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Blog of Jim Flynn
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AuthorJim Flynn is a humorist, writer and novelist. He is available for speaking engagements. To contact email: [email protected] Archives
April 2026
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The Nissan Naugatuck?3/30/2026  The blog is going from once a week to once in a while. I'll explain later. Meanwhile, it hit me how trucks and SUVs are named after rough and ready places, mostly out West in the mountains, so we can image ourselves as rugged individualists while stuck at a stop light headed for Home Depot. But I think the car companies have used up all the cool places. Santa Fe, Tahoe, Denali, Outback, Sierra, Silverado, Telluride, Yukon, Durango, Santa Cruz, Ridgeline, Kona, Tundra, Wind River. Okay, you caught me, I made up the last one. How did they miss Wind River? There's even a Toyota Tacoma. I drive one. Last time I was in Tacoma, Washington it reeked from the many paper mills, so much so that the smell was cleverly nicknamed "The Tacoma Aroma." That was forty years ago, and I hear the mills are gone, place has been cleaned up and gentrified, a repurposed Northwest version of Brooklyn. Bonus question: Wouldn't The Tacoma Aroma be a great name for the minor league baseball team? But I think it's time for some representation of us rust belt Northeasterners. We buy most of those Subarus. Forget mountains. We've got abandoned factories and potholes deep enough to fly fish in. How about the Nissan Naugatuck? The Ford F-150 Pougheepsie Edition? The Chevy Bridgeport? The Subaru Chicopee? And for driving rocky beaches? The Dodge Plymouth. You've got to be rugged to survive these places. I'm willing to sell my consulting services to the auto industry. Now. About the blog. I've got to focus on finishing my JR Johnson novels. I have a trilogy that came to me, and I'm going to spend time on that. Will do a blog post when I have something to say. Meanwhile, if you haven't seen Press The Button, please take a look: www.amazon.com/dp/B0GR9HLFDK 
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Printer vs. Baseball Bat3/21/2026  Based on this morning. I have owned many printers in my life. Inkjet. Laser. Wireless. “All-in-one.” Which, by the way, is marketing code for none of the functions work particularly well, but they all fail in different and exciting ways. And I can say this with complete confidence: I have never owned a printer I didn’t eventually want to beat to death with a baseball bat like they did in Office Space. You print a test page. It works. You feel a little thrill. You think, This one’s different. Then you try to print something important. Something time-sensitive. A boarding pass. Tax documents. And suddenly, the printer becomes a philosopher. “Paper jam.” There is no paper jam. You open every compartment like you’re performing surgery on a toaster. Nothing. You close it. Then it escalates. “Low ink.” You just bought the cartridge. It cost more than the printer. You replace it anyway. “Cartridge not recognized.” You unplug it. You plug it back in. Nothing works. And here’s the real genius: printers fail only when you need them. The moment you need one page—just one—the printer senses it. It is a Smart Printer. Smart enough to sabotage you. The start of SkyNet taking over. You see yourself in a field. Slow motion. You’re holding a baseball bat. The printer is on the ground. You take a swing. Admit it. You've been there. Which brings me to my proposal. Forget software updates. Forget “smart features.” Just include the bat. Right in the box. “Congratulations on your purchase. Inside you’ll find your printer, power cord, starter ink cartridge, and a regulation Louisville Slugger.” Maybe even a little instruction manual: Step 1: Attempt to print. Step 2: Experience confusion. Step 3: Experience rage. Step 4: Proceed directly to the bat. The customer support hotline is answered by a former minor league baseball player. He advises you on your stance. Wouldn't that be great? Because if printer companies were honest—the packaging wouldn’t show a smiling family printing vacation photos. It would be a photo of the characters Samir and Michael from Office Space smashing the printer in a field. And honestly? I’d trust that brand more. If you haven't seen Press The Button, you might want to check it out on Amazon: www.amazon.com/dp/B0GR9HLFDK 
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Sherlock Holmes Would Be Proud3/14/2026  That’s an actual headline from the Hartford Courant. Let me guess. Lead poisoning? And people say journalism is dying. Back when Jay Leno hosted The Tonight Show, he used to do a segment built around headlines like this. Now that he’s retired, I feel a civic duty to step in once in a while. Which brings me to the novel I’m working on—a new JR Johnson thriller. This one is a little different from the previous books. Here’s the teaser: JR Johnson was hired to move a $150 billion covert government fund. To survive, he has to move a few bodies instead. Turns out he’s good at it. Spoiler alert: there are several unfortunate cases of lead poisoning. The book is still in progress. It will be done when it's done. Writers call this a “schedule.” The title is: The Seventh Man Shaun, the artist I work with, has already started kicking around cover ideas. This is always the most dangerous part of writing a novel. Nothing motivates a writer like seeing a cover for a book he hasn’t finished yet. Meanwhile my recently launched humor book Press The Button is doing fine. It’s nothing like the JR thrillers. That’s because I’m versatile. Or possibly confused. If you haven’t read it yet, it’s available on Amazon. I’m suggesting people consider it as an alternative gift instead of a birthday card. Most birthday cards cost six dollars, say nothing interesting, and end up in the trash. My book costs about the same… …but at least it comes with jokes. Click the link to see Press The Button on Amazon. www.amazon.com/dp/B0GR9HLFDK 
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 One day you wake up and realize something disturbing. Every company in America now wants a monthly subscription. Music. Movies. Cloud storage. Coffee delivery. Your car. At this point I’m expecting my toaster to send me a message: “Your bread access has expired. Please upgrade to Premium Toast.” And then I realized… The smartest subscription business ever invented is that emergency button people wear around their necks. Think about it. They don’t sell the button. They sell the monthly panic plan. Some guy in a boardroom pitched this idea and immediately retired to a swimming pool. Which is how I ended up writing a short comedy book called Press The Button. It’s about aging, technology, ridiculous inventions, and the strange modern world where every device wants a password and every company wants to bill you forever. And my experiences writing about that stuff. The book started as an audiobook and now exists as a small paperback you can read in one sitting. Because attention spans today are roughly the length of a microwave beep. If you'd like to check it out: www.amazon.com/dp/B0GR9HLFDK And if something goes wrong… Press The Button.  Photo of a satisfied reader.
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