7 Jedi Life Hacks That Will Totally Change Your Life

Forget all those life hacks involving duct tape, bobby pins, folding, springs, post-it notes, etc. Those are for weak minded civilians whose beta minds are easily manipulated by Jedi masters! These superior Jedi life hacks will actually, like, totally change your life!!!

1. Keep Your Bacon Warm

Works on all types: real bacon, turkey bacon, vegan bacon, bantha bacon, etc!

Bacon is like, the greatest thing ever! But cold bacon is just the worst. How does bacon get so cold so quickly??? Well, no more. Just turn on your lightsaber and keep it near your bacon, and voila: no more cold bacon!

2. Unclog Any Toilet

Never again worry about embarrassing clogs full of epic turds that would disgust even Jabba The Hut. Forget about using a plunger. Just disintegrate the poop straight away with your lightsaber!

3. Make That Asshole Cat Obey You

Dude, you're a freaking Jedi; you have mind control powers over the weak! Cats might be the most stubborn sons of bitchez in the galaxy, but their brains are totes smaller than yours. Mind tricking them is a piece of frozen Hoth ice cream cake.

"You will only pee and poop in your litterbox." 

"You will not effing wake me up when I'm trying to get some god damn sleep."

"You will only vomit on hardwood. Never on carpet."
"You will not knock down Christmas tree ornaments."

"You will not bite anyone unless you sense they're secretly a Sith Lord." 

4. Never Buy Razor Blades Ever Again

Even the best razor blades from Coruscant soon dull. Such a waste a money when your lightsaber can do the job for free, and even do it better. Use that masterful motor control Yoda gave you and get the blade close enough to get the hairs, but just shy of your skin. There's no closer shave than one that comes from deadly pure energy, and if you accidentally cut yourself, it automatically cauterizes the wound!

Ooopsie. Be careful, padawans!

5. Keep Your Fingers Clean From Cheetos, Doritos & More

Sometimes, you just need to have a cheat day from that boring Jedi diet. There's only so many times you can eat bland Tauntaun. Everyone loves Doritos and Cheetos, but the dusty and sticky fingers you get are just awful. Use telekinesis to bring those tasty treats straight from the bag and into your mouth without ever touching them!

6. Parallel Park Like A Master

Trying to parallel park that landspeeder or podracer can be a biatch. Jerkoffs leaving you no room or angry hoards honking at you as you slow down traffic. Forget all that. Just stop next to the empty space and use your force push to glide your car into place. Smooth as Lando Calrissian!

7. Haunt Your Enemies After You're Dead

Did some douche bully you ALL throughout Padawanhood? Was your neighbor really, really, REALLY obnoxious? Did your mailman NEVER knock on your door when delivering packages? Well, with proper training, you can stick around as a ghost after death to haunt and taunt them! I mean, sure, you could use this power for good and help other Jedi defeat evil. But come on; that's soooooo vanilla. Don't be a lame Obi-Wan. Instead, have some fun. Chances are you've blown up at least one death star (cause the dark side just keeps on making em). You've earned some goof time!

Bonus Sith Lifehack!

Jedi life hacks are all fine and dandy for goody two-shoes light siders, but what about moody, angry, whiny, emo Sith Lords? Don't worry, we got ya covered. Is your only talent ripping off the work of actual content creators and then profiting from it by repackaging it in aggregated—albeit well designed—form, while the original content creators don't get so much as a dime? If so, then you're a despicable, unoriginal, plagiarizing piece of shit publication called...what's it called? JizzSeed? Or is it ScuzzWeed? Oh, right: BuzzFeed, that's it. If you're BuzzFeed, just steal this entire post and profit off my hard work like a true mother fucking Sith Lord!

A PSA About Hype

Lightsaber photography is an art and science all of its own.

Like pretty much everyone in the entire world, I'm starting to get excited about the new Star Wars. The trailers had me giddy with anticipation and almost made me cry. I've been streaming the "Best of Star Wars" Spotify playlist as I write this. Heck, just look at the above photo. That's the lightsaber I bought at Disneyland (yeah Season of the Force!) and have been swinging around every day since, pretending I'm a Toshiro Mifune-esque Samurai Jedi or Sith who defeats all his opponents with a single, perfectly calculated, expert slice. No, I don't have photo or video evidence of that; I'd like to maintain some dignity. I ain't no Star Wars Kid! 

