A Divine Resolution

I fulfilled my Sunday obligation and a New Year’s resolution for week #2 of 2024 by going to church on Sunday. While going to church is not something new or unusual per my New Year’s resolution, going to an Episcopal Church is. We had no idea what to expect other than it is located directly across the street from the Lutheran church we had recently abandoned because of the congregation’s homophobic harrassment of one of the one pastors who is openly gay. That pastor left the church and the area, but not before she pointed fingers on her way out. The church we left before that one had a homophobic pastor. Did we make progress going from a church with a homophobic pastor to one with a homophobic congregation?

The Flanigans don’t tolerate any mistreatment of others because of their race, creed, color, or sexual orientation. We do tolerate harmless jokes about the MAGA crowd, but that’s about it.

Q: Why did the MAGA crowd deny that German Christmas fruit bread is delicious?

A: Because Trump told them the bread is Stollen.

I literally just made up that joke, and I think that is painfully obvious. I’ll be workshopping that one for the next 11 months to get it ready for next Christmas.

Anyway, we checked on gaychurch.org (really!), and found an accepting Espiscopal church right across the street from our old church. The congregation was definitely welcoming, but seeing this as we slid into the pew was almost a deal-breaker for me.

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COVID Mystery Solved!

Where would I have picked-up COVID? Sure, my wife and youngest daughter had been sick, but they tested negative for COVID. I hadn’t been anywhere special to the best of my memory, but I am experiencing the famed COVID fog, so I wasn’t 100% sure. As for other COVID symptoms, they are rough, especially for an older guy like me. I’m grateful for genetics, my general good health, and previous COVID vaccinations. Oh, and I don’t want to forget the wonder drugs available to treat COVID symptoms. Neigh, I’m not horsing around and talking about Ivermectin with bleach chasers. I’m referring to wonderful COVID antiviral treatments like Paxlovid which I am currently taking.

Of course, with Paxlovid, you have to take the good with the bad, like side effects such as loss of taste and smell. My wife asked me today if I’ve lost my smell, but no, I haven’t. I smell as bad as usual. Another side effect is a metallic taste, and that I definitely have. I feel like a James Bond villian.

But the mystery gnawed at me like a diseased rat gnawing at a young waif’s leg.

Where could I have picked-up COVID?

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We Are Not Alone – Concert Edition

But after raising 5 kids and 11 dogs, I want to be alone. It became obvious to me last night as I took some video (more audio than video since I had an obstructed view) of The Hooters in concert that none of us are alone. They’re here, watching us, and last night they were enjoying some 40 year old music. Who is here? Aliens, of course. And not the kind of aliens the MAGA crowd is always bitching about. I’m taking about the extraterrestrial kind of aliens.

Last night I passed on seeing Tommy Tutone (no original band members!) and Rick Springfield at an 80’s concert. I caught Paul Young singing this song to conclude his set, but his vocals no longer sound like they do in that video. Hey, 40 years is a long time. And I can’t confirm if he can still dance like in the video, since I chose a spot to sit across the river with better sound but a somewhat obstructed view. I was there to partially see & hear The Hooters as I indicated in yesterday’s post.

The Hooters sounded great, but they played a bit too long. When you have to start playing covers to extend your set, that’s too long. But I’m glad they did! We were all waiting for them to wrap their set with “And We Danced,” except for the people next to me who had no idea about anyone who was playing last night.

And maybe “they” knew it was coming, too. They … them … the aliens. I took some video of the brilliant full moon over Aurora, Illinois last night as The Hooters ended their set. I thought nothing of it until this morning when I took a look & listen to the video. There it was. Sorry, there “they” were. No, not The Hooters. Remember, I had an obstructed view. Damn trees. No, they = aliens. Take a look if you don’t care if your mind gets blown.

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Yesterday Was a Weird Day

I started yesterday with a Wordle that I swore I had solved in 2 … then 3 … then 4 … then 5 … then 6 … then nope.

Was I becoming cognitively impaired, or was it just bad luck guessing? Any regular reader of this blog will choose the former. I even harbored thoughts of it as I got word that yet another of my cousins who is my age now is showing signs of dementia. But I chalked it up to bad luck guessing and got ready to continue my career in the cinema.

No, I wasn’t hired as an usher at the local Megaplex. I had a paying gig as a film extra playing a funeralgoer at Graceland Cemetery. Not Elvis’s final resting place in Graceland in Tennessee as I had originally thought, but Graceland Cemetery in Chicago.

Traffic was light and I made it to the Chicago cemetery faster than Google said I would. I parked and had a distance to walk to the chapel where the filming would take place. That’s when I hitchhiked for the first time in my life.

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King for a Day or Sign of the Beast?

Famed Harvard attorney Laurence Tribe (@tribelaw) shared on Twitter this email he received from the Trump campaign.

Is a crown a part of the deal? I would so do this if I could get a crown. I would be unstoppable walking around like this …

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When Pigs Fly

You may have heard or used the expression “when pigs fly” before. What about when they are “flying” around a racetrack? I will be working the booth for the local county Democrats again this year at the annual local County Fair coming up in July. We will try our best to convert Republicans, Trumpers, MAGAs, RINOs, QAnons, Libertarians, pedestrians, and “patriots” to vote Democrat in November. Trust me, it’s an uphill battle. Consider who attends the fair when the local yokel newspaper posts this online as an attention-grabbing headline.

Old favorite? What’s even scarier to me is that I can walk to the fairgrounds from my house. Oh well, better get my bib overall shorts cleaned and pressed. It’s fair-goin’ time!

