DUNK THEM IN BOILING OIL!

Lise, you are completely brilliant. and even more to the point, absolutely dead on. agreed entirely with what you said, and you expounded more in the direction that i really wanted to go but couldn't quite find the words i wanted to earlier, when i wrote that post. i do definitely think it's indicative of the fact that nearly no one (aha! avoiding those pesky absolutes! XD) wants to take responsibility for their actions anymore. and the stupid Perfect Pasta pot, or whatever it is they're calling it---i've seen those too, all over the place. i have NO idea how anyone has that much trouble with pasta either (and lord, store-bought ravioli/tortelloni/tortellini is NOT delicate at ALL---if you make it yourself, from SCRATCH, sure. :P). and while these definitely are items of convenience, and things are indeed always a compromise---to what degree are we willing to sacrifice quality and/or artifice for convenience? evidently a fairly high degree, if these things (and good old Makudonarudo) are any indication.

part of it isn't just people's inherent laziness in creating (which is sad in and of itself, really)---it's also got a lot to do with the fact that a lot of people these days, their parents or whoever they were raised by didn't have the time or make the time to teach them how to do things for themselves. perhaps the progenitors didn't know how to, themselves. in any case, it seems like a lot of people are afraid to try to learn things on their own---they have to have someone hold their hand and show them how.

not just in our generation, either---my mother is particularly horrid about this, and it drives me nuts. or did, when i used to live at home. and for awhile after moving out, i'd indulge her---if she had a problem with some electronic thing (nothing incredibly complicated---i only could learn so much after all, being that she wouldn't let me take her receiver and whatnot apart so that i could learn from it by putting it back together---i tried once and she nearly took my head off...XD), she'd call me and expect me to fix it. and when she got a CD burner, she wanted me to come show her how to record all her vinyl so she could put it onto CDs to take to work with her. a worthy goal, sure, but nothing she couldn't teach herself if she only tried. i mean, for all i might complain about her general twittiness, it's not so much that i think that she's stupid---because she isn't. (she doesn't have much common sense, but that's another issue entirely. XD) however, she seems to be lacking whatever it is in people like you and i that makes us need to find things out for ourselves. regardless of whether or not they're taught in a class.

a lot of times, people will ask how i've done one thing or another. and things i've gotten to be particularly good at are of course the things i especially get questions on. and i'm happy to explain, but i always think to myself that it's nothing most other people couldn't do if they gave it some thought and were willing to invest their time.

so i have another question for you (and anyone else interested): do you think that such things are more about the idea of people not being willing to make an investment of their time, or not having confidence in their ability to do so, or not caring---or some combination of the above, primarily?

i'm no neo-Luddite either; i see the value of certain things, and everything (including the blasted Perfect Cookie) is really just a means to an end. everyone must choose their own road (and the tools to help get them there), be it via the Perfect Cookie or milling their own flour, growing and harvesting their own sugar cane, growing, drying, and grinding their own spices, etc. etc.

i guess the thing i wonder is, do people really consciously choose to use things like this? and if so, why? i mean, everyone's pressed for time---but honestly, i think it takes more time to clean the stupid accessories that are supposed to make things easier and faster than it would to actually take the time to do them by hand.

same with other things in life. your Alucard hat, for example. wouldn't it be (once you'd read up a bit on proper millenery techniques, of course) easier to build the right thing from scratch rather than to modify something already existing until it would merely 'do.'?

when we cosplayed as Kyuuketsuki Miyu and Larva (TV version; i can find photos if you really want), there's no way i could've (or would've) used something existing. i couldn't just have cut up a bathrobe, sewn on some ribbon, and expected it to look right. i modified an existing pattern to make my costume, and i ended up figuring out how to piece together the bits of Larva's cloak completely on my own.

granted, someone else might not want to (or be able to) take the time to do so. but quality and pride do come into play---and really, while some of these items are allegedly so much more convenient, i really do fail to see how they actually are. thusly, the only thing i can come up with is back to the hands-dirtying thing---which i believe is at the heart of the problem. and leads me back to my previous question of why. and when.

and this could of course be applied to things outside of artistic endeavours. as discussed earlier with Harpy and Jae Young, the obsession with clean hands has been going on for ages. but if getting one's hands dirty in ANY capacity is so low, how come the people with the dirtiest hands generally have the least need to be whacked over the head with a clue bar?

(i think it's bedtime for me. ^^;;;;)

more on this subject later (probably), when i'm not sleepy and probably overly exuberant due to excess of plum wine, okonomiyaki, and a small bit of the soup i posted the recipe for below...XD