Tag Archives: star wars

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Plant based. I like my GP. I’ve been seeing him since I returned to Maryland and in that time I’ve never felt rushed or blown off. As I’ve started losing weight though, he’s gotten a bit fixated on the “value of a plant based diet.” I’ve had to remind him repeatedly that I’m not in any way on the cusp of going veggie. I like beans and lentils well enough, but not as an absolute substitute for proper meat. Chicken features prominently and I’ve dramatically cut down on red meat and pork, but I need this guy to come to terms with the fact that every so often I’m going to have a cheeseburger or a good slice of roast. I’m willing to compromise and adapt, but I’m not entirely forgoing the best things in life indefinitely. Otherwise we’re not so much prolonging my life as just making it feel longer while every ounce of pleasure is sucked out of it.

2. Egg whites. I like eggs and used to eat a lot of them. A three or four egg omelet wasn’t unusual for breakfast. Because of the seemingly unsettled science of dietary cholesterol I’ve made an effort to cut back to just 3 or 4 eggs a week. But, they say, you can use egg whites and miss the cholesterol completely. Sure. I tried that. It’s hard as hell to turn egg whites into dippy eggs though. Egg whites make the worst egg salad I’ve ever put on a plate. An egg white omelet. Hard pass. I’ve given it the college try but I’m so very much not impressed with cartoned egg whites. They may be “better for you,” but in my estimation they’re not worth needing to clean the damned skillet.

3. Star wars. When I was a kid, one of America’s great presidents stood up and proposed a Strategic Defense Initiative to shield the United States from Soviet nuclear missiles. Never mind that the technology wasn’t there. Never mind the incredible cost to deliver it. Never mind that it would take decades of research to deliver on the promise of securing America from the ballistic missile threat. The very existence of SDI made the Soviets absolutely nutty and helped send them into a spending spiral from which their already questionable economy never recovered. So when, in 2024, I hear vague news reports of Russia wanting to put missiles in orbit, all I hear is history rhyming. I still like our chances of being able to spend this new Red Menace into oblivion if it comes to it.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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Spoilers. That’s what annoys Jeff this week. I feel like I’ve spent more time ducking them then anything other single activity this week.

As a general rule, spoilers for the run of the mill television show or movie don’t bother me all that much. Even when I know where the story ends, I’m usually entertained enough seeing how they get from start to finish. I’m easy to please like that.

The run up to The Force Awakens has been something different. Given how little of the story has been released for public consumption, avoiding spoilers thus far has been relatively easy. Most of the available stories have been fan conjecture and wishful thinking. That got a little more problematic starting with the premier earlier this week, but still information was mostly avoidable as long as you didn’t go looking for it.

With wide release in a few hours, though, all bets are off. New media, old media, and social media channels are going to be filled with disclosures both intentional and unintentional. The Star Wars franchise is going to be near-impossible to get away from over the next sixteen hours.

There’s no force on earth – including snow storms, power failures, floods, fires, or flu that has ever cut me off from consuming mass quantities of electronic information for up to 18-hours per day. It is now, therefore, with great reluctance that I announce the implementation of an electronic media blackout. Effective immediately I am placing an operational pause on reading sources including but not limited to news websites, blogs, forums, Facebook, Twitter, and Periscope. While I reserve the right to operate some or all of those applications in a broadcast only mode, I will temporarily cease to be a consumer of information.

That is the level to which I am committed to avoiding the contamination of spoilers before seeing this film. Having taken these steps, I hope you can understand how getting jammed up with who does what to whom in advance might be annoying.

I think you for your kind consideration in this matter and encourage everyone to not be a Homer. We get to have so few of these experiences in real time anymore, so let’s do our best not to ruin the moment.