Jim Flanigan Looks at the World
Turning the Mundane into Fundane Since 2015
I saw this on Twitter this morning …
What happened in that one minute to change America from having to be made great to being great? Maybe Fox & Friends said something. Maybe nothing. Maybe he is tooting his own horn while still trying to sell more of those MAGA caps. Maybe his brain just continues to melt into dementia.
I saw some 3-5-3 haiku on Twitter regarding Florida House Rep and Trump sycophant Matt Gaetz threatening Michael Cohen via this tweet.
I could not resist trying my hand at some haiku. I came up with a lot of variations on the same theme, but finally settled on this.
Gaetz sends tweet
To intimidate
Commits crime
I hope you had a good Dr. Martin Luther King Jr Day. I took some of the day off, and I hauled my 10 year old and her friend to an arcade where they could pretend they were somewhere else, anywhere else than with me, until it came time to recharge their gaming cards.
Also today, Donald Trump and Mike Pence surprised everyone with an unscheduled visit to take a minute to lay a wreath at the memorial to Dr. Martin Luther King. That was it. A minute. No words. No service projects. One quick wreath. The house cartoonist for Mad Dog PAC, @repeat1968, offered up this cartoon on Twitter to perfectly memorialize the event.
My life has been decidedly different the past two months. Sure, the Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s holidays have played a role in changing my life as I have been selling my blood plasma weekly in order to pay for holiday entertaining and presents. Do you know how hard it is to type when you’re woozy from being a pint low? But that’s not the real change. I’m talking about shedding a weight that has rested heavy on my shoulders the past two years. I know, I know, I should also shed some weight around my mid-section. But that weight on my shoulders was formidable, and now it is almost completely gone, lifting itself from my shoulders pound by pound daily over the past two months. And it has definitely changed this blog. Thank God something has. I’ll explain.
My wife does not use Twitter. My wife does not like Donald Trump. She seemed to me to be the perfect person to try my first Trump Twitter Test.
I refuse to follow Donald Trump on Twitter or anywhere else, but I do check in on him from time to time. I do follow a Donald Trump parody account that amuses me to no end.
So the test I prepared was to present my wife a parody Trump tweet and a real Trump tweet to see if she could identify parody vs. real. Would you like to play, too?
I have prepared the 2 tweets so they present very similarly. Ready? Here’s #1.
Here’s #2.
I’m not yet very experienced in Twitter. I’m in the process of emerging from my Facebook chrysalis, and my Twitter wings are still wet. So when I saw that it looks like I’m being followed on Twitter by one of the most ruthless mobsters from the most famous crime family in the USA, I was not pleased. I didn’t panic. I didn’t delete all my tweets. I did clean out my 401K, but that was simply to pay a delinquent gas bill. Sorry, but just not a dedicated saver here and the weather is downright cold.
This is the Twitter notification I saw that sent chills through my body, or maybe it was that our gas heat had been shut off for going on 3 days now. Continue reading “I’m Being Followed”
I am so thankful for Twitter. Now I know how I want my Christmas lights to look this year …
Doesn’t that arouse inside of you a desire to come and see the climax of my Christmas decorating? But that’s not all the holiday decorating that Twitter has inspired.
Every year I do a Nativity on Ice, but it is always so difficult putting skates on the dog. Who else is going to play the role of the ass in the stable? Don’t answer that. Regardless, instead of a Nativity on Ice this season, thanks to Twitter, I am inspired to do … Continue reading “God Bless Twitter”
I have purged my Facebook successfully of all ridiculous, right wing, conspiracy theory posts. I just don’t see them anymore. I now see all sorts of cute kitty and animal videos.
Now there’s a clickbait gif if I ever saw it. I still get new Facebook friend requests daily from people I don’t know, but it is easy enough to delete those.
I thought Twitter would be better than Facebook. Then I see a tweet like this …
A recent blog post from here got some traction on Twitter and garnered hundreds of views for this blog. Maybe it was the picture I used.
Regardless, hundreds of views and ZERO “Likes” on Twitter. Zero as in nothing. Zero as in less than one, and one is the loneliest number. Zero as in zed for our Canadian readers. Take off, eh!
The post took more time than my usual word diarrhea that I hurl at this screen almost daily like feces from my monkey cage that I call my office. I actually gave it a little thought. And yet, it remains wildly unlikable on Twitter and here.
But then I tweeted this innocuous, throwaway, insignificant response to a tweet from someone I follow …
Has it really been 17 years since September 11, 2017? Wow, time flies.
Donald Trump cares. He knows we don’t have as much time as he does to watch television and tweet about what he just saw on Fox and Friends. He is always trying to help us through Twitter. He just helped us again. He knows we may not be able to keep up with all the times he obstructed justice during interviews, press conferences, rallies, statements, and tweets. Just in case we forgot that he has obstructed justice, we are grateful that he dropped this tweet on us …
Several of my children were visiting a few days ago to celebrate one of their birthdays, although I swear that we celebrate more kid birthdays than the number of kids I have. I asked my eldest daughter who is Twitter-savvy about how many Likes or Retweets are needed for a tweet to be considered to have gone viral. She replied, “Thousands.”
The reason I asked is because of this tweet of mine …
It caught me by surprise that 146 people would like this tweet because it is a fairly inconsequential tweeted response to Rep Eric Swalwell of California and the dude who runs MadDog PAC that sells great anti-Trump swag to fund anti-Trump billboards across the country. It is so inconsequential that I have elected not to even show the whole tweet. If you really want to see it, follow me on Twitter @jim_flanigan. I recommend against it.
But then, what really surprised me was this …
I saw this tweet in real time this morning. I couldn’t quite believe what I was reading.
I had no reply to tweet because I was not prepared for Trump Sr. throwing his son under the bus the way he did. Trump Sr. appears to use the “I didn’t do it, but my son did” defense.
I can only speculate on the conversation this tweet generated.
Jr: Oh father, I feel quite uncomfortable with my head resting under the bus tire.
Sr: Don’t worry. They’ll provide you a pillow in prison.
What better time is it to explore the depths of my reportedly absent mind than a rainy day? So without further ado (and further adon’t), I offer you another edition of my Random Thoughts.
My dog is now losing her puppy teeth.
Does that mean a new necklace for my wife is in her future?
Jim Flanigan Looks at the World 