Your experience trying to help muggles.....

“Oh, I’d say a BLF Q8 with bypassed springs and some ’351Ds in there, with unprotected 30Q button-tops, and, uhh, oh!, and don’t forget a decent charger like an Opus or Miboxer…”

 <b>“Whut?”</b>

I have posted on forums for a couple of decades and do have a pretty thick skin but what I thought would be “it’s a good idea, not a good idea” or the limits of what you can recommend to a non-enthusiast turned personal. That’s when I respond in kind. And will also easily drop it.

As for tire changes……way back, about 40 years ago, I was changing tires on a lit, repeat, lit suburban road and felt the car pass so close that it made my skin crawl. It’s one of those events that I can tell you the car, the wheels, the place, the time of night and the weather and the amount of fear. Was it by accident or intent? I will never know. From there on in, two flashlights and a yellow vest are always in my cars. In fact, my very first post here was about emergency flashlights. Why?? To upgrade. Now there is a Q8 and a VG10s in the car.

Fast forward to me taking exception to a phone light. It’s not suicide, it’s suicidal. The risk is not worth a lousy dirt cheap 20 dollar flashlight.

BTW……if many European countries, you have to have flares and a yellow jacket in the car for the same reason I am concerned and associated danger.

Anywho….this thread has gone a bit sideways.

spartan… m8… you can lead a horse to water but you cant make it drink.

as the IQ approach’s the retarded end of the scale you have to realise that it is in fact you and your fault alone, the whole world knows it… you get the drift. (time for a polite exit and polite mam’s n madoms lol).

apologies to any retards here…we do try.

I don’t know…

Couldn’t get past “I was in Home Depot. Obviously passing by the flashlight section is a religious thing.”

The HOME DEPOT flashlight section? :disappointed:

I was in Home Depot last month and while wandering through various isles I suddenly realized I was in front of some basic LED flashlights. Yeah, the flashlight section. Knowing what we all know here, I didn’t see anything inspiring. The only light from above was a super cold warehouse LED light fixture. :innocent:

My wife would beat you like a mule if she saw that……and she stills annoyed that she has to learn….ramp up, flash, ramp down on the Q8.

If anything, I would be guilty and many of us would be guilty of not having as much patience or sympathy for not understanding what to us is a simple thing. You wrote earlier that we need something simple and to be honest, I agree with you 100%.

A few weeks or so back, I started a thread about emergency flashlights. You participated in it. One of my “criteria” of an emergency light would be that it should have a simple interface. Click to click ramping, 3 at most and if you held it down 5 seconds, flashing. That is the high limit of the bottom end of usability.

It was even more apparent to me that is has to be a requirement when I gave my wife the Q8 without instruction. She just kept pressing buttons for a full minute and told me the light was broken. This is from someone who used Coast 14 at work at least a hundred times. Thousands of times in her lifetime. Who also has zero fear of big machinery or technology.

So yes, to the vast majority of people, our hobby is probably on the scale of advanced hammer technology. It’s not because they can’t, witness modern cell phone and the amount of knowledge it takes to interface with them, but because it’s just a hammer flashlight.

My father had a running joke about the coke maker (feul) who became a millionaire. Back in the old country, back then, there was a coke maker somewhere in the county turning wood into coke (feul). This coke maker won a million dollars…but could not help himself from looking at a pile of wood and thinking……what a great pile of wood to make coke from.

Same thing with me. Over the years, I have a collection of Coasts. Not as a hobby, but of need. Not great but neither was my standards of what I expected from a flashlight.

So now……what a wonder pile of wood……

No yellow accoutrements, but to this day I keep about a half-dozen flares (the burny kind) in each car, for just such occasions.

Don’t hafta worry about whether/not they’re charged, or leaked, or anything of the kind. They Just Work.

whats a ‘coast’? lol catching isnt it lol.

and a Coast 14?

