DREWspective

Does anyone have any idea what this means?

I was in a building and discovered something hidden under the floor in a huge pile. Ripping the boards away, I uncovered DIY tools and other objects. All the time I could hear loud snoring, which encouraged me to dig further.

The snoring got louder. I then found myself on the side of a tall mountain, and below me, hanging on a thread, was a large, black, test tube-like bombshell. There was a brown/yellow thing resembling a body inside the bombshell like a detonator, attached to the string.
It was causing the snoring, so I threw a stick at it. Nothing happened.

I then emptied a can of petrol onto the “detonator”. It slowly retreated inside the bombshell as the whole thing dropped. I heard a man’s evil laughing as I set the detonator on fire using a flamethrower.

The bomb exploded, but the explosion and the cloud just kept getting bigger. I leaped under it, while finding myself in my back garden.

A magazine appeared, with the front page explaining the world had been destroyed by the explosion.

For all those who are unfamilar with my writing, I like to write a special message on my weblog at around Christmas and the New Year. These messages are about my deep-felt thoughts about how things are going in the world.

For the past few years, I’ve pleaded with readers to remember those people who don’t have anyone to celebrate Christmas with. We live in incredibly selfish times, and it’s easy to take present-giving and being with family for granted. I think, based on the little I’ve seen, that my message had gotten through to some people.

This year, I want to talk about something different: friends.

Friends are something that many people take for granted. Some people have a whole load of them; others get by with just a few; more still have one or two friends.

Some people have nobody they consider a friend at all.

Ask yourself: what is your definition of a friend? What does friendship mean to you? Is a friend someone you speak to regularly, or does it go deeper than that?

As many people in my close circles know, making friends has always been a serious challenge for me. Whatever the reason, it’s one of those skills that so many people take for granted (next to projecting one’s voice) that I’ve never been able to master. The sad fact is, all of the people I consider to be friends I have now are those who’ve approached me first.

For me personally: a friend is someone who stays in your corner, regardless of whether you’re winning or losing. Because of my mental disposition, it can be challenging for people to stick around; I can’t count the number of people who’ve run out on me when I needed someone’s company. People who run out on you (for any reason) without putting up a fight are not your friends.
Let me stress, though, that friends are not people who automatically take your side (or anyone else’s): I’ve seen so many people—and I have to say, girls are by far the biggest culprits—who automatically side with their mates, even if they know full well that their mate(s) is/are in the wrong. That’s not friendship; that’s gang mentality.

One important thing I look for in a potential friend is the ability to empathise. There are things I get depressed about very easily—such as relationships and lack of social skills—that your average person would have no problems with.
I don’t expect everybody to know what it’s like to be rejected before you even open your mouth, but I do want people to respect that these things are not as easy for me. People who aren’t friends will pretend they know what they’re talking about, blame you for your difficulties, or give you a one-line, three-word “catch-all” solution.

Unfortunately, such people are hard to come by these days.

I’ve seen people—once again, girls being the biggest offenders—placing looks requirements on new friends, even if it’s supposed to be platonic. If you’re not the right height, ethnicity, colour or build, they don’t want to know you. And they call these “preferences”.

Most disturbing of all are those who act like one person (read: kind, caring) when you meet them, but turn into completely different (read: nasty and ignorant) people when you have a bad day. I guarantee that, unless you’ve been extremely lucky, you’ve met one of those.

My message this year is very simple:

Don’t ever take real friends for granted. You’re lucky to have every single one of them.

Get rid of all of your bad friends. I’ve talked about this before in this weblog, but there’s nothing worse than having the wrong people in your corner. I cut off most of them a few months ago.

I challenge you all, for next year, to try and make at least one friend that falls outside of your physical criteria. Good friends—and bad ones—come in all shapes and sizes.

If you can’t do it then ask yourself: how good a friend are you?

I scored a 23 on an AQ test just now.

This morning I woke up to a message from someone who had been reading some of my stuff on another site. They suggested that my writing showed signs of having autism: namely Asperger’s Syndrome.

I wasn’t sure how to take it, to be honest.

On the one hand, people have been claiming that a lot of things I say, both online and offline, is one or all of: offensive, arrogant, bigoted, racist and sexist. This time seemed to be no exception; apparently I’d made this person “miffed” by what I’d been writing.

But on the other hand, I’ve always known there was something different about me and how I see things. Maybe this is the diagnosis I’ve been looking for?
It had been suggested a long time ago (behind my back, naturally) by one of my teachers that I’d had Asperger’s Syndrome, but—as with depression— nothing was done to find out for sure. Whether they decided to ignore it, or had no idea what to do, I’ll never know.

So I did a tiny bit of research on Asperger’s Syndrome over the Internet. The bad news is that there is no cure or treatment for it. But apparently there are things that people with it can do so that it doesn’t become so much of a problem.

Whether or not I have autism, I would like to state that I’ve made more than my share of mistakes. But there is no excuse for the way I’ve been treated and dismissed by people over the years. (If people are going to throw that around, I will too.)

We should be helping each other to live fulfilled lives; not making fun of, ignoring or otherwise abusing people, just because they don’t have what so many people take for granted.

The story continues…

Video Mashup: Michael Can’t Wait
Enjoy!

I’ve said it several times before, and will keep saying it until someone wakes up. We are in an age of false advertising, which is being more and more condoned by the powers-that-be. What you see is no longer what you get.

But my rant today is about another facet of advertising; an equally important one.

I’ve had this theory in the last few years that advertisers have turned to annoying, frustrating, criticising, sickening and angering potential customers into buying their products. You only have to see the countless ads (on British TV, anyway) portraying women as superior to men, as well as being told what to believe is bad and good (dull, desaturated colours for “bad”, vibrant, overexposed colours for “good”).
My theory was proven a couple of years ago, when eMule was being spammed by people advertising their modded clients. One of the spam messages ended with the following words:

“think about it, idiot”

My initial response was like most other people’s response; close the message and go about my business.

But even until this day, that message stuck in my head. Why? Because it triggered anger—a very human and instinctual emotion—and I wanted to smack whoever wrote that message in the head.

Yet another example was a site I came across yesterday, for the ebook The Truth About Abs.
Now, let it be known, I admire a lot of high-profile and successful people who have overcome life’s challenges and made their fortune. My admiration stops, however, when: they start bragging; their catch-all advice is to “get over it”; they point fingers at people who go to them for help; they forget where they came from or what they used to be.

Go to the web site, and not very far below the fold you’ll see a bold red box. And I quote:

“Feel free to leave this site… But realize that you’ll only continue to be frustrated with your flabby stomach for the rest of your life. You’ll only have yourself to blame.”

Let me tell you something, guys. I’d heard a lot of great things about that ebook, and when I visited the site I was contemplating buying it on the spot. But the honest to God truth is, that statement stopped me cold from giving him any of my money.
Call me sensitive, but I refuse to buy from anyone who resorts to fault-finding, name-calling or blaming to sell a product. The guy behind the ebook sounds like someone who could care less about your health, regardless of whether the information in the book is any good.

So why do advertisers resort to using guilt, or name-calling, to sell their products? My only guess is that those offending words help to make the advertisement memorable. The more memorable the ad = the more the potential customer will remember it = the more likely they are to buy, having been irritated.

Personally, I think it’s sick that people have to use underhanded tactics, rather than good customer service and quality products, to make money. But those are the times we live in.

I’m sure many of you have seen similar adverts around; feel free to share.