Annoyed by non-flashaholics?

Well, not necessarily annoyed by the actual person but the fact that they don't know any better. Do you ever feel this way?

For example, I was visiting my parents the other day and I noticed two flashlights my dad had by the furnace in the basement. Total junk! It was probably a $10-15 flashlight back in the mid-90's, but the output was just rediculous. Dim, orange donut beam that would maybe make it 50' with a 2'x'2 laser-tight spot.

My grandmother also moved into an apartment last month. We visited her and I saw some huge rubberized flashlight she had in her bedroom. It probably weighed 2lbs, put out next to no light (weak batteries probably 6 years old).

Of course, I think to myself "WHY???" I know it's just a flashlight to them and they could care less, which I don't get and almost annoys me. At least buy a decent Energizer LED at the hardware store for $15!! By the way, I gave my dad a Fenix E11 for a gift last year and I'm 99% sure he didn't open it and has no idea where it is. :shakehead

kinda .... though not the very same situation... but my best friend has to go home in the dark for about five or so minutes in winter (I've seen her street and been there), it's literally no-light-total-darkness place. Somehow she bought a flashlight, may be after my 24/7 rants about it or may be God appeared to her and ordered her to do so... it's a cheap light, though, it has some LeD which is nowhere near the power of a normal light.. but this isn't even what I'm annoyed at but the fact she doesn't have it with her... wtf. And then I'm also annoyed when she calls me an addict and a maniac .... (may be for a reason though )

markr6 said:

Well, not necessarily annoyed by the actual person but the fact that they don't know any better. Do you ever feel this way?

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Mark I feel that as a good flashaholic it is your duty to spread the word, by buying a quality flashlight for all of those folks, you will no longer have a reason to feel annoyed.

Problem solved :devil:

Norm

That's what I did. My brothers and parents now all have Malkoff MD2s. There a sf 9p with a M61 in the living room and various 47's mini in their pocket for EDC.

I have found it a waste of time and money to buy friends and family good flashlight. Cash is the only gift worth giving. Everyone can buy their own toys then. Only took me 30 years of gift giving to figure that one out.


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appliancejunk said:

I have found it a waste of time and money to buy friends and family good flashlight.

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On they contrary, I've found the single AAA flashlights I give as gifts to have been greatly appreciated, one gift often leads to enquiries from friends or relatives of the recipient asking where they can obtain their own.

Going out to lunch with an old friend today and have a Thrunite TI packed

Norm

I think with any hobby-like thing, there are always threads like these. lol. With cars, it's "How can you drive such a crappy car?" With headphone forums, it's "how can you listen to those crappy ipod earbuds?" and likewise, with this forum, "how can you use such dim, crappy tinted flashlights?"

First world problems.

That's pretty impressive that in both examples you were able to find the flashlight, and it actually lit when you turned it on. That's better preparedness than the majority of people have..

markr6 said:

Well, not necessarily annoyed by the actual person but the fact that they don't know any better. Do you ever feel this way?

For example, I was visiting my parents the other day and I noticed two flashlights my dad had by the furnace in the basement. Total junk! It was probably a $10-15 flashlight back in the mid-90's, but the output was just rediculous. Dim, orange donut beam that would maybe make it 50' with a 2'x'2 laser-tight spot.

My grandmother also moved into an apartment last month. We visited her and I saw some huge rubberized flashlight she had in her bedroom. It probably weighed 2lbs, put out next to no light (weak batteries probably 6 years old).

Of course, I think to myself "WHY???" I know it's just a flashlight to them and they could care less, which I don't get and almost annoys me. At least buy a decent Energizer LED at the hardware store for $15!! By the way, I gave my dad a Fenix E11 for a gift last year and I'm 99% sure he didn't open it and has no idea where it is. :shakehead

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thats funny.......my dad lives in the country and had a bunch of cheapies from gifts and a maglite 2 d cell that was always near dead, so I got him a streamlight polytac and after he used it once he loves it and always has it near, I now have to supply him with 123 batts or else he would be buying them at CVS for 12-15 $ a pair. And I had to get my mom a light because she kept using his and he couldn't find it.

StarHalo said:

That's pretty impressive that in both examples you were able to find the flashlight, and it actually lit when you turned it on. That's better preparedness than the majority of people have..

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Very true. Usually the batteries are corroded and stuck in the light. Probably just as well the lights are cheap. Toss it and get another. An endless circle.

I think it is mostly just ignorance. People just don't realize that there are a ton of better options then what the big box stores sell. I know in my case when I show people the difference between a regular old flashlight vs a good flashlight they are always shocked. It's just a matter of pointing some people in the right direction, other people on the other hand will never care since it's just a flashlight to them. They don't care if it's great or not as long as it produces some light.

Retail stores dont really have good lights at good prices, they only have below average lights so the non lovers dont know whats out there. Every time I check out the stores it makes me laugh. The best light in a store has 150 lumens and cost 40 dollars.

I enjoy non-flasaholics because to them my Surefire makes me look cool.

LOL

Thank god I don't get annoyed, there's so MANY of them.



We are a minority...a small one. So are aficionados of many many hobbies as well.


An uncle of mine gave me a stamp collecting kit when I was a kid...I pasted the stamps that came with it into the book, and haven't seen it since. Its didn't register as important or interesting to me.


THAT is how what we are interested in feels like to everyone ELSE.


You really can't expect people to even get excited by finding out there's really way better flashlights...that doesn't MEAN anything to them. They are not into flashlights because there are no cool ones in the hardware store....they are not into flashlights because flashlights, as a concept, are of no interest to them.