I think some people just go into over protection mode when they don’t get it, but if you want it to ramp you suss it straight away, if you don’t its such a stupid peace of……

And the reason I carry TWO flashlights.

The car I have has the battery in the back. I wanted to carry flares but if there is a water leak, I don’t want a surprise of what a battery discharge can to to a flare. Having said that….it’s been a looooong while since I looked at flares.

Is there such a thing as being too careful and anticipating the worse? Maybe…but it’s only tiny money to begin with.

I’ve had those friends and acquaintances, they all have one habit in common, any light will do…besides, they knick mine because theirs are real crappy, but, it’ll do me… i dont need to see with a light lol…cringe… guess they’re borrowing mine hu?

Between these two posts I am getting a quite comical image of what actually transpired at that Home Depot. :smiley: :smiley: :smiley:

As far as information, whether it be about flashlights or something else; less is sometimes more. :wink:

Only 2? Piker…

I still got and carried in my old car a 20mm ammo box. About the size of a toaster-oven if stood on-end. Kept all my flammables in there, including/especially fluids. Also had huge bungee cords and ratcheting tie-down straps to hold it in-place so it wouldn’t turn into a rather heavy projectile in case of a wreck.

People’ve said I carry more “emergency” crap in my car than most cops have. Yeah, sounds about right…

you’ve heard of the SHTF scinario? i’ve learned by trail and error to STFU when i’m in a store hahaha…else it can be when the SHTF… sad innit.

a little diverse but, some woman i was seeing was having a tizzy fit at the checkout, it seems there were kids running about all over the place ffs!! no parent supervision or anything, i made the mistake of pointing its a kiddies toy store……fff yeah… lol.

some days your never going to win.

This is the Coast 14

https://coastportland.com/product/hp14/

There are people who hate it. I have three, two which are at work. They have been through hell and back and still work. Dropped? I dropped them on concrete floors at least a dozen times over the years, my guys probably used them for bats.

In the end of the day, I think she probably bought the Coast and probably went to Ikea. Ikea was like a bingo reaction and she was holding the Coast when I left her. In hind sight, maybe it was her “big male” defensiveness that kicked in inadvertently. Maybe I over reacted to what may have been her throwaway comment.

At this point….whatever.

Like I said…

“This better. Shinier. Light up more.”

yeah, it was just not your day, even using the force would have failed, beware the woman’s hunting ground… there was your first clue.

edit… they even put portant man things on shelves to lure us in!!!

That makes two of us.

ALL my cars……Always annually check to make sure the emergency kit is intact. Two folding 4” knives. 15’ tow rope. 50 feet of 500 lb rope. Start up cables. 2 flashlights. Two yellow jacket (wife/helper). $100 in $10 bills. Small blanket. In winter, ski mask and gloves.

When I travel, extra phone, extra glasses, heavy blanket, folding shovel and full spare tire. On the road, water.

My car in Europe, same thing.

Stupid? How much is a life worth? Mine or the person I (or you) may save?

ahh yes the torch coast… my versions the SH 98 i think it is, but in the 26650 version, that’s if you can find them any more, they look like these but bigger.(theres a Q8 version on 1 AA, and 18650 and a 26650 version, the AA is a pocket version lasting 20 ish minutes with a 50 yard throw on full zoom, the 18650’s an hour at best on full for a 100 yard zoom, but the 26650 out throw’s and outlasts by another hour and has been battered dusted and oiled up well under cars,in bush’s n ditch’s…lol pocket fluffed for 2 years too).

sh98

Bingo…… :+1:

I tried helping two American women in the UK once, they were stopped on a three lane main roundabout with a flat tyre, now over here you limp the vehicle off of the roundabout, at worste some one will help push it out of the way, because it’s pritty dangerous sitting there with cars wizzing past at 50mph plus negotiating the roundabout and other audi drivers.

ermm ouch! they were very insistent i go copulate with myself in some other area because i was going to mug them. The look my face must have been priceless!