Blog Love Omega Glee: Do Office Supplies Make You Tingle? (31 May 2012)

Inside The People's Republic Of Office, Francine drags Jake to the clearance section in the back of the store. "I love office supply stores," she says, "I wish I published a zine so I could use more of this stuff."

"Well, I'm glad stationery turns you on, but we're here to 'accidentally' bump into the mayor's sister, remember?" Jake says, thumbing through some discounted notebooks to see if there are any wrestling ones.

"Jake! Is that you?"

Jake turns to his left, towards the source of the voice, a young woman with medium-length brunette hair, olive skin, bright eyes, and brighter eyeglasses, red to be exact. She wears black slacks and the red polo shirt all the store's employees wear. Her nametag says "Comrade Flori" and The People's Republic Of Office's slogan of "Office workers of the world unite for lower prices!"

"Flori!" Jake says, as they hug, "How are you?"

"I'm fine. How are you?"

"I'm doing all right."

"I heard you were back in town."

"Yeah, long story," Jake says, as Francine rounds the discount bin and approaches, "This is my, um, friend, Francine."

Francine and Flori shake hands and exchange pleasantries.

"You look familiar," Flori says, looking at Francine.

Jake gulps.

"You're that blogger who made fun of my brother, aren't you? I recognize you from the photos he's left laying around the kitchen table."

"Photos?" Francine asks.

"Oh, that was hilarious what you wrote! He does suck up to everybody too much. And that ridiculous Harry Potter outfit! I told him not to wear that, even on Halloween. He thinks he's so smart--'I'm younger than you and you're only running a store while I'm running a whole city,' he always tells me--so I love it when he gets a good comeuppance. Can you make fun of him some more?" Flori laughs.

"Um," Jake says, "Isn't your brother suing Francine?"

"Why does he have photos of me?" Francine says.

"Oh, that!" Flori says, smiling, looking back and forth at Francine and Jake, "Yes, he was thinking about suing you; that's why he had the photos. But I told him that he was a dummy for calling attention to the comments in the first place, and he'd be even more stupid to keep calling attention to them by suing you. He couldn't win anyway. Your comments were obviously hyperbole. Any judge would have laughed him out of the court. You'd think he'd have been in politics long enough by now that he'd have a thicker skin, but he's more neurotic than a junior high girl with an acne breakout the night of her first school dance."

"Well, that's good to hear," Jake says.

"What? That my brother's neurotic?" Flori says, losing her smile.

"No, no. Just that he won't be suing Francine," Jake says, coughing.

"Oh," Flori says, then continues, "Well, anytime he gets a big head, I always point out that we both still live at home with our parents, but I've said it so many times that he doesn't pay much attention to it anymore, so I was glad I had a new way to deflate him. Now I call him 'babyfrencher,' when he starts going on about how great he is. 'In my job, the customer may always be right, but at least I don't have to kiss up to everyone in the Lackwood city limits,' I tell him. He is a little bit of a pervert, though not in that way. I bet he found a new use for those photos after dropping the idea of the lawsuit."

"Ugh. Well, I didn't really mean to pick on him in particular. Politicians just kind of annoy me," Francine says.

"Try having a brother who's one. That's really annoying," Flori says.

"Oh, God!" Jake says.

"What's the matter?" Flori and Francine both say.

"Sorry! I just got an image of my sister in a position of political power, and that horrified me," Jake says, trembling.

Blog Love Omega Glee is a novel by Wred Fright about two bloggers who fall in love while the world falls apart, which is being serialized on his blog. To start reading from the beginning or read another installment, please visit Blog Love Omega Glee Central on WredFright.Com. If you like what you've read, or you've read all of Blog Love Omega Glee and want more Fright, then please read his first novel, which is available in print and as an ebook.

Blog Love Omega Glee: Cain Vs. Abel, The Rematch You've Been Waiting For (30 May 2012)

"So, the wrestler's name is Mark Cain. His big signature phrase is "'Mark' my words". His finishing move is "The Mark Of Cain". I bet within six months they're pairing him up in a tag team with some wrestler they've named Abel. Francine, are you listening?" Jake says, leaning across the table at Purgatory and snapping his fingers above Francine's coffee.

Francine looks up from her notebook computer, "Huh? I heard you. You were telling me about how a mark is a fan who believes wrestling is real."

Jake sits back and just looks at her.

She runs a hand through her newly-dyed red hair, and says, "Sorry, Honey. I guess I thought I was paying attention, but I really wasn't."

"You have to stop worrying about getting sued. The mayor's probably forgotten all about you already. It was what two days ago you compared him to a prostitute or something? In today's society, everyone has an attention span that lasts less than the life of a mayfly."

"Ugh!" Francine says, "I don't want to talk about mayflies. My windshield's still coated with them from when I drove by the lake. Those things come off the lake in black swarms."

"OK, enough about mayflies. But stop worrying about getting sued. In any case, you could always . . ."

"What?"

"No, never mind."

"Spill it, or I'll put you in a figure four leglock, loverboy."

"No, it's nothing," Jake looks out the window and whistles a mutilated version of "Don't Pay The Ferryman".

Francine shakes her head, "You were going to tell me to delete the post, weren't you? I told you before. I'm not censoring myself. Especially not to satisfy some little mayor with a big ego. I've taken on bigger bullies than him. Everyone believes in freedom of speech until somebody says something they don't like."

"Actually, I was going to say that since I went to high school with his sister, maybe I could talk with her and try to smooth things over."

"No, don't worry about it. Let him sue me. I don't have any money anyway. What can he take from me? This five-year-old laptop? My encrusted with the corpses of mayflies car? None of that's going to be worth the expense and bother of suing me."

"That's the spirit! And he can't take me either, baby. You're much cuter than him."

"Thanks, Jake."

"Ryan and Flori's brother's a lawyer though so they might just sue you for fun."

"Thanks, Jake. You've made me feel much better. Please keep babbling about professional wrestling now and I'll keep obsessively checking my email to see if I've been sued yet."