What were we talking about again? Oh, right: Star Wars is almost in the motha fuckin' hizouse!!! However, I'm doing my best to keep my excitement and expectations in check, because a growing problem has been facing our culture: hype. More specifically, over-hype. 

There are three parts to this problem: marketing, pre-release, and post-release hype. Marketing is what the product makers bombard us with relentlessly: the various and inescapable ads, slews of articles and interviews which somehow pass for news, flimsy tie-ins or promotions, and toys and merchandising which range from cool and cute to "oh for fuck's sake!" With Star Wars, this has particularly gotten out of hand as Disney ain't got no chill. They're pushing out some truly awful and inexplicably embarrassing shit: CoverGirl makeup, basketball hoops, tents, duct tape, condiments, kitchen utensils, food packaging (seriously, just the labels on the food), toasters, shower heads, etc...basically anything and everything you can think of that has no reason whatsoever to be tied into Star Wars. Calm down, Disney. Sheesh.  

Are you fucking kidding me, Disney???!!!

What the hell does Darth Vader have to do with apples? An Apple a day surely didn't keep the dark side away...

Often, we get so inundated with marketing from an upcoming work—to the point where you can't go anywhere or do anything without it being in your face—that it almost makes me not want to see it anymore. It's like gorging on Thanksgiving food until you feel like throwing it all up, except if the host was literally shoving it down your throat. This kind of of over-hype is largely out of our control; we don't directly decide what idiotic crap they'll make and how insanely they'll saturate the market. We can, however, persuade their future decisions by not consuming and buying so much stupid shit. We can cast our vote with our wallet (or the wallet of advertisers via our clicks). But let's face it: that's never going to happen because we're all—every single last one us, myself included—gullible and a little bit stupid. 

So let's focus on what is fully in our control and a little easier to face, though still challenging: pre-release and post-release hype. Pre-release is what we all collectively do when we're excited about an upcoming work of art or entertainment: all those water-cooler chats with coworkers about the new trailer, the "are you as fucking excited as I am" exchanges with friends, and the endless social media hypedates (a term I just made up [and should trademark] that denotes a social media update to get hyped up over something). Post-release hype is overly gushing about a work, after you've actually seen it, to anyone and everyone who will listen.

We're all doing the same drug right now, and that drug is Star Wars...and maybe Christmas

There's nothing inherently wrong with getting excited and jazzed about something you're looking forward to, or wanting to share the experience afterward. If done reasonably, it's all good. Sharing our excitement and experiences with each other is an important part of our culture and social needs. The problem is we don't do it reasonably or rationally; we get far too carried away. So what's the big deal? Expectation has a direct correlation to enjoyment of something. Too much expectation and a work of art will never be able to live up to it. On the flip side, expectations so low and you're pleasantly surprised by how much you enjoyed something. Also, hearing about something too much before we experience it can make us bitter and turned off before we even give it a shot. Hype has the power to ruin something. We've all been shooting ourselves in the foot. 

For example, despite being a theatre major, I somehow missed out on the "Moulin Rouge" train when it came out my senior year of high school. I didn't see it until halfway through college, and by the time I did, I had been subjected to an endless parade of raucous hype along the lines of, "OMG IT'S THE GREATEST MOVIE EVAH!" I had stomached too many indignant gasps of disbelief that I hadn't seen it, followed by forceful campaigning to get me to do so. Eventually, I finally did see it, and I thought it was the most over-hyped piece of shit I had ever seen. My perception of it had little to do with the quality of the film. In fact, I suspect I would have liked it just fine had it not been hyped up so much for years. But because of all that hype, my expectations were subconsciously built up so high—through no effort of my own— that the actual film fell vastly short. Moreover, I went into it already feeling sour because of the overbearing hype, having wished everyone would have just shut the fuck up.
  

Precisely how I felt when I finally saw it.

It doesn't even take years of over-hype either; a friend of mine had a similar experience with "Mad Max: Fury Road" this summer after just a couple weeks of hype. His reaction wasn't as dramatic as mine, since the amount of hype he had been subjected to wasn't nearly as great, but his enjoyment of the film was highly compromised nonetheless.

