait - i come up first for gay essex blog. woo hoo!
- posted by lawrie at 2:49 PM ~ comments
Tuesday, August 20, 2002
too hot
the weather is gross. it's all muggy as fuck and my belly hurts. and i still can't edit my template on blogger.
had a meeting yesterday about this book that i've been asked to write; 40,000 words (give or take a few hundred) and about 5 weeks to do it. woo hoo! if you're doing a masters you only have to do a 12,000 word dissertation, and you've got a year to do it. most of it is going to be transcribed from tape recordings of conversations with people, and there's a fair few contributors; mani from primal scream (formerly of the stone roses), wags from the happy mondays, phil smith, tour manager with oasis and... a bunch of my mates. well almost everyone i know is a musician, and between them have had loads, some, or no success. and the best bit is, it will say my name on the cover of the book:
so you wanna be
a rock star?
no fucking chance
by
lawrence malen
that's not really the title of the book, by the way.
- posted by lawrie at 1:56 PM ~ comments
Saturday, August 17, 2002
heartwarming
what is everybody doing? number of visitors per week has dropped by like 200 from last week. did everyone suddenly decide they had something better to do during the summer than sit inside and read my blog? i want all the attention.
i think i posted my last post too quickly, and nobody read the one about me writing a book. so read the last post. because i need constant approval from strangers. also, this one has to be pretty shrt, because angel is on in exactly 6 minutes. a rather heartwarming search result that shows this site up as number one: "a place where hope is still alive".
- posted by lawrie at 10:15 PM ~ comments
Friday, August 16, 2002
time for a pseudonym
you know when someone from a publishing company rings you up and asks you to write a book? well, of course you don't, because that only happens to me. and, i guess, maybe some other people. but mainly me. a guy i've known for years who, it turns out, works for a publishing company (i knew he had a job which was pretty fucking incredible in itself, but not the particulars of said job), rings me up at about 9.30 this morning, and i was so obviously not awake, and he asks me how my writing is. well, most people know me for writing, or music, or that fucking jedi quiz, and i've done a few bits here and there; i used to write for a local music magazine, and obviously i keep this blog, so i says my writing is fine, thanks. he says do i fancy writing a book? i'm thinking, well, i've got the hamilton job coming up (fingers crossed), and the hong kong job looking to take up the next year or so of my life (everything else crossed. including pubes.), so i thought (stupidly), "fuck it, why not?".
it's a book on self-publishing, promotion and general "getting ahead" in the music industry, which is something i know plenty about because... well, i never got fucking anywhere. so, who wants to buy this book now? actually, all the source material is provided for me, i just have to make it sound real pretty. maybe there will be book signings, and i'll get a fan club, and then i'll appear on the late show with david letterman and it'll turn out that i'm funnier than him, and then i'll be on wogan, and... well, obviously i'll be funnier than him. or maybe not; it'll be a 'publish-on-demand' book, which means that they will do an initial pressing of probably a thousand, and if there are any more ordered after that, they will press them as needed. but fuck it - it's my dad's dream to see my writing in published print. perhaps not exactly like this, but it's better than getting on stage and being so nervous that you accidentally vomit in the hole on your acoustic guitar, and then it sounds all wrong because it's full of sick and your fingers keep sticking to the strings because they have a combination of last night's mince and bile on them, and then you get booed and people throw things and someone throws a volvo at you and you die.
- posted by lawrie at 3:02 PM ~ comments
Wednesday, August 14, 2002
must try harder
that's what every single one of my school reports said. and they were right. i really should make an effort to blog more, especially since i submitted myself to the guardian's best british blog competition. unfortunately it's decided by a panel of judges and not user vote, otherwise i'd force you all to vote for me, whether you wanted to or not.
if any of you would like to go back in time, then you can see me play at the shed, yeoman street leicester, last night at about 9.45pm. it wasn't bad, but the place was pretty empty. we were supporting two hardcore rawk bands, i didn't speak to the guys that were headlining, primarily because as soon as they walked in and began setting up, the drummer took off his shirt. i was like "man, you're not even playing, which might make it excusable if not acceptable." and i can only presume he did this to show off his freakishly shaped body and his pierced nipples.cock rock lives.
in other, mildly disturbing news, i think someone might be pretending to be me online. i got an email from some guy, and it made absolutely no sense to me, but he was talking about my posts concerning omaha on fark.com. until i received that email, i'd never visited fark.com before in my life, so i can only presume that this visitor was either extremely confused, or someone has stolen my life. this has happened once before, by this man:
called xavier, whose disguise was so clever that the only way people could tell it was not me was by looking closely for the cyborg eye and disproportionately large head. anyway, i'm going to reply to the person that emailed me and see if i can sort out what's been going on. i wll, obviously, keep you posted.