"Are you sure you don't want to go back to your place and have me take your mind off things?'

"Pretty sure. I'm also pretty sure that I'll hit you with the laptop if you ask again."

"OK, then," Jake says, standing up, "I'm going to go get a refill. I'd ask you if you want one but I think you're caffeinated enough already."

Francine sticks out her cup towards Jake, "Wrong. King me."

Jake sighs and takes the cup. On his way to the counter, he thinks, "I wonder if I can sue the mayor for fucking up my lovelife?"

Blog Love Omega Glee is a novel by Wred Fright about two bloggers who fall in love while the world falls apart, which is being serialized on his blog. To start reading from the beginning or read another installment, please visit Blog Love Omega Glee Central on WredFright.Com. If you like what you've read, or you've read all of Blog Love Omega Glee and want more Fright, then please read his first novel, which is available in print and as an ebook.

Blog Love Omega Glee: How Can A Politician Without A Sense Of Humor Be So Funny? (29 May 2012)

On her computer, promising herself that this will be her last game, Francine starts a new round of Minesweeper, a video game that, of course, only fascinates her when she is supposed to be doing something else. That something else is working on a piece for her blog about transhumanism. Showing that she hasn't transcended humanity yet though, Francine procrastinates instead.

Having exhausted the logic of using the numbers to uncover mines, she has to depend on luck for the last mine, which is in one of two remaining uncovered squares. Click on the wrong one and kaboom! With an eye on the timer in hopes of beating her best score, she is hovering her mouse over the final two squares, one right above the other, switching back and forth attempting to intuit the right choice when she gets an instant message.

"Cool Cleaveland" says, "I thought your post yesterday about the parade was hilarious, Franzine, but I was sorry to hear about the lawsuit."

Francine notes the timer on Minesweeper and realizes that she can't beat her best time anymore anyway, so she replies.

"Sorry about what lawsuit?" she types and sends, and goes back to picking a square, any square, in the game.

She still hasn't picked when "Cool Cleaveland" messages back, "You haven't heard? Mellani Googles himself constantly, and he saw your post about the parade and tweeted that he's thinking of suing you for libel and defamation of character. I'll cover the whole thing in the next email newsletter, but you should get on Twitter. Mellani's more steamed than a clam at a bake. Anyway, I'm sure that you'll be hearing from him soon."

Cool Cleaveland is an email newsletter and more that lets you know what's going on in Cleaveland that's cool. Twitter is the electronic messaging system for people who find blogs beyond their attention span limits. Mellani is Rinor "Ryan" Mellani, the "boy mayor" of Lackwood. When Francine and Jake needed a break from his parents yesterday, they wandered down to the Memorial Day parade, where Francine found Mellani's attempts to fawn over the electorate amusing enough that she took a picture of him politicking and posted it on her blog in a post which read, "Someone should tell Mellani, the 'boy mayor' of Lackwood --yes, that's him dressed as Harry Potter doing 'magical things for Lackwood'--that the election was last year and he won. Maybe he has designs on higher office already, but he was acting in the Lackwood Memorial Day parade yesterday like he was still running for office. He was so obsequious that he wasn't just shaking hands and kissing babies, he was giving handjobs and french-kissing babies."

"Great," Francine thinks, "A lawsuit. He'll probably claim I was trying to suggest he was a child-molester. Why is it that the politicians who are the funniest never have a sense of humor? I wonder if the process server will send me the summons via Twitter. At least I'll be in Cool Cleaveland."

She thinks some more, "Hmm . . . maybe I'll get some more blog hits off this."

She clicks on the top square.

It's a mine.

Blog Love Omega Glee is a novel by Wred Fright about two bloggers who fall in love while the world falls apart, which is being serialized on his blog. To start reading from the beginning or read another installment, please visit Blog Love Omega Glee Central on WredFright.Com. If you like what you've read, or you've read all of Blog Love Omega Glee and want more Fright, then please read his first novel, which is available in print and as an ebook.

Blog Love Omega Glee: I Hope I Don't Remember This Memorial Day (28 May 2012)

"This damn new solar heating grill is going to take all day to cook these burgers, isn't it?" Jake's dad says, squinting in the afternoon sunlight in the backyard, slapping at the grill with a spatula while watching a crow in a nearby tree, "I should have never let your mother talk me into buying it."

"Fred, it's fine. It only feels like it's taking a long time because you're fussing over it," Jake's mom says, handing a glass of lemonade to Francine, who sits quietly in a lawn chair, "Don't stand so close to it either or you'll get a sunburn from the reflection."

"I think a magnifying glass would be faster," Dad grumbles, walking away from the curved mirrored grill.

Walking up behind her, Jake whispers to Francine, "Welcome to a typical holiday with the Falls," then says to his father, "Did you remember to put a veggie burger on for me, Dad?"

Dad disappears into the house, mumbling about "people who have to be difficult and just can't eat what everyone else is eating."

Mom follows him, "Excuse me, kids, but he'll never find the veggie burgers on his own. I better show him where they are before he gets all upset."

Francine and Jake both sigh. "Well, I think they like you. If they didn't, Dad would have complained about you already," Jake says, sitting down in the lawn chair next to Francine.

"Meeting someone's parents is definitely the worst thing about dating someone," Francine says, "But this is almost pleasant. It's like they're putting on a comedy show for me."

"Nope, that's just how they are. Enjoy it while you can. Soon it will drive you crazy. In any case, I'm glad you came today. Yesterday was pretty weird."

"Oh, it was just a typical lovers' quarrel."

"Careful, you used the word 'love' there."

Francine hits him playfully in the arm with her book, an attractive, trim, red paperback.

"What are you reading?" Jake asks, "I think I've seen that book before."

Francine looks at the book, The Pornographic Flabbergasted Emus, "Oh, some silly novel about a rock band. I had started it, but then something happened that took up a lot of my time, so I never finished it. Do you know what/who that something/someone was/is?"

Jake smiles and they lean in and kiss.

Coming out the side door, Jake's mom catches a glimpse of the smoocherooni and says, "Ah, young love."