When we act like something is the greatest thing since sliced bread, we royally screw up other people's ability to enjoy it as much as we did and then they don't get to have the joy of sharing in the experience. Come to think of it, sliced bread really isn't all that great either; it's just bad carbs! But I digress. No one wants to set themselves, or others that they care about, up for disappointment; it just happens when get carried away. A lot of the over-hype happens unconsciously, so it's really hard to combat and overcome. When we hype something up, we assume that our one action isn't a big deal and doesn't have that much effect, and we're right. It's the collective whole that does, and we're all a small part of that. If we would all just temper our hype a little bit, everyone would stand a better chance to enjoy and share in big cultural experiences. For the common good, please let us all try.

This does not mean not getting excited or sharing our opinion, just moderating our language and actions. For pre-release hype, we automatically build up expectations in ourselves and others when we say stuff like, "OMG I can't wait for it. It's going to the the best movie ever!" The problem isn't being excited, it's the language that declares a verdict when the jury hasn't even heard any testimony yet because the trial hasn't even started. Nothing can compete with that. Instead, we could say something like, "OMG I can't wait for it. I hope it's good!" That language still expresses our anticipation while addressing the TBD nature of the bridge that hasn't been crossed yet.  It takes nothing away from our enthusiasm; it just ensures that it's rational and doesn't negatively affect our own and others expectations.
  

Okay, maybe we don't need to mitigate our language THIS much.

With post-release hype, we just need to all remind ourselves that glowing too much about it hinders the future enjoyment of those that haven't seen it yet. "Best movie ever" oversells and overstimulates the imagination, which is seldom matched or bested by reality, as well as denotes objective quality rather than subjective. Let's face it; art is the most subjective thing on Earth. "You have to see it" is far too pushy and socially coercive, creating feelings of obligation to enjoy something, and obligation is the mortal enemy of joy. "You'll love it" personalizes the review too much, creating feelings of certainty that make the fall that much harder.

Instead of such red-hot, rosy tinted, and sizzling language, we should temper the flames with more subjective and moderated language. "I thought it was great" casually expresses one's enjoyment without shoving it down the throat like a salesmen, and addresses the subjective nature of the art, which is open to differing feelings and opinions. "I recommend it" encourages one to join the experience without feeling pushed or browbeaten, thereby freeing one to impartially judge on their own terms. "I think you would like it" shows that you believe you know someone well enough to think about what they might like, but without making it seem guaranteed. Thus leaving valuable wiggle room. Instead of grating on people or pissing them off, all of these create a friendlier, open, peaceful, and subjective environment.

Getting excited about things is great; we need to and should do so to get through life that can be really hard in a world that can be really ugly and harsh. But getting too excited and thrusting that overexcitement on others can be a problem. Let's all band together and be a little more considerate about how we frame things. Then we can all share in cultural joys and experiences together :) 

May the force be with you!
 

My Photoshop skills are a work in progress.
Good thing I'm studying from a great Sith master!

3 Fixes That Would Make "Love Actually" Just About Perfect

All images from the film © 2003 WT Venture LLC. 
(Not that I got their permission...)

There are two kinds of people in this world: those that recognize that "Love Actually" is simultaneously one of the greatest romantic comedies and Christmas movies ever made, and those that clearly have bad taste. It not only oozes charming, cutesy, can't-help-but-smile love; it's chockerbock full of all kinds of awesomeness: Brits being cold dicks to each other as a counterintuitive form of compassion, a joke that references both David Beckham AND Harry Potter, kids cursing, that terrible extra who way overreacts to Andrew Lincoln's public outburst, Liam Neeson telling his stepson he'd fuck Claudia Schiffer in his room...I could make an entire ad ridden, Buzzfeed worthy, hundred page long, clickbait slideshow about all the awesome stuff "Love Actually" gives us.  

Damn I love fuckin' love this guy!

However, that's not to say the film is perfect. As wonderful as it is, it definitely has flaws, and as much as I love it, I'll be the first to acknowledge its story issues.  It's not surprising, given that it's an ensemble film with eight different but interweaving plot lines. Not all the stories float everyone's boat, as everyone brings their own life experiences, morals, and ideas to the table. Still, most of the stories are rock solid and people's criticism is usually just about their own tastes or ideas clashing with the film and not any fault of the film. 