- posted by lawrie at 12:56 PM ~ comments
Sunday, August 11, 2002
ambitions and bloglessness
i've been quite slack with this for the last couple of days, but seriously people; i'm just not that interesting all of the time. the bad news is that the hong kong government weren't willing to spend four million dollars on our great play-and-learn system. the good news is, they might be willing to spend half that amount. so it's not quite the 'set-up-for-life' deal i'd been hoping for, but it could still be 'set-up-for-a-little-while'.
the past few days i've been putting the finishing few touches to the new gaijin design site (although i have still have absolutely no idea what to put on the profile page), and thinking-about-but-not-doing the locogroup site. i promised to have it done for tomorrow. kind of. and this is still feasible; even if i actually start building the site tomorrow mid-morning i could still have it done by the afternoon, because i'm quick-as-a-flash. i've noticed a lot of hyphenation in this post. oddment.
the other thing i started on a couple of hours ago, which seemed like a great idea at the time and has very rapidly become a great pain in the ass, is a flash version of wonderboy iii: the dragon's trap originally made for the sega master system. i started on the wonderboy sprite, and i got the walking down and everything, but getting the walking and fighting states to tally and all work correctly and blah blah pain in the ass. which is why i'm online; someone at flashkit is going to help me. no odd referrals for the past couple of days, aside from two or three from rich, which is not odd in itself, but i was pleasantly surprised by it. makes a change from seeing page after page of referrer: /jedi ad infinitum.
- posted by lawrie at 9:47 PM ~ comments
Thursday, August 08, 2002
oh what tangled webs we weave...
ok - just to clarify; the second half of yesterday's blog was all lies. however, the first part was true. that is to say, me and mumfy did go to ikea (and to trace the commenter, yes there is one in the uk - in fact, there's about six), but we did not stop at burger king on the way back. we went to mcdonalds before we left leicester because i was moaning like a little bitch about being hungry.
thanks also to jon, who found a great new way to waste hours and hours searching through google's responses to the search "lawrie is". my favourite so far definitely has to be lawrie is one of the world's leading authorities on meat science.
if you are unemployed and bored, or self employed but disgusted at the amount of work you are expected to do for 50p and a bag of maltesers and frankly would rather lie on your back and see if you can spit on the ceiling than actually do any designing (umm... just so you know, i'm not talking about me. honest.), may i suggest passing the time with collapse; it's addictive as hell, and makes your wrists really hurt. alternatively, you can always play on my very own mechabreakout, which has received zero hits since i first put it online. this is because blogger is a whore and i can't edit my template, therefore i am unable to add a permanent link to it. bastard.
- posted by lawrie at 2:16 PM ~ comments
Wednesday, August 07, 2002
i am a furniture-eating whore
me and mumfy went to ikea today to get some extra parts from a flatpack that were missing. it's her third ikea trip in as many days, but, despite the fact that i put together all the new furniture in her room, i've never been before. if you've never been yourself, let me tell you; it's fucking brilliant. it's full of sexy furniture that's really cheap. that much you can probably gather from an ikea advert, but it's the way they set out the display areas... i wanted to move in into a couple of the. there was one, and it was an exact replica of a couple's flat - there were photos of the original on one display wall. it was about 55m³ (which is pretty fucking tiny, if you don't do metric), but it was used so well.... i don't care if it makes me a mass-consuming quasi-adult whore; i liked it.
on our way back we stopped off at this wierd kind of burger king that seemed to go from one side of the motorway, across a bridge, and onto the other side. we were southbound, so we stopped on that side (it would have been pretty fucking hard to stop on t'other) and went in to get something, because we were both starving. as tempting as it was to go up to the counter and ask for 'ah cheeekhen bhurger?', we pondered, hen ordered. or at least we attempted to. the muppet behind the counter looked as though she wanted to kill herself, and every single man, woman and child on the other side of the counter, d-fens-style. she obviously had a hearing problem too, because we had to repeat everything at least twice, after she'd go "hmm?" or simply "what?". i ordered a chicken sandwich thing, but didn't ask for extra mayonaisse - i usually do, but i discovered that it requires the chef to make amendments, and these take at least an extra 15 minutes, and it's much, much easier just to get a regular one and then ask for a couple of packets of mayo. so, she's fetching our food of that little metal slidey shelf between the service area and the kitchen, and she drops my burger on the floor. without a single glance or query in my direction, she picks up the burger and places it in the bag, wandering off to get emily's fries. "excuse me," says i "i don't really want that burger now.". here's the beautiful part; she looks at me incredulously and says "why not?" i look at emily, who's kind of stunned into silence, and then i look back at this girl, but before i can fire off some witty-ass remark about eating a burger that's danced with the rats and the cockroaches, she sighs, takes the soiled burger our of the bag, throws it away, and fetches me a clean one with no quarrel. but would have happened if i hadn't said anything?
i'll tell you what would have happened; nothing. because i didn't say anything. in fact, we never stopped at burger king on the way back. i made all of that up - it's a total lie. if you made it all the way to the end of this post, then i apologise; i just wasted 2 minutes of your life that you'll never get back on a complete fallacy, for reasons unknown to man or beast. thanks to jez for the idea, whether he knows it or not. god, i hate me sometimes.
