If someone loses the weight they gained over the holidays, does that really count as losing weight? Asking for a friend.
Author: Jim Flanigan
Mulch Ado About Nothing #7
Oh, no. Of all the blog posts I could post after a slow blogging week, I choose to post a cartoon about mulch. And a multi-panel one at that? How can there be that much to say about mulch? Well, without further ado, here’s yet another mulch cartoon.
The Day the Ornament Died
It’s New Year’s Day. Happy New Year to you. It turns out that my wife is allergic to the Christmas tree that has been up in our house for 3 weeks now. Nothing too serious. Just her throat closing up when she’s in the same room with it. But we entertained company on 5 different occasions over the holidays including last night, so up the tree stayed. Until today.
The tree is coming down today and heading out for chipping and mulching. No longer do we live in the neighborhood where we attach trees to old toilets and dump them in the neighborhhood lake for the fish to use as breeding grounds. That’s a blog post for another day. Nope. Out to the curb with it, maybe with an ornament left on it.
Having 5 kids, our tree features a lot of homemade or kid-centric ornaments. I’m guessing a child may have made this one …
Heck, there are even ornaments that I painted many years ago on the tree …
Mite Be Funny #149 – Happy New Year Multi-Panel Special Edition
Christmas Wrap-up
Now that Christmas is over, I don’t want to do any more wrapping for a while except to wrap-up a few holiday loose ends. And if you somehow make it to the end of this post, I have a very special gift for you there.
Yes, a gift just for you (and the tens of other readers of this blog). WARNING: Gift receipt not included. Don’t waste your time looking for it.
First, the mystery of the mini wine gift basket coming my way has been solved. It wasn’t tiny bottles of wine after all. It was this in the 2 lb. box …
A Small Gift at Christmas – Literally
Do you know any of those people that give valuable gifts at Christmas and then say, “It’s nothing really, just a small gift to show my appreciation?” If you do, can you introduce me? Anyway, I thought I was one of those people getting a valuable gift today. I got this UPS notification yesterday …
How festive looking, and classy. Wine country, huh? Our extended family comes over to our house Christmas Eve, so this basket of wine may be coming just in time for me to get my booze on before they descend upon our humble abode.
But then I tracked the shipment and saw this …
Who Ate Chocolate Jesus?
Is this to become a beloved Christmas tradition or just a quirky annual post from Jim Flanigan Looks at the World? This is indeed a repost from December 2015 that continually gets lots of views. I’m lazy, and I have to start Christmas shopping, so I’m reposting it again. I hope you enjoy it and Merry Christmas.
While waiting in line at a local sweet shop, I could not take my eyes off their chocolate nativity for sale. Continue reading “Who Ate Chocolate Jesus?”
SAD is Bad
A couple years ago, I wrote about having SAD – Seasonal Affective Disorder. It was bad this year with some cold weather and snow coming early after Halloween. I was having such a hard time getting up in the morning in total darkness. I have 3 SAD lights in my office designed to simulate sunlight and help elevate my mood. In the mornings, I’ve been like this …
Except, without turning the lights off for much of the day. My lights do help me during the dark days of winter. However, I use them so much that I am concerned about sunburn and skin cancer.
After the winter solstice with the days lengthening, I expected the problem to be immediately solved yesterday. It wasn’t. It never is. Disappointment set in. However, I did come up with a solution that was brilliant for an idiot like me. I woke up 90 minutes later in the morning today. Voila! Sunlight greeted me. Starting work late won’t help keep my small business afloat and successful, but first things first. Mental health is most important. Take care of yours during these dark days of winter.
Mite Be Funny #148 – Hanukkah Edition
New Music for Old Rockers – New Yorn Yule Yarn
Christmas can be a fun time, but also a very stressful time. There are gifts to buy, MAGA relatives to rub shoulders with, and decorations to put up outside often in less than ideal conditions. But Pete Yorn is back with some sage advice for this season.
Where’s Yorn been since he captivated us musically a decade ago with lyrical tales of his “Strange Condition?” Well, he’s been making music, but just not super memorable. This new tune from his 7th album may not be memorable, but it excellent advice to just calm the hell down.
If you aren’t calm after listening to that tune, then there’s something seriously wrong. Calm down. The gifts will get wrapped. The tree will be trimmed. You’ll get to go a-Wassailing, whatever that is. Ask Uncle George in his MAGA hat about his health. He won’t have time to talk about Trump. He’ll be too busy talking about his gout and the root canal he needs and the fried foods he can’t eat anymore because his cholesterol is too high and … well, you get the idea. When he’s done, just tell him to calm down because he looks great. Okay, that’s probably a lie. What is that spot on his head? But, what the hell, it’s the holidays. Maybe that Christmas lie will help him enjoy a Merry Christmas, like all of us will if we just calm down.
Elf on the Shelf to Unionize – Repost with New Content
Work is surprisingly busy this time of the year when I thought business would be winding down a bit. That is actually good since my income is directly linked to my sales, and I just got a peek at my wife’s credit card bill with all the Christmas gift charges on it. I’m swooning just thinking about it. My charge card is also filled with holiday gift charges, but mostly from the Dollar Store so the total hasn’t hit triple digits yet. The bottom line is that I don’t seem to have much time to generate clever posts. I know, you’re asking yourself, “What’s his excuse for the rest of the year?”
