Jim Flanigan Looks at the World
Turning the Mundane into Fundane Since 2015
There has not been a miracle like I experienced this weekend since the weeping Madonna.
No, not that Madonna. You know, the Madonna, the Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus. Some of her statues have supposedly wept and really made a mess like this one.
Continue reading “A Netflix Christmas Miracle”
Well, here we are on my 5th Day of Blogging, and I have decided to start my Christmas shopping. I stopped off at a local store owned by an ex-neighbor named Sherry. She’s a wonderful woman and was a great neighbor for 20 years. Sherry employs Victoria who we happily lived next door to in the same neighborhood as Sherry for 18 years. I always enjoy stopping by to see them and catch up, but they don’t work weekends, especially the crazy weekends before Christmas.
As I approached the cash register at Sherry’s store to checkout, I heard the woman in front of me quietly mention that she’s related to Sherry. She got a discount! Well, not to be outdone, I notified the high school girl working the counter that I was an ex-neighbor of both Sherry and Victoria, so I should get the ex-neighbor’s discount. I could see the panic in her face as her eyes started to dart to-and-fro looking for help. Seeing as it is the holiday season, I decided to be charitable and let her off the hook. I assured her that of course, I was just kidding. Yeah, sure, kidding. I figure I can make up the missed discount next year when we go to Victoria’s son’s wedding. I am sure the wedding venue won’t miss a few place settings of silverware.
Now that I’ve started shopping, I should check the ad revenue from this blog to see if I’ll be able to pay the credit card bills when they come due in January. Let’s take a look.
Continue reading “Where’s My Christmas Discount?”
I took a couple weeks after November ended to determine if I had lost a weight loss battle or the entire war. The month of November was certainly my weight loss Waterloo, and I don’t mean the city of Waterloo in Iowa, home of the Sistene Chapel reproduced in spray paint on the walls and ceiling of a warehouse turned into a restaurant that is now closed. Thanks, Covid.
No, I’m talking about Napoleon’s Waterloo where he lost his final battle while also gaining 5 pounds thanks to a cheesecake binge. I lost a major weight loss battle in November. Fat cells are now occupying my liver, and they are threatening to invade my pancreas unless their demands for sugared sodas and cake are met. However, I may not have lost the war. Signs in December are positive about returning to or close to my goal weight I met over the summer.
I can break November into 2 distinct halves. The first half of November was characterized by 4 things:
Continue reading “My Weight Loss Waterloo”
There is some unseasonably warm winter weather predicted in the Chicago area for the next few days. The temperatures will be well above freezing, almost spring-like. That’s why I insisted we make and eat a frozen pizza I purchased before the warm weather hit. My wife wondered what the rush was. Well, all she needed to do was read the instructions. It is as clear as the canker sore on my lip, unless you choose to look away as most people do. If the weather is too warm, we could not bake the pizza. I’m not sure what the weather has to do with cooking pizza, but then again, I’m no haute cuisine chef. There is no doubt that it is clearly displayed on the label with cooking instructions. Take a look.
Continue reading “Is Warm Weather Bad for Making Frozen Pizza?”
Can you tell me why it is always men, not women, who we hear about ending up in the hospital with things stuck up their backsides? The men always seem to “fall” perfectly onto the item that then gets lodged up their bum. I’m using a British term for derriere since the man in this story is from the UK. Here’s the latest story that UK readers may have already heard about.
Rectum??? It probably almost killed him. Full story link here. If you don’t want to click the link, here are some dimensions to ponder. The mortar shell removed from his tushie was 170mm/6.69″ long and a robust 57mm/2.24″ in diameter. It was designed to penetrate a tank’s armor. This is a good spot to add any lowbrow joke of your own. I have already exceeded my limit. Anyway, you know the old saying, “The mortar the merrier.”
With 2 weeks until Christmas, I best get some holiday posts rolling. I thought I’d begin by checking out our neighborhood for holiday decorations.
Except, I wasn’t expecting the holiday to be Independence Day.
But this one is more like it. I really don’t know how they do this every year.
Continue reading “Let the Christmas Decorations Begin!”
I was checking out the World Wide Webosphere for some information regarding canine behavior when I stumbled across this pic.
I immediately recognized that toy chicken as very similar to the one our puppy picked out himself at the pet store. My expectation was that our puppy would spend many good times romping with that chicken like the dog is doing in the pic above.
Instead …
Continue reading “More Expectation vs. Reality”The pen I picked to write my Saturday “To Do” list was out of ink. I took that as a sign to not do anything. Business as usual then!
I should warn you, this is going to be a long post. Wait, wait, don’t click away. It’ll be long, but with lots of pictures including one of our new puppy dog. Whew, I think I saved a few of you from ditching me and this post.
I rarely do a post like this one. It’ll be chock full ‘o pics from the television, or if you’re in the UK, the telly. I usually reason that if you wanted to see the program, you would have watched it yourself, and you don’t need to see me regurgitate a program that you chose not to watch. Gee, I may not be doing a good job of selling this post. Did I mention our new puppy’s pic is coming?
The show I watched was The Rachel Maddow Show. Some folks call her the liberal version of Tucker Carlson or Sean Hannity. I call her a smarty-pants who uses actual verifiable facts rather than conjecture, fear-mongering, and lies, also known as the staples of those named Fox News hosts.