Francine drops back into her chair and says, "Sorry!"

Mom puts on her sunglasses and says, "You don't have to apologize. I remember what it was like. Isn't that right, Fred?"

Dad, coming out the door with a veggie burger on a plate, says, "I don't know what you're talking about."

A loud boom sounds nearby. Dad shudders and drops the plate. The burger plummets into the grass.

"Oh, no, better get Jake another one," Mom says.

Dad bends down and picks up the burger and plops it on the plate, which survived the fall intact. He picks some grass off it, "What? It's just some grass. It's a veggie burger anyway."

"Fred!"

"I don't mind, Mom," Jake says.

"See!" Dad says and plops the burger on the grill, "Damn fireworks! It's Memorial Day. Not the 4th of July! That guy next door drives me crazy. At least he isn't flying his stupid plane around yet. I'd move if I could afford another house."

"Well, you know, they have to keep home prices high so people have to keep working for them. It is kind of silly to think about how much it costs just to use a piece of land and a building that was probably paid off years ago," Francine says.

"Who's 'they'?" Mom says.

"Here we go," Jake says.

"The jerks who run, or try to run, the world," Francine says.

"Oh," Mom says.

"Dammit!" Dad yells, "That crow just stole a burger!"

Smacking the air with his spatula, he chases the winged thief.

He doesn't catch it.

Blog Love Omega Glee is a novel by Wred Fright about two bloggers who fall in love while the world falls apart, which is being serialized on his blog. To start reading from the beginning or read another installment, please visit Blog Love Omega Glee Central on WredFright.Com. If you like what you've read, or you've read all of Blog Love Omega Glee and want more Fright, then please read his first novel, which is available in print and as an ebook.

Blog Love Omega Glee: Some Fear Failure; Some Fear Success (27 May 2012)

In professional wrestling, there's usually a good guy and a bad guy. In politics, there's usually a good guy and a bad guy, though who's who depends on one's perspective. But in love, things aren't so clearly defined.

"So it was nice to meet Masani finally," Jake says, lying in Francine's bed after some pleasant makeup sex.

"I think she liked you. I think you have the Masani seal of approval," Francine says, rolling over onto her back.

"Is that good? It sounds like it's good."

"That's good."

"But do I have the Francine seal of approval?"

"Ha! What do you think?"

"Sometimes I don't know. I was pretty confused after seeing you almost every day for a couple of weeks and then not seeing you at all these past couple of days."

"I'm sorry. I just needed to get some things done. Our schedules don't mesh too well."

"Aargh! Tell me about it! I hate working second shift."

"It's just that things were going so well that I thought something had to be wrong. I guess I've been so used to my relationships failing that I'm a little afraid of success. I guess I'm basically happy as I am and I'm worried about changing that, even for a shot at greater happiness. You know what I mean?"

Jake nods, but has no idea what she's talking about. It must be a female thing, he thinks.

"But change happens whether we want it to or not so we might as well take life up on the good opportunities, huh?" Francine continues.

Jake keeps nodding. He has still no idea what she's talking about.

"I'm sorry I slapped you earlier too," Francine says, rolling over and resting her head on her right elbow, looking at Jake lying sideways leaning on his left elbow next to her.

"That's all right. I probably should have told you before putting my finger there. After you sent me that blog post, I thought you were hinting at something."

"I'm pretty direct, Jake. I don't beat around the bush."

"That's my job, eh?"

Francine pushes him on the chest. He rolls over. They kiss again.

"For the record, I just want you to know, I didn't stick my finger up my own arsehole either. Nor did I tie myself up when I felt like it, or any of the other crazy relaxation techniques that blog recommended. I did find the points about not being repressed to be valuable though. There's been something I haven't told you that I've wanted to tell you for a while now. I love you, Francine."

Francine gets up, grabs her clothes off the floor, and leaves the room.

Jake watches the door close behind her. He lies there and thinks, "That wasn't the response I was expecting."

He decides she just had to go to the bathroom very urgently and waits for her to come back. It must be another female thing, he thinks.

Perhaps misreading signs is a male thing.

Blog Love Omega Glee is a novel by Wred Fright about two bloggers who fall in love while the world falls apart, which is being serialized on his blog. To start reading from the beginning or read another installment, please visit Blog Love Omega Glee Central on WredFright.Com. If you like what you've read, or you've read all of Blog Love Omega Glee and want more Fright, then please read his first novel, which is available in print and as an ebook.

Blog Love Omega Glee: The Onus Of The Anus (26 May 2012)

"He needs to relax," Francine thinks as the phone rings yet again. Jake keeps calling Francine, every twenty minutes it seems, whenever they're not together and he isn't at work or sleeping. Half of her finds this delightful since it means he misses her and half of her finds this annoying since it also means that she can never get anything done without being interrupted in the middle of it. She's not quite sure which half will answer the phone this time so she lets the voicemail handle it, and goes back to working on her blog. She finds that a link to her post about CIA poetry has been placed on Sherry Serenity's blog, Pursuing Happiness, Catching It, And Then Hogtying It To Make Sure It Doesn't Get Away Again.

Sherry's blog is vaguely new agey and she fancies herself a guru on offering how to live advice. She often seems to leapfrog onto Francine's blog posts in her constant effort to find something new to write about and generate web traffic. She really gets on Francine's nerves, but she seems nice so Francine doesn't say, er, blog anything about her.

Her response to Francine's blog post reads, "I wouldn't doubt that the CIA is using underground avant garde poetry to communicate in code. This is so sad that an art form, a work of beauty, is being turned into a tool for domination and destruction. This world would be so much better off if people would mellow out . . ."

Having read many of Sherry's posts before, Francine feels this is about the right place for Sherry to mention Wilhelm Reich.

" . . . Wilhelm Reich had it right when he said the world was in the grip of sexual repression. We need to release this tension. If people would masturbate more often, then we'd have world peace. People would be much kinder if they weren't always walking around sexually frustrated . . ."

Francine smells a Sherry suggestion to stick a finger up an asshole coming up.

