Blog Moved

This is not the URL that my profile should point to. Blogger can't seem to get its head out of its ass. My blog is at this link.

http://thefredeffect.com/

It's updated twice a week.

We're Moving to a New Host

This week's Wednesday post is just an announcement that The Fred Effect is moving to a new host on Friday. I didn't want to have a new post out there with comments still trickling in when this address no longer works on blogger. I don't know whether the whole thing will be up and live in time for the Sunday post. I have a fair amount of stuff to learn between now and then.

The Fred Effect will have all the tasteful cartoons and reverent wit that you saw on blogger. In addition, it will feature new stuff. All kinds of stuff. Stuff that's easy to install and manipulate according the pimply geeks who sold me the stuff to install and manipulate all the new stuff I create.

The new address here at blogger will be thefredeffect.blogspot.com. I may leave it up for a while, I guess just so people wind up somewhere familiar by accident while I'm while I'm dicking around with cascading style sheets, whatever the hell they are.

See ya on The Fred Effect somewhere else in a few days. Or later.

Cooking with Fur

When I first began martial arts, years ago, my favorite technique was a roundhouse kick to the cat perched on the stove top. I quickly learned to feel remorseful since it was Tessa’s cat and she loved it. My senior instructor disapproved when I told him about it. “Waste of effort,” he said with a scowl. I figured it was only one of four cats and we could spare a few, but no. Tessa even taught me to love the fuzzy rodent.

I was still very much a bachelor in those days, so my kitchen patrol was decidedly unorthodox. The family and house guests partook of a certain amount of cat fur if they broke bread with us.

Pasta dishes are best at concealing cat fur, as long as lots of dark red sauce is involved. Stay away from alfredo sauce if you haven’t had time to wipe the counters thoroughly. And the walls and ceiling and fan blades. Always serve a dark dessert such as chocolate ice cream. Preferably a chocolate with chocolate chunks and maybe even some kind of glitter, as the irregularity of the texture will camouflage all colors of fur. If you don’t believe me, just cut a piece of key lime pie or dig out a scoop of vanilla ice cream and wave it over your fur-covered counter. A single filament of cat hair will make it look like Don King in a headlock.

Dammit, there’s a hair in my beer while I’m writing this. This is a light Milwaukee-brewed domestic before me. You are so busted if you serve this in any kind of pub glass in a fur kitchen. Dark lagers and ales afford the best fur camouflage. But if you’re going to serve it in glasses, better be an old pro. If you’re not willing to take the risk, just serve it in the bottle. If your guest asks for a glass, give him the coffee mug your daughter made in the Girl Scouts crafts unit. Something with a very mottled texture and lots of dark reds, browns, and dark browns.

By now, you may be thinking, Oh, Fred. This isn’t true. You’re just making this up to deter family and friends from dropping by over the holidays. Well, the truth is that I haven’t knowingly cooked with fur since I earned my first brown belt. I have grown meticulous about wiping the counters and kitchen ceiling fan regularly. If you walk up the front ramp unannounced, rest assured I will blow the kitchen table with my own life’s breath to send most of the cat fur to the floor before your finger hits the doorbell, and I’ll have a canned Milwaukee’s Best in your hand before your ass hits the chair. All I ask is that, if you find pet hair on your food or drink, just swallow it and be a good sport.

Love Your Fungus

Yes, I already did the finger fungus thing on my facebook status this week, but I swear this post was written first. But this is much more lifelike because I've included a picture.

My hands have been itching like a sumbitch since 2003. In that time, I calculate that I have purchased nearly five hundred dollars worth of hydrocortisone cream, and more recently, a couple hundred dollars worth of antifungal cream. I could never decide which it was—a fungus or some kind of rash. I’ve recently learned that the hydrocortisone has probably made it worse by suppressing my immunity. Nice. I’ve screwed around so long that I may have any number of dermatoses like impetigo or even something cooler-sounding like Norwegian scabies or sarcoptic mange.

I am so not getting laid at the Clevermax Reunion this Saturday (Scipio, Kansas. Gates open at 11 a.m. Wristbands $10).

Anyway, it’s probably a fungus. I learned this from my veterinarian who unknowingly functions as my personal physician. When my rat terrier had a bump on her nose, he said, “It’s either staph or a fungus. Let’s put it under a black light.” I held her under his black light and saw no green-purple glow. “Yeah, that’s probably staph,” he said. “Let’s put her on antibiotics.” And she got better. And that’s exactly how I diagnosed my hand fungus. I took our black light into the bathroom and shut the door with the lights off. It glowed so pretty I had to call Tessa to check it out. She said it was cool.

I’d post a photograph of it, but I’m a rotten photographer. On the other hand, I’m a good cartoonist, so I just drew a picture of it. This is exactly what it looks like under a black light.

Tessa says people love visual aids.

Now, she makes me scrub with steel wool and apply jock itch medicine to it twice a day. It’s not helping, yet, though. Time for another trip to the vet, I suppose.

Why doesn’t Tessa get the fungus? Beats the hell out of me. I touch her all day, every day. I don’t use gloves much because my hands are so big the gloves rip out. Probably I’m just washing my hands too much. I understand that the bacteria on our skin helps keep the fungus in check. Cool, huh? So that may explain why Tessa is immune to my fungus. She has rank upon rank of Staphylococcus epidermidis eating up the fungus and guarding her skin like the Holy of Holies it is. On the other hand, I could be making that up. I just never know.

How Useful Can You Get?

In 1901, Booker T. Washington wrote, “I think I would now be a more useful man if I had had time for sports” (Up From Slavery, Chapter 1) After thinking this passage over many times, I have concluded that I have no idea what the hell he means. Some people are just never satisfied, are they? How much more useful could he become?

