[evil grin]
I'm not going to pick on the poor overweight person who doesn't have the energy to work out -- no! I'm going to pick on people who are too intellectually lazy to do their own googling.
Still reading the archives at Hold The Toast ... and shaking my head at all the people who insist on asking questions they could answer themselves. How much of this artificial sweetener should I substitute for THAT artificial sweetener? I don't have/can't afford/don't like/can't find X ingredient -- what should I do? Or my favorite (in the comments after a cheesecake recipe) i'm lactose intolerant -- what can I use instead of cream cheese and sour cream?
YA DUMB CLUCK, MAKE SOMETHING THAT'S NOT DAIRY-BASED.
I had this happen to me a dozen or so years ago, with a new reenactor. She kept emailing me with questions that she could so easily have found the answers to with the help of any search-engine. I ended up answering off the top of my head if I knew it already, cuz I was going to have to reply to her anyway. When she asked things I didn't know, I told her* to go look it up herself. She finally got tired of me not doing her thinking for her, and moved on from Living History to SASS -- it doesn't matter what they wear because most of them wouldn't know authenticity if it bit them in the ass -- they just want to look old-fashionedy.
I have sympathy for human-energy conservation, because I have a history of fatigue problems, but there are very few excuses for not doing your own reading in this day and age. We live in a wonderful time of information availability, and if we're already online an awful lot of it is free for the finding. It's even pretty easy to figure out which costuming site is giving good advice and which isn't ... though it's significantly harder on the subject of nutrition. ;-)
________
* nicely -- I used to be nicer to idiots than I am now. It's a serotonin/dopamine thing.
Have you heard of lmgtfy.com?
ReplyDeleteA pet peeve of mine in the same vein is coworkers who ask the same questions again and again because they won't write anything down.
...and have brain-function issues on account of their high-carb diets? :-) The mere act of writing things down helps to cement them in the memory, even if they lose the paper afterward! Ah yes, HEARD of lmgtfy, but I haven't played with it....
DeleteI suspect for a while that some people (usually the same type who feel a need of a companion for a bathroom trip) ask questions just in order to stay in a communication mood of functioning. Very often when you have no chance of not listening a conversation of bosom friends who both love to chat , you may notice that most of the time very little information is going into the exchange, it is often people in turn say something they already said before with small variations. May be at least some stupid questions are asked not necessary by idiots but by very social people who need not your answer, but the fact somebody stays in a dialog with them . It doesn't make it less annoying I am afraid .
ReplyDelete:-D yes, I think you're right -- some of it probably is bonding-chatter. Sitting next to a table of vacuous people in restaurants can be very exhausting, as they keep up a constant stream of words (usually rather loud) but don't actually CONVERSE. :-P
DeleteIf "Junebug" (her online nickname) just wanted to talk, I would have been more open if she had approached the situation more like "I just read THIS -- what do you think?" ... but she came across more as a low-intellect child who didn't know how to amuse herself. When we met at a LH event, she was given ideas of places to read -- I probably showed her books and talked about "primary resources" because that's what we tend to do with newbies. Ah well, she probably wasn't Living-History material anyway -- they usually like to "read up on stuff" before they come around history-related sites....
It looks like you really came across of an extremely annoying type. I think it is just rude in a social setting to request from others to explain every little detail.
DeleteAgreed!
ReplyDeletelol -- i'll bet you see a lot of that in your business, too....
DeleteConstantly....I offer a low carb diet and I get all kinds of ridiculous excuses...I say go read about it and then get back to me. Nope they want to be spoon fed.
DeleteJust in case I want to post here a link to a reenactment of life in a Tudor farm https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOeTubsAZqg
ReplyDeletei think you linked a different youtube video -- this was of two guys in a studio, speaking in Russian....
DeleteOOps, I don't know why it happened. Sorry. I am trying again - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1ERDYjsHBg&feature=youtu.be. The name of the video is the Tudor Monastery Farm. Somebody linked to it on Tom's blog when they discussed his pigs departure, and while I am not a reenactment enthusiast, I couldn't stop myself from watching whole thing piece by piece - there were, probably, 8 episodes.
DeleteThe fact which surprised me the most was that they used a brushing of their hair instead of washing with a satisfactory result.
thanks, Galina! i really look forward to watching them all!
DeleteHi Tess
ReplyDeleteThe people that wind me up are the 'Askholes' They constantly ask your advice and then do the complete opposite.
Kind regards Eddie
:-) i know them! ... yes, and a lot of them are fatter than we are, and when we tell them our "secret" it's not something they want to hear. Everybody wants a cheap-and-easy solution, and when they learn they'll have to give up wheat products or sugar, they're no longer interested.
DeleteThe favorite of mine is -"I tried Atkins when it was in a fashion, it didn't work at all. Yes, I lost a lot of weight, but it came back when I started to eat normal food again."
DeleteOH, yes indeed! What should have been a wake-up-call just didn't soak in.... :-)
Delete