". . . All of this stems from a bourgeois, socially-conditioned fear of nature, of one's own body. When one isn't comfortable with one's own body, one is sure not to value the body of another, leading to such crimes against nature as exploitation, murder, robbery, rape, and war. For example, how many people are afraid to stick their fingers up their anus? Here's something that's with us every day, yet we're afraid of our own bodies and find them disgusting. The asshole is your friend. Where would you be without your asshole? That's right. Full of shit. So embrace your anus. Go ahead and stick your finger up your ass. Don't be afraid. It'll feel good. Be gentle and use lubrication if you have to, but you'll be amazed how good it feels. You'll be glad you did it and you'll thank me later, but please wash your hands first before shaking mine."

"Who knew that we were all sitting on the secret of world peace?" Francine thinks, "No wonder we couldn't find it for all these years."

Francine picks up the telephone to call Jake back. She's found a new way for him to relax.

Blog Love Omega Glee is a novel by Wred Fright about two bloggers who fall in love while the world falls apart, which is being serialized on his blog. To start reading from the beginning or read another installment, please visit Blog Love Omega Glee Central on WredFright.Com. If you like what you've read, or you've read all of Blog Love Omega Glee and want more Fright, then please read his first novel, which is available in print and as an ebook.

Blog Love Omega Glee: Why America Loves Gangsters (25 May 2012)

Benito Crimeinthealli, the mafioso wrestler, has just slapped The Plumper Plumber's aged mother with a stick of pepperoni, a move done totally without provocation and a signal to the crowd that Benito is a lowlying, scumsucking bully of a heel.

Unexpectedly, the crowd cheers wildly. "Hit her again," someone yells, followed by someone else yelling, "No, shove it up her butt instead!"

Jake pauses the online video of the match as Benito breaks out a switchblade comb and fixes his greasy, black hair, jeering at the Plumber who has rushed to the side of his crumpled mother. Jake scratches his head, looks at the flakes of white scalp underneath his fingernails. He clears them out by digging underneath with another fingernail. This sort of mild self-mutilation indicates that he is thinking.

Here is what he is thinking:
1) Why didn't Francine want to see him yesterday?
2) Why did she say she was too busy today as well?
3) Why would a wrestling fan think hitting an old lady with a stick of pepperoni was cool?
4) Why is Benito Crimeinthealli so popular, even though he's supposed to be a bad guy?
5) Why do Americans like gangsters at all?
and 6) How long should he wait before he calls Francine again on the telephone?

Here are his attempts at answers:
1) I don't know.
2) She's dating someone else.
3) Wrestling fans like to see people get hit by weird objects. This is an incomplete list of things wrestling fans enjoy seeing people get hit with: Chairs (especially of the metal folding variety), tables, ladders, bamboo canes, candy canes, walking canes, walkers, wheelchairs, people in wheelchairs, ring bells, microphones, telephones, megaphones, pretty much anything that ends in 'phone', street signs, trash cans, barbed wire, baseball bats, baseball gloves, baseball bases, baseball players, baseballs, cheese graters, toasters, blenders, microwave ovens, other household appliances (especially when used by The Angry Housewife), beer cans, pop bottles, nachos, pies, cakes, bags of chips, sledgehammers, shovels, rakes, hoes, hos, Ho-Hos, pillows, programs, books, DVDs, television sets, stereos, iPods, peapods, stuffed animals, live animals, dead animals, small children, senior citizens, automobiles, and anything else that one person can hit another person with.
4) Ray Hassan, the wrestler who portrays the character, is very talented. His humor and in-ring skills cause the fans to overlook the overt signals that his character is nasty, things such as hitting an elderly woman with a meat product for no reason other than that she's your opponent's mother.
5) Americans like gangsters because the country was basically founded by gangsters, who came over here from Europe and stole the land of the natives. Then they stole some people from Africa to work the stolen land. Then they felt bad about it and said sorry, but never did anything to change the results. As a result, the country loves gangsters in its popular culture, although not in reality since they send today's gangsters to jail. The same goes for pirates and serial killers. Jake is glad his history degrees are finally coming in handy.
6) It's been twenty minutes and that's long enough. Jake picks up the phone.

Blog Love Omega Glee is a novel by Wred Fright about two bloggers who fall in love while the world falls apart, which is being serialized on his blog. To start reading from the beginning or read another installment, please visit Blog Love Omega Glee Central on WredFright.Com. If you like what you've read, or you've read all of Blog Love Omega Glee and want more Fright, then please read his first novel, which is available in print and as an ebook.

Blog Love Omega Glee: Undercover In The Underground (24 May 2012)

Francine feels bad about telling Jake that she couldn't see him today, but the relationship has been moving so fast and going so well that, ironically, she's freaking out a bit. Plus she's been neglecting her blog, which used to be the center of her life just a couple of weeks ago. Today, she plans on catching up. She sits in front of her computer and thumbs through a poetry chapbook that she picked up at the Meet The Nutjobs indie publishing conference. It is filled with incomprehensible poems such as the following:

Here
Zack
Hottest
Crime
World Monster Work Suntimes Reviews
31
Nothing
Little
Popular
Of
Of A Issues Service New
(0)
Days Ready Now Sprint Issue JJ
In
This?
TV
Away! Nightcap All Cum Now
64
In
To
Trek
In
Your Facebook A Willy Around
-17
Tagged
Make
Make
Firefox
Red Banned File Tools Latest
1999

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Francine wonders, "It makes 'The Wasteland' seem as reader-friendly as something written by Dr. Seuss."

Francine's pet theory is that intelligence operatives are undercover in the literary underground writing avant-garde poetry to send coded messages to one another. This poem could be an assassination order. It makes sense, she thinks. "After all, who would think to look in small press poetry only published in print? Almost no one reads this kind of stuff anyway. It's like hiding in plain sight." She'll have to contact Evil Journalista and see if he knows about any black ops like this.

Now if only she could figure out the code called love. Francine sighs, and turns the page to another piece of gibberish, still more understandable than the emotions in her heart.

