Tag Archives: annoyed

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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It occurs to me that it’s Thursday. That means another edition of WAJTW. The issue is I’ve been off for almost a week now and my level of annoyance is way, way below average. In fact it’s barely even registering at the moment. Even shopping for groceries this morning didn’t leave me wishing slow painful death on my fellow shoppers. 

While that’s probably a good thing for my overall state of mental health, it doesn’t make for good reading. Since by this time next week I’ll be right back in the normal shit, I’m confident this slump of thinking happy thoughts and not trying to strangle people with my mind are temporary conditions. Until that inevitable shift, I suppose I should just stay in the cut and enjoy it. 

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. What dreams may come. I don’t know what I spent the night dreaming about. I very rarely remember dreams. What I can tell you is whatever it was it left me well and truly annoyed. I can only surmise from the result that it somehow involved people being stupid. That hardly seems insightful but I can’t think of anything else that leaves me with such a general feeling of annoyance and disappointment in the universe.

2. Christmas. Go ahead and call me Grinch, Scrooge, Krampus, whatever, but it’s three days before Christmas and I’m just not feeling it this year. Maybe it’s because I’ve usually already started my Christmas vacation by this point in the week. Maybe it’s because it was 50 degrees today. Maybe it’s because I want to bludgeon the next person who whistles past my cubicle wearing an ugly Christmas sweater to death with my keyboard. I might not be ready for Christmas this year, but I’m damn good and ready for this eight-day weekend… and that’s not nothing.

3. Backup. I’ve been saying for months now that I needed someone to at least get familiar with some of the things I’m working on. I don’t need someone to do the work, just someone who can speak intelligently about it if I happen to get hit by a bus, win the lottery, or, you know, take a few days off. Now that the latter scenario is upon is, let’s not act like anyone is surprised it’s happening. The decision that every project was going to have a single point of failure was made at echelons far above mine and despite all evidence to the contrary, decisions have consequences. The consequence here is that while I’m gone, no one is going to be around to answer whatever questions happen to come up. Yes, it means there will be an unmitigated shitshow when I get back. I may not be able to avoid those problems, but I can sure as hell defer them and for the time being that’s good enough.

Mother f%#@ing autoplay…

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Whoever it was that came up with the idea of autoplaying a video as a website opens should rot in hell right next to the guy who invented the pop up ad. For most sites I’m fully understanding that generating income from ads is how you make your money. Running a website and keeping up content isn’t an inexpensive proposition. I spend $50 a year out of pocket to keep the lights on here in my little sector of the web. I could be ad driven and defray some of that cost, but I’m determined that it’s just not worth it. Ad free content is, in my opinion, better for the reader as well as for the writer.

Usually this is something that would wait for the weekly roundup of WAJTW, but it doesn’t feel right to pile it into a list with three other things when it is so patently obnoxious. I’ve steadfastly avoided downloading ad blocking software because I know that even on the internet everyone has bills to pay, but with the ever increasing intrusiveness of your ads, I’m only another few bad experiences away from giving up my scruples and loading up some software to kill off as many of these ads as possible.

Site owners need to find a better model. No matter how good your content is, if I have to deal with an advertisers video yelling at me with no apparent off switch or pop ups that take up two thirds of the screen space, I’m not interested enough in what you’re saying to wade through the mess to look at it. Maybe it’s too much to ask, but if advertisers designed spots that were somehow compelling instead of just being annoying maybe I’d actually click over and have a look. As it is, I’ll just close the screen and go find my content elsewhere.

Unicorn…

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colorful_unicornIt’s a rare feat of living that finds all three slots reserved for What Annoys Jeff this Week filled before the end of the day on Monday. Maybe it has something to do with coming back from a four day weekend and being struck by the realization that it’s a three-week haul to the next break of any significance. I don’t think that’s the root cause, though. Maybe a contributing factor, but definitely not the cause. Today was just that stupid.