Now, that said, these things are on a sliding scale...just like every other interest you may have.

So, SOME random souls will see your light, and GET interested...but never ever ASSUME that someone will when you show them. It will ANNOY the hell out of them.




A small victory - I was doing a forensic inspection, and the property manager at the site was a little old lady. She wanted to show me an area of concern where there was no electricity (Hurricane Sandy), and she was holding a 2D red plastic flashlight that looked as if it had been flotsam or jetsam at one point in its history. The plastic lens was yellowed and even a bit warped, scratched to heck, etc.

I had a Klarus XT11 in my pocket, and a few other small bright lights. She asks if I have a flashlight, because its really dark down there....I say sure, and hold up my keychain, which, of course, had a keychain light on it.

She looks at me like I'm insane, and says reassuringly, "Well, at least I came prepared"...

So we head own into the dark dank subterranean levels, and she has her flashlight on, and there's a dim yellow spot a foot across, as in LITERALLY 1 candle's worth at a distance...with a hole in its middle...pretty useless. I'm grinning from ear to ear, WAITING to turn on the wee keychain light.

I finally said, wait, your light is too dim, I need to use a brighter flashlight....she thinks I'm going back to the truck, and I take the key chain light, and hit the turbo and ~ 500 lumens blasts out, filling the chamber with light as if the room had a light switch and bright lamps on.

The little old lady said "HOLY F.......!!!!!!", and dropped her light, which shattered all over the stone floor......and I casually mentioned that lights don't need to be as large any more.

I then mentioned they can be tougher too, and threw it onto the floor next to hers, showed it wasn't damaged, and then went about my business.

Later, up top again, she asked what kind of light it was and a few other questions. Its seems that up to THAT point, her idea of a flashlight was to get one as cheap as possible, preferably at a yard sale for a few cents, and use old batteries in it to save even more money. She was PROUD of how cheap that light had been she just had...THAT had been her interest.

By the time I left, she was copying down sites that had lights, cells and chargers.

:devil:






PS - If you're here now, sorry....no offense.

I don't feel this way since I'm not really a flashaholic yet but I'm sure I will eventually, sort of like I do about computers now

It's a combination of ignorance and that people are mostly cheap and won't pay more than 5 bucks for a flashlight they barely use except for emergencies.

My friend thought I was crazy for spending a hundred bucks on a surefire flashlight. He's also the same person who spent 500 on an Eotech for his rifle. Go figure.

SeriouslyFlashlights said:

I think it is mostly just ignorance. People just don't realize that there are a ton of better options then what the big box stores sell. I know in my case when I show people the difference between a regular old flashlight vs a good flashlight they are always shocked. It's just a matter of pointing some people in the right direction, other people on the other hand will never care since it's just a flashlight to them. They don't care if it's great or not as long as it produces some light.

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I'm going to play devils advocate

Perhaps they're more interested in cars, "Hey, why don't you tweak the airflow ratio of your Ford Escort, maybe swap those with aftermarket platinum plugs, you can boost your pound-feet torque ratio from 126 to 150 with no decrease in-..."
...(snooooze)
Perhaps they're more into sewing, "Hey, this pattern #12 has double over pearl stitching, uses organic free trade hand wound yarn from Cairo, I think the 12-strand hemp gives a nice seam quality that is unlikely to-....
(...snooooze)
or perhaps computers? "Hey, by modifying the front fan air duct and installing a Corsair Hydro intercooler bridged to the chipset heat sink, coupled with vibration dampening and jelly grommets and tweaking the bus speed multiplier to 3.2 I boosted the clock speed to 1.37 giga-....."
(...snooooze)

The fact is no one Cares. Nobody. It's just another 'somebodies' hobby.

ledmitter_nli said:

I'm going to play devils advocate

Perhaps they're more interested in cars, "Hey, why don't you tweak the airflow ratio of your Ford Escort, maybe swap those with aftermarket platinum plugs, you can boost your pound-feet torque ratio from 126 to 150 with no decrease in-..."
...(snooooze)
Perhaps they're more into sewing, "Hey, this pattern #12 has double over pearl stitching, uses organic free trade hand wound yarn from Cairo, I think the 12-strand hemp gives a nice seam quality that is unlikely to-....
(...snooooze)
or perhaps computers? "Hey, by modifying the front fan air duct and installing a Corsair Hydro intercooler bridged to the chipset heat sink, coupled with vibration dampening and jelly grommets and tweaking the bus speed multiplier to 3.2 I boosted the clock speed to 1.37 giga-....."
(...snooooze)

The fact is no one Cares. Nobody. It's just another 'somebodies' hobby.

Click to expand...

LOL

You & I said the same thing.

I like being the guy that asks someone at night when they're shining their torch around - 'so what torch do you have' I'll ask... The Answer = this uber sweet LED $25 torch off ebay with red led in the centre so that I can see at night... My response - 'Ahh thats cool mate...' So the guy usually asks what light do you have yourself. Depending on what I am doing I usually show him and the convo goes quiet from there on... The response is usually 'where and how much?'...

My mother is a recent convert into better torches, whatever I upgrade to I give her my older offerings. I also managed to convert a girl at work to carry a EDC - so I got her a X1DM-GT so its downhill for her now.

I don't get annoyed by non-flashaholics or even people that are ill prepared. I do get annoyed when people who should know better don't take care of things and then get irritated when they don't work properly. With flashlights the key thing is batteries!