Blog Love Omega Glee is a novel by Wred Fright about two bloggers who fall in love while the world falls apart, which is being serialized on his blog. To start reading from the beginning or read another installment, please visit Blog Love Omega Glee Central on WredFright.Com. If you like what you've read, or you've read all of Blog Love Omega Glee and want more Fright, then please read his first novel, which is available in print and as an ebook.

Blog Now Available On Kindle

This blog is now available for Amazon's ebook reader, The Kindle. They charge a monthly subscription fee of $1.99 but apparently it beams the blog right to your Kindle. Why you wouldn't just read it for free online is beyond me, but if you're a Kindlemaniac and want to give me and Amazon some money, then that's fine with me. This past week, Blog Love Omega Glee has been published daily, a frequency that, barring catastrophe, I don't see changing until the novel's finished, so it should be a good deal at least until the end of the year. After that, it may be crickets for a time, but if that's the case, my conscience would probably cause me to pull it from Kindle, but you never know, I might get used to money coming in and become as prolific as Jack Saunders, or I might see how long someone will pay $1.99 a month for nothing. Perhaps, people might even pay me not to write! If so, get in touch. Let's negotiate!

Blog Love Omega Glee: Standard Bribery Rates (23 May 2012)

Just home from work, Jake cleans his lunch, er, dinner bag in the kitchen. He hears the toilet flush and thirty seconds later after some handwashing, his dad comes out of the bathroom. "Hi, Dad!" Jake says, "What are you doing up this late?"

"Ach, pissing, what do you think? Don't get old, Jake. Everything starts to leak," Dad says, yawning in his blue pajamas, "So, did you see another county commissioner got arrested for bribery?"

"Another one?" Jake says, checking the mail on the kitchen counter.

"Yes, you'd think they would have learned a lesson when the last one went to jail for taking bribes, but apparently not. Say, I wonder if they have standard rates for bribery or if they just make it up as they go along?"

"I don't know, Dad."

"Johnny the barber does that, you know? He doesn't have prices listed in the barbershop. He just charges the customer based on how much he likes him. If he doesn't like you, then it's an expensive haircut and he hopes you don't come back. If he likes you, then he charges you the normal rate. If he really likes you, then he gives you a discount."

"I guess he does do that, doesn't he? How much does he charge you?"

"Ten dollars."

"Ten dollars! He charges me fifteen."

"Well, whatever he charges you, you should see him soon. Your hair's getting long."

Jake goes into the bathroom and looks into the mirror. "I suppose you're right. I hadn't noticed. At work, we wear hairnets so I haven't paid much attention."

"You haven't paid much attention to anything except that girl since you started dating her. I never see you anymore. You're either at work or with her. Your mother misses you."

"Yeah, well, you know how it is."

"Just don't get her pregnant until you get a better job than that hairnet place."

"Dad! Jesus! The economy's terrible. I'm lucky to have a job at all."

"Well, I know of a place that's hiring."

"Where's that?"

"The county needs a new commissioner. And maybe then Johnny would give you free haircuts if you hire a relative of his for a county position."

"Go to bed, Dad."

"That's where I'm headed. Say, bring home some of those hairnets. If we put them on the cats, maybe they wouldn't shed so much."

Blog Love Omega Glee is a novel by Wred Fright about two bloggers who fall in love while the world falls apart, which is being serialized on his blog. To start reading from the beginning or read another installment, please visit Blog Love Omega Glee Central on WredFright.Com. If you like what you've read, or you've read all of Blog Love Omega Glee and want more Fright, then please read his first novel, which is available in print and as an ebook.

Blog Love Omega Glee: Stolen Fuse Blues (22 May 2012)

With the weather turning consistently nice, Purgatory turns from a coffeehouse into a coffeehouse and coffeeyard, spilling over into its backyard, a pleasant place with a few goofy metal sculptures courtesy of the lazy artistes from down the block, patches of garden where a mad landscaper has felt inspired to spill seeds, and tables and chairs strewn across the crumbling bricks and dirt that compose the ground over which customers drink the water funneled through coffee grounds that pays the bills here, though the customers are really paying for a dream, a space to interact, a home away from home. Francine occupies a back corner of the yard, sitting in a creaky metal folding chair, probably manufactured before her mother was born. She smokes a cigarette and glares at any chatty soul who comes too close. She's here to think and coffee is her drink. The sun makes a lazy stroll to setting, when Chris, the blonde, beer in hand and looking in even more of a bad mood than Francine, comes out of the house, down the stairs, and into the yard.

Francine drops her glare scare and says hello. Chris drops into a chair across the table from her.

"Why so glum, chum?" Francine says, "Until you arrived, I was trying to corner the market on angst here."

"I'm more steamed than the milk in a cappuccino. I shouldn't even be in public," Chris says, sighing, "But I couldn't stay at home, and I had nowhere else to go."

"Love problems?" Francine says, "I know that's why I'm here."

"No, things are fine with Chris," Chris says, taking a swig of beer.

"Things just aren't fine with this Chris," Francine says, pointing at Chris.

"Right. It's just the place we live. It drives me crazy. Something annoying happens every day there that just shouldn't happen at all. It's been like that since we moved in. For instance, tonight I was watching a movie and just looking forward to relaxing when the power went out."

"I hate when that happens."

"Me too, except it happens at least once a week in my life and sometimes twice a day. The reason is because people at my apartment building are so stupid that when their fuse blows, they don't go into the basement of the apartment building to where all the fuseboxes or meters or whatever are and look around for the box of new fuses, which is always right next to the fuseboxes. Instead, they go downstairs, find a meter that's working and just yank a fuse out of it and put it in their own. That's what happened tonight. Somebody pulled out my fuse when their fuse stopped working. Again."

"Wait! Let me get this straight," Francine says.

She takes a drink of coffee, "You're telling me that when someone else in your building has their fuse blow, rather than put in a new fuse, they take a fuse from someone else's box and put it in their own box. That makes no sense."