Usually when I say “stupid,” I mean in that mayhem and chaos kind of way that makes everything bad and wrong. That wasn’t the case today. In fact I honestly can’t pinpoint anything at all that made today any more ridiculous than a typical Monday, but it was.

Although all three of the current contenders is perfectly worthy in its own right, rest assured I’ll be perfectly happy to throw any and all of them over the side assuming the trend set today continues through Thursday. At this point I’m beginning to wonder if any of today’s objections will make the final cut. Regardless, today I stumbled upon my elusive unicorn of annoyances. The hat trick. The triple play. God willing I’ll never see another.

Challenge accepted…

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Every Thursday night for the last two years, you’ve all been treated to a brief glimpse into what slights and outrages are simmering in my head as the week rolls towards its end. What Annoys Jeff this Week is consistently the most read post of the week and probably comes closest to capturing what I think of as my “authentic voice.” It’s a mostly unfiltered dump directly from my head onto the page and has probably saved me tens of thousands of dollars in psychoanalysis bills.

For some time earlier this year, Sunday mornings were reserved for reposting the “lost blogs” from MySpace and Blogger. They weren’t met with quite as much interest as WAJTW, but having a weekly theme did give me an uptick in traffic for Sunday mornings – no small thing on a day and time when most people are otherwise engaged with other than web-based activities.

This past Thursday a challenge was issued by one of my good and loyal readers to adapt my format slightly and offer a once a week post featuring What Jeff Likes this Week. I wasn’t immediately drawn to the idea. Most weeks I’d be hard pressed to come up with three items to talk about. Knowing this, my challenger graciously offered to let me get away with just expounding on one thing each week.

Challenge accepted. Beginning on Sunday, November 23rd and running every Sunday through the end of the year, you’ll be reading a new weekly mini-feature right here at jeffreytharp.com. I’m still kicking around actual titles, but the suggestions What Slightly Manages Not to Bug Jeff too Much this Week and What Jeff is Mostly Indifferent About this Week continue to be strong contenders.

Check back next Sunday to see what I come up with.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Being off schedule. I don’t know what it is about this summer, but I no sooner hit “post” on one week’s WAJTW entry and I’m right back here doing it all over again. It feels a little like Thursdays are separated by 60 hours instead of six days. I’m going to blame the unwelcome interloper of physical therapy on the fact that it feels like I’m always on the cusp of being late to do everything. Throwing an extra hour of “stuff” plus the drive time into the mix has really kept things pressed at the margins. It hasn’t been a recipe for keeping up with my usual activities – not surprisingly, cleaning and sleep have taken the worst of it. I’ve been trying to remind myself that it won’t last forever, which is fine, but at the moment it’s annoying the living hell out of me.

2. The Islamic State. ISIS needs but a single, swift lesson – that if you kill an unarmed American civilian anywhere, you don’t get your picture on every news website on the planet. What you get is the wrath of an angry god falling down on your house. It’s hard to bomb someone back to the stone age when they’re living there already, but I’m all for using those pretty B-52s we have and making the rubble bounce again and again and again and again. Every time ISIS pops up long enough to make a statement, a cruise missile should fly straight down their collective throats. I’m tired of pretending that we have to be tolerant and respectful. In some cases there is an absolute right and an absolute wrong and slaying an unarmed journalist guilty of nothing more than doing his job is an absolute wrong. I’m not naive enough to think we can solve every problem with 1000 pound bombs, but in this case I think they’d be a damn fine start until we think of something more permanent.

3. The news. I need to stop watching it. I need to stop reading it. I operate on the basic assumption that bad things were happening all over the world long before the magic of television brought all of those stories into our living rooms. It’s not like mayhem and chaos are a new force in the universe. Most of what passes for news today doesn’t inspire me to action, but it does tend to drive my blood pressure to new and probably dangerous heights. I can’t shake the feeling that I’d be better off on nearly level if I didn’t know (and didn’t care) what was happening around me. Ignorance, I fear, may truly be bliss.