Anyway, it seems like a good time to dust off an old Elf on the Shelf post from 4 years ago that continues to get a lot of views around Christmas. Our youngest child is now past the Elf on the Shelf stage, so that frees up some of my time at night that previously had me occupied finding clever hiding spots for Holly, my daughter’s Elf. I still regret perching Holly on the toilet that one time.
I wish my son had paid more attention before peeing in the middle of the night. No big deal. A couple flushes and Holly was rinsed nicely.
Anyway, here’s the original Elf on the Shelf post from 2015 (with some punctuation corrections) …
The popular elves from The Elf on the Shelf fame have had it with working conditions and are organizing a union. Continue reading “Elf on the Shelf to Unionize – Repost with New Content”
Got Questions? I Have Answers!
Yesterday, I announced that a short story of mine had been accepted for publication. As a bonus, I found out that I get to supply a short bio and answer some questions. Of course, I plan to submit a totally ficticious biography describing me as a left-handed, free-thinking Methodist with a proclivity for public outbursts in pig Latin. Okay, so that last part is true. Oway ymay!
Here are the questions I have been asked to answer …
One Small Writing Step Forward
I signed my first writing contract this past weekend. I’m trying not to make too big of a deal out of it until I ink the movie deal. I’m sure that will be coming shortly after publication.
I’ve been writing this wildly uneven blog for 4+ years now to hone my writing skills. I have tried anything and everything that has crossed my suspect mind. Some things have worked. Others, not so much. I mean, really, cartoons about mites and mulch?
But all the practice must have worked because the short story I submitted for consideration was easy to write, and it was accepted for publication in an anthology of short stories. Take a look …
Mite Be Funny #147 – Merry Christmas Multi-Panel Edition
Treemendous Christmas
My daughter and her friends sometimes play an Expectations vs. Reality game. They talk about what they expect to do, and then spectacularly fail in the reality of attempting to do it. For example, they can talk about expecting to make a perfect dive like this …
And then in reality do this at the pool …
Except without all the somersaults. Just the flop at the end is more like it for them.
I had grandiose expectations to decorate a tree outside this year. My wife decorated the outside of the house and it looks great again this year. It always does. She’s an awesome decorator. Not to be outdone, I eyed a large tree on the side of our house that would look incredible decked out with any leftover lights. I suggested to my wife that some icicle lights would look good on that tree. Nope. She pointed out that the white wire on the green tree would look terrible, and those icicle lights should only be used along the gutter. Well, duh. I knew that. Of course, I was just testing her. She passed along to me several old sets of appropriate lights and off to work I went.
My expectations were something like this …
Best Hotel Ever?
I was on the road again this week, and may have discovered the best hotel ever. Okay, so maybe some Trump Hotel properties are nicer, am I right?
Agreed.
I walked into my hotel behind a business dude all dressed up in a fancy suit. I saw him look at me with a bit of disdain. In fairness to him, the jeans I had on were super-faded, threadbare, and frayed. I am sure the biz guy was wondering who the homeless guy behind him stole the nice luggage from that I was rolling behind me.
The biz exec checked in as a Gold member. I saw the welcome sign in the lobby with his name on it under the Gold Member column … right next to my name as a freakin’ Platinum member. The hotel counter worker greeted the biz dude with “Thank you for being a Gold member.” I wanted to somehow, someway keep the businessman in the lobby as I bellied up to the counter to check in just so he would hear the counter guy greet me with, “Thank you for being a Platinum member.” Yes, I can be that petty. However, I let him exit the lobby and I had to be satisified with my Platinum member bonus points.
I was a little bummed until I saw this on my hotel room door …
A Twitter Mystery
As the election cycle heats up, Russian Twitter bots are starting to swarm. If I get a new follower with a Twitter name including a long string of numbers, bad grammar in their tweets, and pro-Trump tweets, I’m pretty sure that it’s a Russian bot. They get an automatic block. I follow an outstanding political cartoonist, @repeat1968, who imagined what those pro-Trump Russian bots look like …
Terrifying. I always keep my eyes to the skies now.
When I got the following notifcation from Twitter, I immediately thought “eat” because I was hungry at the time. And then I thought “bot” because of the Twitter name. But that’s when the mystery started. Take a look …
Finding God
With my wife still ill yesterday morning, I decided to do a solo reconnaisance mission to scope out a church. We’re still looking for a new one to attend. This one seemed to have the right theme, although maybe a bit obvious …
I was so excited to see this as the first song of the service …
Mite Be Funny #146 – Huge Multi-Panel Trump Bedroom Edition
Don’t Look Back
In 1978, the band Boston was urging us to “Don’t Look Back.” However, recently I have been looking back because what’s behind me is more than what’s ahead of me. And I’m not referring to my fat ass. I’m taking about life. In 1978, I looked to my life ahead of me. In 2019, I do tend to reminisce a bit.
Recently, my elementary school was holding an all-alumni school reunion before it closed forever. I didn’t go, but after seeing on Facebook who went from my grade, I waxed a bit nostalgic. If only I had waxed my neck and shoulders before the reunion, maybe I would have gone.
But then, reality hit me in the face like a fish out of water. I think I’m mixing metaphors, but that allows me to use this gif …
I think I know what Boston was getting at back in ’78. I’ll explain.
Jim Flanigan Looks at the World 