"Welcome to my life, Francine. They're strange there. It's like they don't think at all because they're the products of a bad education or no education. It's been one screwy thing after another since we moved in. The first day we moved in there were electrical wires sticking out of the wall, and we had to fight with the landlord to get the power turned on. I don't know if he thought we were Amish or what, but he didn't think it was a big deal that we didn't have electricity. He finally turned it on but I think the entire building has electrical problems, so if I plug in the toaster while my neighbor runs her hair dryer, a fuse blows somewhere. But what makes it even more frustrating is that when somebody's fuse blows they just go downstairs and take somebody else's and it ends up a game of musical chairs, or musical fuses, except the only music is me mumbling, wanting to kill the person who stole my fuse."

"But there's a box of new fuses right next to the meters and fuseboxes?"

"Yes."

"Why don't they just use a new fuse from the box?"

"I don't think the fuse in their head works."

"That's pretty weird, Chris."

"Cleaveland is a weird place, Francine. The worst night of all was last summer when it was like the hottest night of the year and the power went out. We were asleep and then we heard like a bomb go off in the apartment. I fell out of bed and woke up and we found out the power was out because the air conditioning stopped. We figured it was the fuse game again, but the power was actually out in the entire neighborhood. We looked out back at the electrical substation behind the apartment building and we saw some guy out there with a flashlight. It was so hot we couldn't go back to sleep so we just watched the guy with the flashlight. For like an hour, he's just walking around the electrical station. Meanwhile, the cops have shown up to keep an eye on the bank next door and some guy pulls up in his car, gets out in his bare feet, asks the cops if they need any help, and they say no and he drives off. More weird stuff like that kept happening and I was thinking I was dreaming until another electric guy shows up at the substation and we have two flashlights going down there. We can hear them talking because it's so quiet with all the power off. With all the lights off, we could see the stars real well too and they were so bright and pretty. In fact, if we hadn't been oozing sweat and unable to sleep, it would have been pleasant. But anyway, at the electrical station, the first guy tells the second guy, 'I pressed this button and the switch took a shit on me. The sky lit up, there was a big explosion, and I shit my pants. I don't know what's wrong.' And the second guy says, "Uh, huh, well, did you look in the manual?' And the first guy says, 'Oh, shit, I forgot about the fucking manual.' And five minutes later the power went back on."

Chris pauses and takes a drink, "For everyone but us. One of our neighbors stole our fuse apparently right after the power went out, thinking that was the issue, so I had to go downstairs and put in a new fuse before our power came back on."

"Well," Francine says, "At least the switch didn't take a shit on you."

"A switch I could forgive. I'm sure it tried its best. It's human beings I have trouble with. They don't seem to try at all. Sometimes I think the rest of the human race is no damn good."

"I disagree," Francine says, "They're good at trying our patience."

Blog Love Omega Glee is a novel by Wred Fright about two bloggers who fall in love while the world falls apart, which is being serialized on his blog. To start reading from the beginning or read another installment, please visit Blog Love Omega Glee Central on WredFright.Com. If you like what you've read, or you've read all of Blog Love Omega Glee and want more Fright, then please read his first novel, which is available in print and as an ebook.

Blog Love Omega Glee: Jacob Contended With The Angel And Triumphed And Then They Formed A Tag Team (21 May 2012)

Jake has just finished telling Francine about his pick for the WWWWWW tag team tournament--"I would pick The Cannibals because they're my favorites and I still think they're the best tag team in the company but they're going to start filming a low budget horror movie called Virginia Is For Eating. It's about a family that goes to Virginia on vacation and makes a wrong turn while looking for a place to eat lunch and ends up being lunch for some backwoods cannibals, played of course by The Cannibals, so I think they can't win the tournament since they won't be around afterwards to defend the belts. So they'll probably have them lose by getting screwed over so that when they return they can be faces and the crowd will have a reason to cheer for them because wrestling fans love nothing better than when a bad guy turns good and is out looking for revenge, so it won't be The Cannibals. I don't see it being The Sideshow Slammers either. They've been jobbing too much lately to just about anybody and I don't see the company giving them a push to change those losing ways anytime soon. They'll probably lose to someone early on. The Fudgepackers aren't even in the tournament because Stud Muffin still has a groin injury. The Redbaiters also won't win. They've brought them back for nostalgia, but I don't see them wrestling again on a regular basis so they won't last long in the tournament. The Organ Smugglers might have an outside chance, but I think they want to use them in the storyline where J.M. Willie is getting a penis transplant and they don't need belts to be involved with that, so they probably won't win. The Breakfast Battlers are a good bet, but they're probably more popular on their own as singles wrestlers, so I don't think they'll book them to win the tag belts when they could separately be running angles because that's just a waste of two popular faces. The Pettifoggers are a good bet to go far in the tournament since they already beat Top And Bottom, but they just were the champs and I don't see the tag team belts going to heels again right now. They'll probably end up in the final match though and get beat by the faces, who I'm going to say will probably be Jacob And The Angel because they seem to be getting a big push right now. Plus they're new to the WWWWWW. I mean they aren't new; they wrestled in Christian wrestling before but the WWWWWW obviously offered them more money. But they're new to the WWWWWW so they need to get established, and an easy way to build up their credibility would be to have them come out of nowhere to win the tournament. I know that sounds crazy that the new guys will win the tournament but I'm not just saying it because Jacob and I share the same name. I think it's smart booking. Here's a team that's new. Have them win the belts and that gives them something to do in the storyline for a while. It's the Cinderella story, or like an Old Testament story, although in The Bible I don't think Jacob and the angel form a tag team. There's just some weird thing about Jacob getting his hip socket wrenched. Come to think of it, that's Jacob And The Angel's submission finishing maneuver. Their regular finishing move is called Jacob's Ladder where Jacob stands on The Angel's shoulders and drops down on the opponent for a pin. They also have some cool other moves like "Sell Me Your Birthright For These Nachos" and the "Hairy Coat And Stolen Blessing." Yeah, so they're my pick to win the tag team tournament."--and Francine says, "Sometimes, it frightens me how much you think about professional wrestling."

