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Overheard

I was buying novelty keyboard buttons--you know the ones that say "Any" and "Eject." I had found one recently that said "Doom" which I liked a lot but graciously gave to my husband and kept the one that said "Damn It." I bought "Oops" and "D'uh" and a couple of others in this little toy store in Newton Center. While I was deciding which ones I wanted there was an elderly gentleman (probably in his 80's) at the counter talking to the clerk. It was clear that they had spoken before. I think they were discussing birds and he was saying that there hadn't been any in his yard and she suggested suet in his feeder. He said he didn't know how to make suet and she said, "Take some bacon grease-" and he said, "I don't eat bacon."
"Well, some burger grease."
"Don't eat that either."
"Well, there are probably some other non-meat based suet recipes on the Internet."

And he said, "I'm sure there are, but you can't trust anything you read on the Internet. I was on a site once and it had FALSE information on it! It was on astronomy and it was..."

(I sort of lost what he was saying at that point so I don't know what was so terribly wrong)

"so if that was wrong how many other things that I don't know are wrong are wrong. Nope. I don't think people should use it since you can't trust it (the Internet)."

f(O_0)

To paraphrase Captain Mal of Serenity, "Hunh?"

I so wanted to say--as opposed to magazines and newspapers that are bastions of truth? Never get their facts wrong?

And, of course, from the Luddites you can never get the specifics. Was this a board where anyone could post? Was this a reputable site? Etc. The clerk did ask how long ago this was.

"Oh, a few years."

Yes, the Internet is often wrong. So is everything else. Haven't these people ever heard to not believe everything you read?

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