Sympathy…

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I assume most people don’t have any sympathy for the poor old man in Florida who drew down and shot the guy in the theater for texting. I’ll probably catch hell for saying this, but I’m not so sure we shouldn’t give him a medal, or a parade, and send him on his way.

After enduring three people in the front row who spent the entire movie glued to their own screens, the woman on my right who needed to get up not once, not twice, but three times during the movie to talk on the phone, her friend who got up to get refills on popcorn and soda (but not at the same time), and the middle aged battle ax directly behind me who had the incredibly obnoxious habit of repeating lines that she found humorous, I’m not so sure that the old dude was completely out of line.

Expecting people to come in, sit semi-quietly, and watch the moving picture doesn’t feel like it should be an over the top idea. Apparently it is. It’s little trips out like this that remind me why I generally avoid leaving the house when there is any reasonable alternative. The movie was good… I think… but I was far too distracted and annoyed to enjoy it.

Next time I think it would be a good idea to go out unbidden amongst the masses, someone please remind me that they make me absolutely crazy. I’ll thank you for it.

Jeffreytharp.com is pleased to announce…

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Jeffreytharp.com is pleased to announce the arrival of a a bouncing baby book. What Annoys Jeff this Week: 2013 in Review was published in the pre-dawn hours of December 30th and weighs in at WAJTW 2013458 KB and approximately 79 pages long. It’s now available through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords for the low, low price of $.99.

It’s said that those who don’t study history are doomed to repeat it. After two full years of writing WAJTW, I’m beginning to get an unsettled feeling that there’s nothing to be done against the rising tide of stupid people, awkward situations, and the the general sense that the whole world is going to hell in a handbag. It’s like global warming, except instead of new beach front property, all we get is rising blood pressure and an increased desire to run away and live in a shack in the Montana wilderness.

Still, when life hands you lemons, the only thing to do is try reselling them at a reasonable profit to those who don’t have any citrus of their own. With all new commentary, corrected for spelling and grammar, and jam packed with the snark and sarcasm that you’ve come to know and love, WAJTW: 2013 commiserates over the year that was and looks forward to the inevitable annoyances of the one to come.

What Annoys Jeff this Week: The Movie

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WAJTW 2012 - Cover ImageOK. I lied. It’s not a movie, but it is a book… and that’s like a movie, except for the part where there aren’t any moving pictures or dialog. You can still look mindlessly at the screen while jamming your face full of over-buttered popcorn and overpriced snowcaps, so it has that going for it.

I’ve been posting over the last few days as What Annoys Jeff this Week: 2012 in Review becomes available through the various retail sites, but since nothing is ever official until it shows up on the blog, I just wanted to let you know that you can now get your very own copy from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords.

For those using some of the more esoteric e-readers, WAJTW: 2012 in Review will also be available (through Smashwords distribution) from the iTunes, Sony, and Kobo eBook stores in a few weeks.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Surprise overtime. I’m not naive enough to think that an eight hour workday means eight-and-out every day of the year. Sometimes unavoidable circumstances conspire to make getting it all done in eight impossible. Other times, we inflict ridiculous requirements on ourselves and then spend the afternoon and early evening running around trying to prove to someone that we can get job we just created done in a big way. Look, I’m just a working drone. I saw the other side of the fence and the long hours and sneaking way that it takes over every other part of your life has more than lost its luster. I’m more than happy to do my time and then head to the house… though honestly, sometimes it’s good to have a reminder just why I veered off the road not taken in the first place.

2. Forgetting to jot things down that annoyed you at the beginning of the week and promptly forgetting them before it’s time to blog about them. Sure, it’s probably a sign that it wasn’t all that annoying in the first place, but still, it leaves you scratching your head and really reaching for space filler on Thursday night when you’ve got half a dozen other things to do.

3. Something else, I’m sure… But I have absolutely no idea what it should be. Plus I’m tired and cranky. While sometimes that makes for some good writing, I’m pretty sure this is not one of those times.