Blog Love Omega Glee is a novel by Wred Fright about two bloggers who fall in love while the world falls apart, which is being serialized on his blog. To start reading from the beginning or read another installment, please visit Blog Love Omega Glee Central on WredFright.Com. If you like what you've read, or you've read all of Blog Love Omega Glee and want more Fright, then please read his first novel, which is available in print and as an ebook.

Blog Love Omega Glee: Masani By The Light Of The Refrigerator (20 May 2012)

Masani is holding the fridge door open weighing whether or not to have a midnight snack when Francine, just home from work, opens the door to the otherwise dark kitchen.

They both scream.

"Oh, God, girl, you nearly gave me a heart attack," Masani says, laughing.

"Sorry, I was trying to be quiet because I figured everyone would be sleeping," Francine says, setting her purse on the counter and turning on the light.

"Well, I was going to bed but then I felt a pang of hunger and thought maybe I'd have a snack. Do you want anything?"

"After tonight's shift, I don't want anything to do with food."

"That bad, huh?" Masani says, taking out some hummus from the fridge, "Well, it was a pretty quiet night here. You were working and I don't know where Donald is. In fact, I'm surprised to see you. I figured you'd be with your new boy. How's that going?"

Francine smiles, "Really well. He's been over here a bunch of times, but it's usually during the week when you're at work."

"That's good. Just be careful, my last relationship went really well too until I got divorced. Watch out for yourself."

"Thanks, Mom!" Francine rolls her eyes.

"I'll have to meet him soon so I can give him the Masani seal of approval. Say, have you been watching the news today?"

"No, but I overheard people talking about it at the restaurant. The government's going to bail out Mart Mart, isn't it?"

"Um, hmm. Poor people can starve in the streets for all the government cares but let some rich people lose a little money and the government runs to the rescue. They ought to let those badly-run big corporations fail. Isn't that how the free market works, with people having to take responsibility for bad decisions, and being rewarded for good ones? Instead, it seems like they're encouraging people to screw up more since they know the government will just bail them out."

"Well, the government's run by the rich. They didn't make those big campaign contributions to those politicians for nothing. It's the same old story. What can you do?""

"Get a bunch of peasants with pitchforks to light some torches and march on some rich people's houses."

Francine laughs.

Masani dips some pita chips into the hummus as she leans against the counter and says, "I thought you'd be mad as hell when you heard about the Mart Mart bailout. Girl, you must be in love."

Blog Love Omega Glee is a novel by Wred Fright about two bloggers who fall in love while the world falls apart, which is being serialized on his blog. To start reading from the beginning or read another installment, please visit Blog Love Omega Glee Central on WredFright.Com. If you like what you've read, or you've read all of Blog Love Omega Glee and want more Fright, then please read his first novel, which is available in print and as an ebook.

Blog Love Omega Glee: The Top Of The Bottom And The Bottom Of The Top (19 May 2012)

The tag team tournament for the vacant championship continues this week on Grapple Groove. The Pettifoggers have succeeded in getting entered into the tournament and wait in the ring for their surprise opponents: another last minute addition necessary for the orderly reconfiguration of the tournament. The entrance music starts in the arena, ushering in sounds of whipping, flogging, paddling, scratching, smacking, and other painful ings and things.

The crowd stands and cheers. It's the long-awaited return of Top And Bottom, everyone's favorite pair of bondage freaks. Out for a month after a serious nipple clamp injury occurred to Bottom during an erotic asphyxiation incident, the team likes to wear black leather, chains, clamps, and other things that would seem to make everyday activities such as walking difficult, let alone wrestling. They come down the entrance ramp with Bottom in front on all fours being walked with a leash around his neck by Top, who occasionally smacks Bottom on his bottom with a paddle when he stops too long to get affectionately slapped by a fan on the side of the ramp.

In the ring, The Pettifoggers put their hands on their heads in disgust. No one likes to wrestle an opponent who enjoys pain. Victor Verdict picks up a microphone and points at Bottom, "Objection! Is that man medically cleared to return to the ring? I don't want to have any liability issues later on."

Bottom pulls the ball gag out of his mouth as he stands up and gives the referee a piece of paper he had been holding in his mouth. The referee unfolds it with disgust.

Felix Fatality, the television announcer, says to his partner Steve Dore, "Steve, I prefer to keep my medical documents in a file folder myself."

"Well, Felix, Top And Bottom are a different breed," Steve says.

"Speaking of different breed, do you remember that tag team from the eighties called The New Breed?"

"I don't, Felix, that was a bit before my time."

"I just was wondering what happened to them because if they were still around, they'd be The Old Breed now."

"A punch drunk moment, eh? Well, nothing new stays new forever, Felix. Speaking of which, the action in the ring has begun. Stuart Subpoena is punching Bottom and Bottom appears to be enjoying it."

"Well, only so much. Now, Bottom wants to tag out but Top is refusing to tag him."

"Those two have an odd working relationship. They are an unorthodox tag team to say the least."

"Didn't they use to wrestle in pornographic movies?"

"Yes, that's indeed how they started."

"I watched one the other night in my hotel room."

"Really, Felix?"

"Well, you know, there's not a lot else to do in Omaha on a Thursday. That's a fine town though, no disrespect intended. But, also, I had heard Top And Bottom were coming back and wanted a look at their earlier work."

"How was their performance?"

"It was fine, but . . . well, let's put it this way, Steve, there were unusual stipulations in the match of the nature that you won't even see in a hardcore match here."

"It's a different kind of hardcore. Speaking of hardcore tag team wrestling. Vic Verdict had just put Bottom in a submission maneuver and Top made a blind tag."

"Well, Bottom's a submissive, right? Top was probably afraid he would tap out."

"Well, that and he had left the poor guy in there for the entire match. That's not your usual strategy in tag team wrestling. That's more like a handicap match."

"Speaking of handicaps, what is Top wearing into the ring? Is that what I think it is?"