Kris Marshall's ridiculous American sexual conquest is pure "only in the movies" male fantasy, but flawless for what it is: silly comedic relief. Liam Neeson's stepfather guiding of young Thomas Sangster's first childhood love, Hugh Grant's reluctant surrender to Cupid's arrow, and Martin Freeman's 100% sweet meet-cute are all saccharine but relatable and believable fairy tales full of mirth. Bill Nighy's perverted clown antics bring a wonderfully platonic tale about a love just as important as romance: friendship. Lastly, Emma Thompson's/Alan Rickman's marriage with emotional adultery and Laura Linney's failed love-come-true are sad and unfortunately all-too-real tales that counterbalance the silliness with grounded drama. 

Perhaps these stories aren't completely flawless, but no work of art or entertainment is, no matter how good. Still, they are totes solid and fine as they stand. The other two plot lines, however, make some cockups that hold the film back from being damn near perfect. Which is a shame, because they could have easily been fixed. 

1) Slow Your Roll, Mr. Darcy

I love me some Colin Firth, and I love this plot line right up until the very end. A lot of us hopeless romantics can relate to Jaimie's hesitation after being cruelly betrayed by a lover, and then his bold, idiotic, naive head-first dive back into the deep end. Most of this story is great: he's blindsided by adultery, he retreats to lick his wounds, he meets and connects with a beautiful woman, Aurelia (Lúcia Moniz), who doesn't speak the same language but they speak the language of love, their time together comes to an end and he's too afraid to do anything about it because he was just deeply hurt, but then he can't let it go and jumps on an airplane last minute to go see her, and then....and then he completely jumps the fucking shark by asking her to marry him. 

Asking someone you barely know to get married and move in with you is batshit crazy and Donald Trump level of stupid. Not to mention someone you've never actually had a conversation with because you didn't share a common language. Though there's an exception to every rule, and maybe one out of ten (at best) of these marriages do work out, let's face it: nine times out of ten this ends in disaster. Seriously, Colin. What. The. Fuck. Are you just thinking with your dick because she gave you a massive boner when you saw her strip down to her knickers?

Dude, slow the fuck down. Instead of doing the craziest and stupidest thing you could possibly do, how about just asking her out on a date? Get to know her, see if you're actually compatible and have things to talk about, see if your morals and life views align. Continue to date if it works out, and then maybe pop the question some day when a reasonable amount of time has passed. Doesn't that sound like a pretty good idea, Colin...I mean, Jamie. Sorry, you're just so dreamy...in a British sort of way...whatever that means...uh...let's move on.

If he knocked the intensity down a peg—okay more than few pegs—the plot line would still be just as romantic, if not more so: diligently learning the language of his missed connection, and then flying to her country last minute on Christmas Eve to ask her out. That still toes the crazy borderline, but he can clearly afford it (maybe I can get some of that sweet writer money), and it's not unreasonable to want to get the fuck away from his back-stabbing brother during the holidays. 

So there you have it. Fix numero uno in the bag. Next!

2) A Couple Extra Cue Cards

This is probably the most controversial story in the film. After Juliet (Kiera Knightly) finally figures out that Mark (Andrew Lincoln, not fighting zombies) doesn't hate her, but is actually in love with her, Mark surprises her on Christmas Eve to come clean and confess his love. A lot of people misinterpret this as him back-stabbing his best friend, Peter (Chiwetel Ejiofor), and making a play for her. Sigh. Dudes, that's not it at all. He has completely avoided her and been cold to her since day one because he loves his best friend and knows he has to stay away from her. He's not suddenly throwing his moral fiber out of the door. 

Moreover, when he walks away, he says, "Enough. Enough now." Thus asserting to himself (and us) that he's beginning the process of moving on. Some people mishear it as, "enough for now," thinking that this is just the start of his pursuit. Understandable for anyone who isn't British, especially since the actor mumbles it. Hell, I had to look it up after I first saw the film.

"So why is he telling her this on Christmas? He should just bottle up his feelings and get over her! What if his friend had answered the door instead?"