Anyway, she was trying to help people again last night. Specifically, she warned against these practices …
Those are very bad ideas. I don’t have much experience with iodine, but I have extensive experience with hydrogen peroxide. As a self-licensed dermatist, I use a hydrogen peroxide solution to chemically burn seborrheic keratosis spots off myself. This is the result of one such session on my forehead.
Continue reading “Preventing Covid is Oozy”
Here in the USA, we just finished a 4 day holiday weekend. Some people still call it Thanksgiving, but as a Democrat, George Soros pays me to refer to the holiday as Pre-Slaughter of Indigineous People Day.
Anyway, I’ve had better holiday weekends. Since I received my Covid booster 10 days ago, I’ve been sick with respiratory symptoms. Do you think maybe that when I asked for my Covid shot, they actually injected me with the Covid virus? Did I need to be more specific that I wanted the Covid vaccine, not the virus? So, I was a bit logy on Thanksgiving when our kids came over. They couldn’t tell the difference.
I was disappointed in my oldest daughter on Thanksgiving. No, it wasn’t because her pasta was a bit too peppery, although it was. It was because she didn’t notice Yorick. You remember Yorick, right, my new real human skull? My wife, who has a keen eye for design decor, suggested I move Yorick to the other side of our fireplace mantle to provide more balance and symmetry. It works!
My daughter didn’t notice, and when I pointed out Yorick, she was appalled. And yet, she’s the same daughter who visited the catacombs in Paris to see the ossuaries packed with bones and skulls. When I visited Vienna, I headed underground to see the same thing. I figured she was a chip off the old block. Turns out that my daughter thinks that human remains should be kept underground and not passed around the family room. Looks like I raised an elitist!
I did feel a bit better yesterday, so my wife and I went out to dinner to celebrate our wedding anniversary. I was leaning toward a private, heated, plastic bubble at this restaurant.
Continue reading “Thanksgiving Weekend Blues”
I have been quite satisfied with the addition of ads to this blog. I think it adds a certain cachet to this literary trainwreck. The thought that anyone would want their name, product, or service associated with this blog blows my mind. I always imagined advertisers bidding to NOT be associated with this blog.
I understand that the ads chosen for reader are tailored to their browsing tendencies and preferences. A friend and reader of this blog texted me this ad screenshot that popped up while he was reading.
That concerned me a bit. I know I have some shitty posts from time to time, but do the ads have to be shitty, too? So, I went online to check and see what ads came up for me as a browser of this blog. This was the ad that consistently appeared.
Continue reading “Ad Nauseum”
I hit the road to drive 600+ miles on Monday and spend a few hours sitting on a concrete floor trying to fix a mobile x-ray table. I was thoroughly unsuccessful, but I don’t consider it a wasted day. The place I was at was the office of a former boss who treated me well, paid me well, and eventually fired me. To clarify, my job of running his company was eliminated when he decided to liquidate his company for a tax write-off. But it was an amicable parting of the ways, and he helped me set-up my own company. He recently passed away, and his office had been cleaned out.
All the years I worked for my former boss, there was one item I coveted when I would visit his office. It just so happened that NOBODY wanted that item after his office items were sorted out. Others described my favorite item as creepy and disturbing. No wonder I always coveted it!
It was mine if I wanted it. And why the heck wouldn’t I? Take a look and you decide.
Continue reading “Getting Ahead in Business”
I know the world is sick of Covid, and everything is opening back up, despite breakthrough cases of Covid continuing to take the lives of double-vaccinated people who thought they were safe. I’m slowly trying to safely head back out into this weird, new, masked Covidy world. I recently went to an outdoor football game, and I went to a basketball game in a big indoor arena. I felt safer outdoors at the football game, but the seats at the basketball game were positioned in such a way that I felt okay about being there. But indoor restaurants? No, thank you. I’ll take the food to go.
I enjoyed safely meeting with friends over the summer at restaurants with outdoor patios. But last night, it was below freezing out, and I was scheduled to have dinner with friends. What do we do? We decided to head to a place with an outdoor patio that they wrap in plastic and keep cozy with overhead and tableside heaters. Even better, live music was scheduled for last night.
They looked fun and upbeat with an indie-artist vibe to them, sort of a cleaner-cut version of the Strumbellas from Canada. Take a look and you decide.
Continue reading “Band on the Run?”
My exercise, health, and weight loss posts are generally my most viewed posts, so why would I wait until the middle of November to report on how I did in October? I guess it’s basically because I don’t care that much about what happened. There, I said it, and it feels good. I made my goal weight over the summer. When I sit in those special chairs at the pharmacy that take my pulse, measure my blood pressure, weigh me, and check my Body Mass Index, I no longer get the flashing warning to stand up before I break the chair. I’m now in maintenance mode.
Maintenance mode is not very exciting, and I don’t have much to report. I may have been able to lose more weight in early October as the weather was quite good to start the month. I probably could have left my pool up and swam until mid-October, but I didn’t. I walked and biked as usual, but my steps do show a slight seasonal reduction.
And that is because good mental health is key to good physical health. In the middle of October, the weather took a nasty turn for the worse, as did my mental health. I deal with SAD – Seasonal Affective Disorder, so I had to adjust my supplements and start doing this a lot.
Continue reading “Sorry to Make You Weight”
Jim Flanigan Looks at the World 