"That is what you think it is. Vic Verdict is running away. The referee's spotted it too and he's calling for the bell."

"It looks like Top And Bottom are being disqualified. Can I even say what for?"

"If they're showing it, then you can say it. I didn't know this either folks because . . ." Steve coughs, ". . . it's never come up as an issue before tonight, but apparently you can't wear a strap-on dildo into the ring because it qualifies as an illegal foreign object."

Watching at home, Jake realizes that the ratings must be down because when the ratings dip for Grapple Groove, the raunch goes up.

Blog Love Omega Glee is a novel by Wred Fright about two bloggers who fall in love while the world falls apart, which is being serialized on his blog. To start reading from the beginning or read another installment, please visit Blog Love Omega Glee Central on WredFright.Com. If you like what you've read, or you've read all of Blog Love Omega Glee and want more Fright, then please read his first novel, which is available in print and as an ebook.

Blog Love Omega Glee: A Read Of The Daily Newspaper, Or Rhapsodizing For The Rich (18 May 2012)

At Purgatory, Francine picks up a copy of today's Cleaveland Advertiser that someone has left behind on a nearby table. Waiting for Jake, with nothing better to do in the meantime, she begins to read it. These are her thoughts while doing so:

"Well, there's absolutely nothing on the front page that's of interest. Everything seems to be the latest propaganda by various governments and large corporations. The local news seems to consist of things readers send in. There are skunks in Syrup Heights--stop the presses! Does this newspaper even have reporters anymore? The rest of the paper seems to be wire reports, which appear in papers across the country. That must make things nice and centralized for anyone trying to control the news. Well, the wars seem to be going as badly as ever. If this is what they're reporting, then I'd assume they're actually going even worse. It's a wonder we can still afford to muck around in other people's countries when this country's broke, but that shows you where the priorities of the leaders are. They'd rather let our infrastructure rot entirely then give up playing with their wartoys. There's another waste of money: giving other countries foreign aid. They may need help there, but we need help here. They gave Haiti $3 million dollars to run an election and no one showed up to vote because they were afraid the current thugs in charge would cut off their ears with machetes. Half that country eats dirt cookies. They should have just sent them some chocolate chip cookies instead, and then let the taste of that chocolaty goodness spur a revolution. And the elections here are fake. They should have used that money here to clean up our elections first. Oh, here's the letters to the editor. Well, nothing interesting here, but then the letters can only be two hundred words long, which is about the right length for an idiotic observation. Next they'll require the letters to be written as haikus so they can save even more space to fill with advertising yet still present the semblance of allowing readers their say. Of course, since most of the paper is filled with items the readers email or phone in, there isn't much of a distinction between fact and opinion in the paper anyway. The letters to the editor section is a relic as it is. Oh, here's another newspaper columnist complaining that no one reads newspapers anymore because people are too obsessed with the instant gratification of the Internet. I'd blame the decline of newspaper readership on shitty newspapers such as this one but that's just me. Well, crime is up again. Gee, who would have thought that having lots of parents abandon their responsibilities and basically dump their kids on the streets would have led to gang violence? The government should just end welfare and send every citizen an automatic weapon and wish them good luck. People will either have to be responsible or dead. If these women want to have no job, no husband, and ten kids, then they should pay for them. I shouldn't have to pay for that crap through my taxes. And the deadbeat dads should be beat and dead. Hey, the business section is filled with profiles of why these rich people are really great. With these puff pieces, the paper must be trying to get them to advertise. Turn the page! The metro section is the best. The police blotter makes me spill my bladder. After drinking all this coffee, I better go to the restroom before I read it. . . . OK, now that I'm empty I can fill up on criminal stupidity. Let's see, a security guard raped a teenager. Why do they always hire criminals and fuck-ups for security positions? That doesn't seem very secure. Two young guys robbed Social Security checks from an old man for a year. Now, I know Social Security probably won't be around when those guys are older, but that's no way to protest that. A child care worker threw a three year old boy across the room. Hmm, maybe a timeout would be more effective, plus then the kid wouldn't have permanent brain damage. Lots of child pornographers today. Isn't there enough adult pornography on the Internet to satisfy these people? An old guy got charged with attempted murder for shooting a burglar? They should give him a medal, not jail time. On to politics, well, nothing new there. The local Democratic party is still corrupt and the national Republican party is still corrupt. And years later when they switch places, they'll still be corrupt, but the newspaper will still suck up to them both anyway. One guy here is saying how lawyers who practice before judges should still be allowed to give money to the judges' election campaigns because 'If we're not going to contribute to them, who would?' How about nobody? I guess if technically it's legal, then it's not considered a bribe. The obituaries! Well, I didn't die today so that's good. Hey, that woman was only in her twenties and she's dead! When people younger than me die, I worry a bit. Ah, sports! People paid millions of dollars to move balls around in various ways. What a fucked-up society we have. Skip! Well, maybe I should see if they cover wrestling for Jake. Nope! Ah, the comics. That's the best part of the paper. Hey, there are only three strips left! And there's no entertainment section anymore. Well, the police blotter was entertaining enough. I'm not going to bother with the classified ads. Besides there are only twelve of them anyway. Well, that was a good way to spend five minutes, but I don't know why anybody would pay for it."

Blog Love Omega Glee is a novel by Wred Fright about two bloggers who fall in love while the world falls apart, which is being serialized on his blog. To start reading from the beginning or read another installment, please visit Blog Love Omega Glee Central on WredFright.Com. If you like what you've read, or you've read all of Blog Love Omega Glee and want more Fright, then please read his first novel, which is available in print and as an ebook.

The Pornographic Flabbergasted Emus On Issuu!

My publisher just posted a sample of The Pornographic Flabbergasted Emus on Issuu. The zoom features are nifty but make me kind of dizzy.

The Pornographic Flabbergasted Emus Is Now on Scribd!

The Pornographic Flabbergasted Emus

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Fiction Books emus wred fright

If you'd like to read the rest of the novel, please visit Wredfright.Com or Out Your Backdoor Press/ULA Press.