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Monday, March 10, 2025

Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog #59: No Shocks, Old Lady Gangs, Dreams of Comedians, etc.





1. New this week. From the person who brought you vacuuming without the hose attached comes another foolish adventure. This time I had someone lying on our PEMF (Pulsed Electromagnetic Field) mat. It has many benefits including reducing pain, accelerating healing, and much more. Anyway, I was turning it on and the person mentioned it didn’t feel too intense. So I turned it up and turned it up again. Well, it turned out that the wires connecting the mat to the power source were not attached. Instead, I had another device hooked in. So yeah I had them lying on the mat while another piece of equipment was getting the current. It only took me a few minutes to figure it out.


2. I am in the *long* process of creating a website for my podcast. One of the arduous tasks in crafting it is making a comprehensive list of all of the links I’ve shared on all 185 (so far) episodes. What’s crazy is how many of these links I’ve shared, some in only the last 2 years, have been closed down. I mean it makes it a lot faster to create the link page, but wow the turnover is really fast on the internet.

Coming soon...



3. I walked into the gym one afternoon this week. It was quieter than usual which was great. It allowed me to more easily scan the crew that was there. My brain must not have been working well. I looked at an older lady riding an upright bike. From a distance, it looked like she had a tattoo on her forehead. My first thought was ‘why did this old lady get a forehead tattoo?’ It was only after seeing another older lady with the same mark that it dawned on me that it was Ash Wednesday. No there is no gang of old ladies with face tattoos.


4. To me if you wear a mask indoors that is your choice. If it makes you feel safe, or if you have a compromised immune system you should do it. I’d never give a cross look to someone wearing a mask, especially after what we dealt with in the pandemic. That being said, if you are inside and wearing a mask under your chin, the chin diaper look, you are a complete moron. Also, if you repeatedly move the mask from over your nose and mouth to under your chin you’re a double-dip moron. Are you immunocompromised or not? If you are then putting your mask under your chin has exposed you to all sorts of germs. If not then why are you wearing a mask? A fashion statement? Man, just dumb.


5. I have a skill I guess for being able to have and remember vivid dreams. I’ve written several short stories based on dreams I’ve had. This week was not a story type dream, but it was memorable. I dreamed I was walking around a mall in California. I was fascinated by the food court, more specifically a Cape Cod themed burger place. While I stood outside of this restaurant I heard a voice say my name. It was famed comedian Norm MacDonald, one of my favorites who sadly passed in 2021. He said ‘Hey I like that restaurant too.’ Then he gave me a classic Norm one-liner. He said ‘you know what the best part about it is? You can actually go inside.’ Meaning that he was making fun of me standing and staring longingly at this restaurant from the outside when I could actually go in and eat. It was pretty funny.


6. Few things in life make me as happy as I am when I get to spend time with my youngest niece. Her 6th birthday was this week. I loved getting to go over after work and have dinner and celebrate on her actual birth date. My mother makes the joke that my little niece basically owns me. She can get me to do whatever she wants. That was on full display when she proceeded to dress me in pink leg warmers, wristbands, and a headband like I was in a 1980s Jazzercise class. I don’t regret a moment of it though.


7. It took me a few years but I finally got to watch Coming 2 America. The original is one of my favorite movies ever. I can pretty much recite it word for word. I know the reviews of the sequel were middling but to me the movie was perfect. It had so many callbacks to the original. It had everyone they could get from the original. It was a bit sad to see 4 people in the film that have since died. James Earl Jones, Louie Anderson, John Amos, and Dikembe Mutombo. I recommend it to anyone who enjoyed the original.




8. A first for me happened this week. I was headed for the self-checkout lines at the supermarket. There I saw 2 women with 1 full shopping cart. They were dividing up the groceries and using 2 registers to check the stuff out. All the while there was a line of us waiting while these Karens hogged 2 machines. It took all of my dwindling restraint not to say something. The older I get the less I care about what I say and to whom. Just a pair of selfish suck bags.


9. I have found a perfect way to have an energy drink I enjoy and save a lot of money in the process. I have liked the Celsius drinks since they debuted in 2005. Part of that is because they were first sold in a small store near where I lived in Delray Beach, Florida at the time. I feel like I was in on the ground floor with them. Anyway, at Shaw’s they now have packets of Celsius in powder form. You typically get 14 packets for $11.99. Quick math, a can of Celsius sells usually for between $2-2.50. If we go low that means 14 cans is $28. So even on the low end I save about $16. On the high end it’s $35 and I save about $23. I love Celsius even more now.




10. With my Etsy photography shop back in business for the first time since 2017 I have decided to really make a go of it trying to sell some prints. This means trying to craft a good, and affordable, ad on Google. It does take a few minutes to get it right, but I’m hopeful it will be a good risk-reward trade. The funny thing to me is that I have done Google Ads before. In fact all of my campaigns I created are still listed. They’re inactive but listed. When did I last create a Google Ad? 2009. Yes, several years before I had my first book deal I was making ads. For what? Promoting my ebooks and my new website. That’s all well and good but it also means I haven’t done a single Google Ad for any of my 9 books, or my podcast, or my YouTube channel, or my website (at least not since 2009). So we’ll see. Maybe I get a few sales and keep the ads going. Maybe I don’t. At least my budget is very low. Hey, I have to be smart. Just because spending $100 a week is ‘recommended’ doesn’t mean it’s smart.

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