Tag: halloween

Halloween Hijinks

~ Jim Flanigan ~ Leave a comment

I hope you all had a fun Halloween. We started celebrating the scary holiday by attending Halloweensteen, a Bruce Springsteen tribute concert performed annually by Chicago native singer/songwriter Michael McDermott. It appears to be a beloved Chicago tradition that I had never heard of before with many repeat attendees. Now I know why. The show exceeded our expectations. There’s a big difference between a bunch of local musicians forming a tribute band to mimic an artist’s music and a professional musician like McDermott assembling other professional musicians to interpret and perform another professional’s songs.

Our seats were outstanding. The last time my wife and I were at the excellent and classy Park West concert hall, we stood and swayed through a show by Brit pop-rocker Dave Edmunds. However, my wife has knee issues worse than me, so I called ahead to check and see if we could be guaranteed seats. Well, not only were we provided seats, but they were just off to the side of the stage on a padded bench in a handicappped section. We had a great view.

There was a bit of a problem as drinking progressed at the 2+ hour show. I’ll explain.

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A Halloween Edition of … Am I a Bad Guy?

~ Jim Flanigan ~ 1 Comment

In our neighborhood, houses with kids get booed around Halloween time. Not like jeered, but a package of gooodies is left for the kid(s) in the house. Then the recipient is supposed to “boo” two more homes. Yes, it does reek of a pyramid scheme, and despite my annual calls, the FBI and SEC have both turned blind eyes to this grifting.

Anyway, our youngest started high school this year, so we did not expect to be booed. But then the pail of goodies arrived. Sigh! Can’t our neighbors keep track of how old my kids are? My wife put the sign on our door that we didn’t expect to have to use this year.

But then, I had an idea. I kind of like what we received in the pail of goodies. Who’s going to know if we don’t “boo” anyone? And if I remove the “been booed” sign from our door, might we get booed another time or two and collect even more goodies?

Am I a bad guy?

Sorry to Make You Weight

~ Jim Flanigan ~ Leave a comment

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.

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Life in These United States

~ Jim Flanigan ~ Leave a comment

You may remember the title of this blog post as being a regular feature in the old Reader’s Digest magazine. My mother used to buy the magazine when I was a kid, and I recall reading heartwarming and funny stories about living in the USA. There have been some changes to life in the USA over the past few decades. Here’s a story about football, divorce, a pole dancer, the Jerry Springer show, and the pole dancer’s therapy monkey that attacked a child on Halloween. <deep breath> Before I ask you to click to read more, here’s a pic of the therapy monkey sipping juice to entice you to click and read on.

Yes, the dancer’s performing name is Pole Assassin.

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Grave Concerns

~ Jim Flanigan ~ Leave a comment

As an elected local government official, it irks me that every year around Halloween, unauthorized graveyards spring up in people’s yards like this one close to my church.

Then we have to enforce the local laws to get people to take them down. At least I assume that’s how it works. Because I’m a local government official who has been elected, that means I don’t do any of the actual work.

As a public service, allow me to remind you that if you have any dead bodies piling up, it’s best to dump the cadavers in the woods or in a body of water like the rest of us do. Please don’t bury them in the yard of a private residence. That could prove to be a grave mistake. Underground utility lines can often be encountered and damaged unless the grave is very shallow. Can you dig what I’m saying? Or, as an even better option, turn the bodies in to local law enforcement. I know around here, we have a “no questions asked” policy.

Hope you had a good Halloween.

Happy Halloween? Not for the Face-Covered Piñata

~ Jim Flanigan

My 12 year old daughter is still casually interested in Halloween. She was thrilled to see we received this invite from a neighbor.

I have so many questions …

  • If everyone brings a face cover for the piñata, isn’t that going to be too many for the piñata to wear?
  • Does the piñata really need a face cover?
  • Can’t the piñata provide its own face cover?
  • If the face covers are for party attendees to wear, are they because of COVID or is the piñata loaded with shrapnel?
  • Can we use the water provided to clean our potential shrapnel wounds?
  • Is a piñata a small piña?

I expect my daughter to attend, stand around, try and look cool, and not attack a defenseless piñata. But she will definitely be wearing a mask, just like all of us should when we are around other non-piñata humans.

 

Steve Bannon’s Halloween Nightmare

~ Jim Flanigan ~ 2 Comments

It wasn’t too long ago that former Trump adviser Steve Bannon had thoughts of using his lofty position in the Trump Administration as a possible jumping off spot for a future run at the presidency. He did have the ear of the most powerful and moronic man in the world, Donald Trump.

US-POLITICS-TRUMP-STAFF

 

And then, just like that, Bannon was gone from the Trump Administration. And last night, on All Hallows’ Eve Eve, Steve Bannon found himself facing his worst Halloween nightmare here …

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Six, Seven or Ate?

~ Jim Flanigan

Hiding uneaten at the bottom of my daughter’s remaining Halloween candy were some of these M&M pretenders called Sixlets …

sixlets1

I do see they are labeled as Gluten Free and Nut Free. That’s nice, although they neglected to add Flavor Free. But that’s not the biggest problem I have with Sixlets. I’ve eaten much worse. You can clearly see the problem if I rotate the package slightly …

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Special Police Directive for Halloween

~ Jim Flanigan

Police and Law Enforcement officials in most parts of the country have received special instructions and training for this Halloween. They have been warned to curtail their instincts to shoot first, especially when it comes to suspicious looking masked people.

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