- posted by lawrie at 9:00 PM ~ comments
Monday, August 05, 2002
yeah, baby! no.
me, mumfy and mumfy's sister went to see austin powers last night, and it was pretty funny. it was seriously disjointed at the beginning, and i'm convinced that seth green was the best actor in the film, but even someone with a superior intellect that soars high above any mortal man's... brain... like me... (ok, currently losing the 'i'm-really-smart' battle now), you can't fail to laugh at half the carry-on-esque slapstick stuff.
other than that, i'm getting my work done. spent about 3 hours yesterday getting a form mailer to work completely in flash; it makes the call to the script, and then the results of that call are sent back to flash, and it tells you if it was successful or not. clever shiznit, but needs to be tweaked. and everytime i tweak it, it breaks. there's a php version of this script, but i can't get that to work, primarily because i know absolutely fuck all about php. jon knows lots, but he's not online; i can't really see him out playing football in this god-awful weather... so he must be dead.
i hope you're not getting tired of lawrie's stupid referrals, because someone got me when searching for "lucozade people's contact information" which, when you think about it, is a fucking stupid search term. surely you'd take a guess at the url 'lucozade.com', and then look for the 'contact' button. surely? i mean, i really can't see them calling themselves the lucozade people, unless they are a subterrainian race of small orange beings that have tractors for eyes and biscuits for mouths. hmm.
- posted by lawrie at 2:34 PM ~ comments
Saturday, August 03, 2002
oh. fuck
i get my site stats emailed to me at the end of each week, giving averages and totals, and a link so i can check out my stats in more detail. i always check my referrals to see where people are coming from, and nine times out of ten people come from the jedi quiz and get stuck here, like a small fly with only four legs wading through a paddling pool of warm summer jam. i always post some of the more interesting search results that lead here, and i think i've got the king of them all. i come up 16th on a search for flacid penis. shit.
i also rank seventh for mini jeep, which is not nearly as shocking, but makes me wonder exactly how much i could charge jeep manufacturers for referrals.
- posted by lawrie at 11:34 AM ~ comments
Friday, August 02, 2002
um...
did i mention that emily had her hair cut and coloured a couple of weeks ago and she looks foxy as a fox vixen that just won the coveted 'foxy fox vixen uk 2002' award? well, she did, and she does.
- posted by lawrie at 8:46 PM ~ comments
hot... legless dogs...
"c'mon guys, hear me out, i'm selling legless dogs here. you never have to walk 'em. they never run away. they're like cuddly throw-pillows. they're safe around children. like cats with personality... come on, what do you say?"
sifl and olly are fucking great.
Which Sifl & Olly Show Character Are You?
- posted by lawrie at 7:45 PM ~ comments
bored, with a capital 'fucking'
i hate each julie andrew film they've made / i'm just a nasty narrow-minded jade / don't think that i will smile at it / i'm not a weak-willed hypocrite / i'll say... i'm bored / i'm bored with everything i touch and see / i'm bored with exposés of l.s.d / i'm bored with frank sinatras new lp / and so i roar... i'm bored / the only thing that ever interests meeee... is me
[ "i'm bored" by the bonzo dog doo dah band. written by vivian stanshall ]
mumfy's staying with a friend tonight because her friend got dumped, so rather than spend the evening with my girlfriend (as is the custom), i am waiting for phone calls to be returned so this evening's activities can be determined. and i'm bored. i don't want to be online, but i have nothing else to do. i've written the last verse to a song i started writing about a year ago (i'm shit with second verses), i've worked out, i've done a bit more designing... and i left my playstation 2 at emily's house. so bah.
i did get rather a nice email earlier though, with someone saying that this was a highly amusing site. always makes a nice change from the cock-rangers who feel they need to not only deride me for saying "i just realised i'm sXe", but also try to justify and explain that their daily intake of illegal narcotics makes them better people. somehow i don't quite see it, but... whatever floats your boat.
you notice how your brain turns off when you're bored? i'm fucking bored!
- posted by lawrie at 7:19 PM ~ comments