Let Lying Trumpers Lie

I’ve gone back and forth with friends debating whether or not we should make an attempt to reason with our relatives and friends who are hardcore MAGA Trumpers. Sure, we want our loved ones to see the error of their ways, but I have become convinced that trying to sway them is a lost cause. To support my argument, I present this video from a couple days ago.

Your eyes may have glazed over just a bit at the falsehoods flung around like feces in the monkey house at the zoo. Sounds like something crazy Aunt Jane or Uncle Joe at the holidays would say after getting into the spiked eggnog, but it perfectly supports why trying to show them their thinking is flawed is futile. First, take a look at the sheer volume of nonsense this woman spouted along with the truth listed underneath each.

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Is My Dog Suicidal or Murderous?

He’s always looked somewhat depressed, even as a puppy.

But now, he’s acting out. The other night, in a effort to stem the tide of my winter weight gain, I went to bed without eating even one of the delicious chocolate brownies that my wife had made.

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COVID Comes Home

Unfortunately, it’s MY home. My 13 year old daughter tested positive for Covid yesterday, and has some symptoms, but not severe. We hope and pray she recovers quickly and fully with no side effects. Get vaccinated and boosted.

Our daughter just got her booster shot Friday, so probably not soon enough to fully protect her. I’m not surprised she got sick. Our local school district is being decimated by Covid at the student and educator level. So far, my wife (an educator in the school district) has escaped a Covid infection, but I figured my daughter would eventually get it. All her friends seem to be getting it. Peer pressure, perhaps?

So, now what? I’ll be spending a lot of time away from my family in my home office and basement, so business as usual for me. I will be stocking up on Covid therapeutics, just in case. Ivermectin? Check! But I do have a question. Will the dewormer Ivermectin work on Covid if you don’t have worms? If not, I’ll have to stock up on worms, too.

Twitter has proven to be a treasure trove of information as to how to treat Covid beyond such commonsense cures like livestock dewormers. I had all I needed for this next one in the kitchen.

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Repost of Yorn Yule Tune & All New 2021 Content

As I find myself woefully unprepared for Christmas once again, I harken back to advice crooner Pete Yorn gave us 2 Christmases ago – calm the hell down. Read on.

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.

Continue reading for new content.

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Greek Geek Gawk

I am sad to say that one of my self-acclaimed and sometimes mildly amusing Mite Be Funny cartoons is NOT the all-time most-viewed post on this blog. It is this monstrosity …

It registers well over 3000 views, and that number continues to grow daily. If you search on Google for “maga hat mark of the best,” my post is at the top of page 2. I hesitate to post a link, but if someone is really interested in the original satirical post on Biblical/political (Biblitical?) numerology, click HERE.

In July, I added this post to disavow the original post as UTTER NONSENSE. It didn’t work. I could just kill the original post, but the views alternately entertain and terrify me. And then this comment from a reader arrived …

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Holiday Eats

Today is the eighth day of my Twelve Days of Blogging, and Christmas leftovers in the house are running low, unlike my weight because of the Christmas leftovers. It’s a vicious cycle. My wife made some special sandwiches for Christmas Eve, and I was looking forward to this on Christmas Day …

Until I saw the whole dish …

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Signs of the Time

Every 2 years, signs sprout up in our yard. The crop is good this year.

I couldn’t help but notice that I have unintentionally arranged the signs like a middle school dance – girls on one side and boys on the other. It’s certainly not a special shrine to Joe Biden like the one that I saw when I biked through our old neighborhood.

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Disturbing Stats

I have found that the most popular blog posts I write involve food, travel, health & exercise. Everyone (including me!) is tired of political posts. We all know Trump is awful, and while you’ve been reading this sentence, he’s now done another terrible thing which is blah, blah, blah. I find that I need to write some political posts for personal cathartic reasons, and they barely get noticed … except for my post titled “It All Adds Up to the Mark of the Beast.” If you don’t recall it (And why would you? It was eminently forgettable), go ahead, click the link, and take a look. It’s number rubbish, because I’m a math geek, but I happened to notice a disturbing trend for that months-old post …

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It All Adds Up to the Mark of the Beast

A very learned, scholarly friend sent this to me.

MAGA Hat Bible

I summarily dismissed it as a clever meme, but utter nonsense. And then I took a closer look at the numbers using ancient secrets of numerology. My eyes were opened.

First, I assigned numbers to M A G A according to their position in the alphabet.

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48 > 50

We have a problem in the USA much bigger than Donald Trump, and that’s an awful big one. We have 2 Senators each coming from states with fewer people than many cities have. I’m talking about you Montana, Wyoming, North & South Dakota. Most of those Senators are Republican. There is absolutely no reason for us to have 4 states that are so lightly populated, and no reason to have so many Republican Senators representing those states. Our map now looks like this …

us-states-map

The solution is simple …

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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.

 

Another Edition of Twitter Pics

I couldn’t come up with a mulch cartoon today, so you get more Twitter funnies. You’re welcome!

Here’s a campaign sign for Trump that I can get behind …

Trump Campaign Sign

Speaking of getting behind Trump, today he delivered the most cogent tweet he has ever tweeted …

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Twitter is Exhausting

Don’t follow me on Twitter, please, not like any sane person would have any interest in doing that. I use Twitter to keep up on the latest Trump Resistance conspiracy theories and rage against Trump’s nonsensical tweets. I did get a kick out of engaging in some Twitter communication with my all-time favorite DJ just last weekend when he tweeted out that he was featuring music from 1982 on his Saturday morning show.

tweet-wxrt.png

I think that’s what Twitter was supposed to be. Instead, we get idiotic Trump tweets like these …

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Flies On Washington Walls #144

FOWW #144a Bad Guys

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