Free Hugs For All!
Posted 27th March 2007 at 12:12am by M1ke, tagged as Society | Commenting Closed
The "Free Hugs Campaign" began in a very simple way - a guy wanted someone to hug so he went into London with a cardboard sign and waited. After a quarter of an hour a woman came up to him. She had lost her daughter a year ago, and her dog had just died. So they hugged, she smiled and the campaign had started. Free hugs were not only given, they were recorded, and the ways of giving get more interesting. Our hero Juan Mann began getting other people to give out the hugs, hanging around with him and generally being nice to people.
Unfortunately it couldn't last, and it was actually banned by the authorities because of liability fears. This is when it turned from some happy folks hugging into a real campaign, one that eventually collected 10,000 signiatures to have the ban repealed and prevent the police getting involed again. Free hugs continue, and to this extent I'm offering them out myself. So next time you see me, ask me for a free hug. If you've never seen me, drop me a comment or an email and maybe I can still get that free hug to you.
Now enjoy watching the video:
- Link to Free Hugs Campaign
- Link to
Stupid Tax
Posted 21st February 2007 at 12:35am by M1ke, tagged as Society | Commenting Closed
I've just been sitting reading whilst my Uncle idly flicked about the music channels, and every once in a while I'd see an advert for some stupid mobile phone game things. There appeared to be some basic rip-offs of existing mobile game formats, as well as some random stuff that appeared to involve scantily clad celebrities. Basic dross and not out of the ordinary, even if it is all pointless in the extreme.
However it was a single one that really caught my eye as a trap for what I can only sugest to be the most retarded of the stupid host. It looked to involve texting your name and the name of your current other half and recieving back a percentage as to how well you match - and that's it. £1.50 for some remote system somewhere texting you a random percentage, and not only do they expect people to go along with this but they pay for it to be advertised on TV? How can people be so RETARDED!
It makes me want to take an enormous green dinosaur costume and beat them in the crotch with it until they are completely incapable of reproducing and spreading what seems to be an epidemic of utter cluelessness about the real world in general. The even more worrying thing is that the target audience are chavish types who mostly, though not as a rule, have limited amounts of money and one parent doting on them from prison. I tend to feel bad when I spend money on a packet of crisps because I'm peckish in between meals, yet some people gladly pay for any old dross and feed the machines that not only devise this stuff but live by it, perpetuating the slide into madness because they feel no need to try anything with any worth.
That said, I'm off to buy a telephone switch and get my own mobile game number. You enter your name, pay me £5 and your phone detonates in your hand. Getting rich was never this good.
They Don't Owe You Anything
Posted 9th January 2007 at 11:59pm by M1ke, tagged as Society | Commenting Closed
I'm not entirely sure how it's come about, but the old adage that:
The customer is always right
seems to be stretched further and further these days. I know we're a lovely capitalist society but people seem to think their money, or the time they spent earning it, is maybe more valuable to other people then its true worth. People with little concept of economy, wage and earning differences have the belief that because they're giving money to a company that company owes them everything.
I take the example of people attending supermarkets where they will happily have staff lead them this way and that to find items that they're too lazy to look for, or complain about the slightest thing, safe in the knowledge that they're correct because they're the ones spending money. The problem is that the staff aren't employed to help out. Their job descriptions will be 'shelf-stacker', 'till-assistant' or whatever not 'run-around customer monkey'. Regardless as to whether you find the corn flakes they will get paid, and yet people would still take a mortal offence if they weren't treated with the obeisance given to a knight of the realm when going about their shopping business.
The trend of belief in greater value continues onto the internet, where those who pay monthly subscriptions for online games seem to think that the £9 or less per month should entitle them to an uninterrupted perfect gaming experience, and will complain, threaten and generally kick up a fuss loudly if even the slightest thing goes wrong. Once again vainly ignorant of the real world they don't seem to realise that £9 for what could be around 5 hours play every single day of the month is pretty cheap, and with games the size of MMOs there are bound to be problems. Obviously it proves that they're a joke when they spend most of the time unable to play threatening to stop paying/playing and then shut up as soon as it's there again. Once more a situation of the consumer just wanting to be vocal in exercising their "rights".
The truly odd thing about the growing trend (though I shall leave the larger matter of the "sue the bastards!" craze for another time) is that whilst perfectly content to assume their supremacy and deservedness of kingly treatment in Asda, people tend to have no qualms about tipping in restaurants, despite the fact that waiters are paid to do a job the same as staff in a supermarket, and probably a lot more. What this indicates is that it's a society thing, based on traditions and what they see other people doing, and at some point its going to turn around as those who offer the services tell us exactly what we have to pay for what we think we deserve. So just remember next time you're shopping and the boy stacking shelves merely grunts when you ask him for directions that this isn't an insult to your honour that can only be expiated by the unfortunate student's ritual suicide, but merely a result of the minimum wage filtering into the youth's bank account for his hours spent at a monotonous task with the same music on repeat.