Sigh...alright. Let's address the false criticisms before we get to the valid criticism of this scene. First of all, he knows that she will be the one to answer the door because he knows his best friend inside and out; he knows that when the dude is in couch potato mode, there's no way he's getting up off his ass unless absolutely forced to. He also knows that she is the bubbly, gregarious, outgoing, happy-to-answer-the-door type of person. And so do we, the audience. We've seen it all movie long. We have seen that Peter is more reserved, quiet, and mild mannered, while Juliet is bursting through every scene with Rainbow Bright levels of enthusiasm. It's 99% guaranteed she'll be the one answering the door. And in the one percent chance she didn't, then so what? He could just say that he came to wish them a Merry Christmas! "What am I doing with these cue cards and a boom box? Ugh, don't ask. Stupid work crap on Christmas Eve—of all days—for the gallery that you know I work at." Boom. See: just use your critical thinking skills, y'all! I know you have them.

"Awwww, you're so sweet. Merry Christmas to you too, homie!"

Why on Christmas? Well, his cue card says it all; he apparently believes Christmas is the time for telling the truth. Is that actually a thing? Whatever, it's what he believes. People believe in all kinds of weird shit. It's truthful to him, and that's all that matters. Just because the audience doesn't believe in something doesn't mean that belief is not valid for the character. Plus, this is a Christmas movie. Their story has to culminate at Christmas. It's a movie for fuck's sake; there will be conceits. Just go with it.

Lastly, anyone that believes he should just bottle up his feelings, get over her and move on...holy shit, your emotional intelligence is so damn low...I feel sorry for all your love partners, friends, and family because you clearly suck at relationships and communication. Yes, she already knows that he is in love with her, but that hasn't actually been addressed between them. As soon as she found out, he bolted. It's a huge elephant in the room (cue a cute cue card of a giant elephant photoshopped into a tiny room), and they have to address it. She is his best friend's wife; they are going to see each other. They are going to be a part of each other's lives. There's no way around it, no forgetting it, no sweeping it under the rug. They have to talk about it. It's as simple as that.

Seriously, how great would this look on a cue card?

Finally, we get to the real problem with the scene. What he does is basically say: "Yeah...so I love you. I think you're perfect and all that jazz, but I know I can't have you and that you belong with my best friend. Don't worry, I'm gonna try to place my love elsewhere. Hopefully I'll be banging some hot babe next year! Anyway...I'm telling you this cause it's Christmas, cause fuck it. Merry Christmas!" The problem here is he doesn't say enough to make it clear for everyone in the audience to understand and appreciate what he's doing. 

A couple extra cue cards would have solved this. First, the aforementioned photoshopped elephant in the room: comedic relief and a valid explanation. Two for the price of one cue card! Later, a penultimate card before Merry Christmas saying his gift to her and Peter is that he will try to be her friend. That would make it clear he's not making a play, but promising to try for an amazing, nigh Herculean feat: mastering his unasked for and uncontrollable love for her to be her friend, for the sake of their mutual love of her husband/his best friend. Damn, what high poetic drama that shit would have been!

3) Maybe Don't Kiss Your Husband's Best Friend on the Mouth

She finally forced that Banoffee Pie down this throat.

That scene also contains another controversy: Juliet kisses Mark on the mouth. This act is also woefully misconstrued as a romantic expression, as if she's cheating on her new husband. Really though, she's not indulging him with that kiss or flirting with adulterous feelings.

She's not kissing him romantically; she's giving him a friendly, caring kiss of compassion, much as a mother or father kisses their child goodnight. No, she's not his mother, but in many other cultures, mouth to mouth kisses don't necessarily signify romance. It's American ignorance to assume two adults briefly pecking on the lips is an expression of romantic love. She's just giving him a kiss that says, "Hey dude, thanks for admitting that. I know it was hard, and I feel for you. I hope the best for you!" While I don't personally have a problem with it, they could have easily avoided this confusion with a cheek kiss instead. That also would have avoided any possible misunderstanding by Mark on the receiving end, because when someone confesses their love for you, you really don't want to do anything they might misconstrue as reciprocation.

OMG Love Actually is the bestest evah!!!

So there you have it: three easy changes that would have solved Colin Firth's and Kiera Knightly's issues...okay, not their issues, the film's issues. I don't know what personal issues they have to be worked out, but I wish them the best with those. Anyway...I think these fixes would have made one my favorite movies damn near perfect. I'll still keep on loving it, nonetheless. Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, and as those gap-minding Brits say: Happy Christmas!