Growing up and founding Tuskegee Institute would certainly have made his mother put a whole encyclopedia of bumper stickers on her mini-van. Sean’s twelve, and I’m proud as hell that he can run a rope-start mower all by himself. At the age of five, Booker could haul a fifty-pound sack of corn three miles on horseback, have it ground at the mill and return home after dark with the woods full of deserted soldiers waiting to cut off a Negro boy’s ears. At least that’s what they told him so that he wouldn’t stop and play along the way.

As I try to list the useful things that I can do, I’ll admit, I’m impressed.

1. Bathe myself
2. Write novels
3. Drive a semi
4. Raise the seat
5. Fold laundry
6. Change the toilet paper roll
7. Drive a semi on Long Island
8. Send attachments on e-mail
9. Wipe up dog piss
10. Scare the shit out of low-lifes standing on Tessa’s porch after dark asking for money.

Yes, I’m impressed. But, like Booker, I suspect there are things I could be more useful at.

1. Be better at sex
2. Speak Icelandic
3. Learn how to code in html
4. Establish a university
5. Train my dogs without beating them
6. Kill religious terrorists of all stripes
7. Fly the Space Shuttle
8. Develop a Proton—Boron 11 fusion reactor
9. Paint the hallway by the bathroom door
10. ____________[this space left blank for Tessa to fill in]______________

Unlike Booker, however, I do not think that my participation in sports would help me accomplish any of these things. Maybe, if I had my own set of clubs I could frighten people off the porch with the help of a five iron, but I could just as easily hurt myself with it. I don’t know. I’m pretty sure Booker would shit a burlap sack of corn if he could see what we consider sports in the twenty-first century. Google “cup stacking” or “sport stacking”. I’m too useful to explain it.

Everybody Loves Mel Gibson

I love Tessa’s mother. She and I have the deepest, most meaningful conversations. I truly cherish them.

“You’ve gained a little weight, haven’t you?” she says to me.

“Yes, but I’m bursting with farm-fresh goodness. And I’m devoted to your daughter.”

“If you’re so devoted to her, why don’t you marry her?”

“Because marriage is for idiots and gay couples,” I say.

“Speaking of gay men, when are you going to cut your hair?”

“Never. I’m trying to be more Christ-like.”

“You’re going to put this on your stupid website, aren’t you?”

“I don’t know [shrug]. What makes you say that?”

“I can tell by the way you’re talking,” she says. “You’re being an idiot.”

"No, I’m not. I’m just a misunderstood artist. Like Mel Gibson.”

“Don’t start that with me,” she says.

This was the unkindest cut of all on my part. She loves Mel. Everybody loves Mel—ever since she saw that movie he made, Everybody Hates Christ or whatever it was. I wasn’t going to say anything about Mel Gibson. He’s a wonderful human being, and I’d let him have me if I were a woman. A white woman. A Gentile, anyway. He’s a very nice man. Devoted to Christ.

Me, too. I’m so devoted to Christ that I’d like to play him in a movie. I’d be more historically accurate than even Caviezel was. I have blond hair and blue eyes. Caviezel had only those blue eyes. The Book of Daniel says that Christ’s hair is like lamb’s wool, and everybody knows that lamb’s wool is white. So, the next time they make a movie about Christ he’d better damn well have blond hair. Dishwater blond, at least. Brad Pitt’s Achilles, for example.

To demonstrate my point, I’m going to post a scene from Mel’s move about Christ. Only this time, I’m playing our Lord, and Tessa’s mom is playing a Roman soldier.

CAST

Roman Soldier ….………………………….……..…. Tessa’s Mom

Horse …………………...…… Reluctant Cat from “Kitchen Town”

Jesus Christ ……….…………………...……………… Fred Miller

Kitchen Town

During a recent writing session, my senior editor, Tessa, informed me that I will never be a famous writer until my blog features online games for people to play.


Well, I’ll show her. This post releases my new online game. It’s called “Kitchen Town.” The object of the game is to do stuff in your computer kitchen that you would normally do in your real kitchen. The virtue of “Kitchen Town” over your real kitchen is that, in “Kitchen Town,” the stuff is much cuter. Also, the problems are much more romantic. Most of all, the solutions are virtually instantaneous, or they may take up to six minutes. That sounds good enough to me. Let’s begin.

This is my dog. His real name is Alfred, but it’s only a virtual real name. I prefer to call him “dog”, because it’s much cuter than “Alfred”. See how cool “Kitchen Town” is?

This is “cat”. His name is “Miss Hepburn”. I can’t decide whether to call him Audrey or Kate, so, I’ll just call him “cat”. Yes, he’s a boy cat even though he’s legally named after two famous ladies. See how creatively ironic “Kitchen Town” can be?

It’s morning. Time to feed dog and cat.




Oh no! Dog won’t eat his food.



That’s okay. You have a microwave. Dog loves his food when it’s warm.

Cat watches from the top of the microwave. He likes it up there.

Oh, no! Some radiation leaked out of the microwave. Now your cat has ball cancer!

Now you have to fix the radiation leak in the microwave. It’s very simple. Unfortunately, you cannot do this yourself. You have to get some friends to come over and build you a new microwave with a plasma-based containment field.

In the meantime, you can use some of your “Kitchen Town” gold to buy some medical marijuana for your cat. Oh, yes. You qualify for that, now. You must click on the pot plant to redeem your prescription.

Thanks for playing “Kitchen Town.” I’ll see you here all day every day. Don’t worry about carpal tunnel. We’ve got prescriptions for that, too.