Demonstration

Got a $5 LED flashlight from ebay.  It uses a 14500 3.7v rechargeable li-ion battery and is 7w powerful.

It's easily as bright as a similar form factor Surefire which retails for $220.

The Surefire is easily much tougher than the no-name Cree Q5 light.  Definitely more waterproof.

But is a Surefire better than a $5 flashlight?  Especially since it's the price of 44 $5 lights!

The ebay light is waterproof enough to survive in the rain, which is what I need it to survive.  I don't need a dive-light to keep in my glove box.

One thing you can do with a $5 light is slam it down on the asphalt as hard as you can, shattering the poor thing to bits and go, "oh well, I need a new light."  As opposed to not daring to do the same thing with your $220 light where if you do break it you go, "oh FUCK!  My expensive light is ruined!"

I have seen this demonstrated.  The person who put me onto the cheapo light is more than willing to break one.  The owner of the $220 Surefire declined to emulate the destructive testing regimen.

The light thing reminds me of so many "tactical" things.

$300 for a pair dockers?  Are you fucking high?  Yet people buy them and extoll their virtues and they cannot be told from the $15 Wal Mart captive store brand at 15 feet.  You paid 20x as much for a pair of pants!  Even worse is you didn't even avoid them being made in China.  I've been known to pay a premium for American made goods, but your extra $285 doesn't get that.

Will your $300 pair of slacks outlast a $15 pair?  Most assuredly.  Will it outlast twenty pairs of $15 slacks?  Probably not.

The next question about pants is really one of style.  There are places I would not wear dockers.  Dockers are associated with dress-code in my mind; you wear them because you must look a certain way and the environments where this is true preclude a necessity for requisite level of ruggedity.

What do I wear for rugged use?  Jeans.  Good old fashioned denim.  $10-30 at Wal-Mart, $20-50 at Target.  Considering it was expansion of my waist and not wear that retired the last ten pairs of jeans, I'd be really mad if I'd spent more than $25 on them.

I admit that I am forgoing secret pockets for my carry gun, but I don't need them and certainly don't think they're worth an extra $250 over the expensive "high falootin'" Target brand.

Am I being cheap?  You're darn tootin'!  I am also being frugal and pragmatic.  I am being honest about my needs and the demands I put my stuff to.

I will certainly spend more money to get better quality where there's a benefit to me for doing so.  You may notice in a couple of pics that I have genuine Chuck Taylor All-Stars for sneakers.  Because of my particular orthopedic problems, normal tennies are painful and wear out in six months.  I get a couple of years from a pair of Chuck's and without the pain.  $60 for two years or $20 four times?