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Crystals are all the rage right now. People are lauding their mystical healing powers, imbued from sacred vibrations in sync with the Sacred Earth Mother homeopathic chakra feng shui. Or something. You can understand why, when a hunk of quartz is $7.25 at your local Crystal Emporium and Mud Spa whereas actual medical treatment in the United States is $1850 just for them to print and send you the bill. It’s easy to see the appeal of eating a fistful of quinoa, taping a garnet to your forehead and hoping for the best.

That is not to say that the healing powers of crystals are devoid of merit. I’ve done some research, and while I’ve found countless sources telling you WHAT each kind of crystal or stone is good for, there’s very little documentation on HOW to use them to best effect. It’s hard to find a reliable druid in this day and age.

Once again, Sneer Campaign is here to help. I have tirelessly scoured the internet, head shops, rock shows, Burning Man-type peyote appropriations, and exactly one florist. Presented here is the Sneer Campaign Guide to Optimal Crystal Implementation.

ommmm

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In the unending quest to understand all of the mysteries of the world, we are perhaps not as tireless as other people out there. Our lives are more dedicated to the pursuit of sneering, and also laughing (both kindly laughs and laughs that are not so nice). So a lot of the time, if we find ourselves delving into mysteries… well, maybe we aren’t being as studious and serious as the nice people who get interviewed in TV Documentaries.

There are loads of documentaries and books and even a whole movie starring Richard Gere of all people about the Mothman. AlexT and I watched one of those documentaries the other day and decided to do a little investigating of this mystery on our own! We put on our investigation bonnets, slapped a mixed CD filled with summery music into a rental car, and took a road trip straight to the Mothman Museum located in Point Pleasant, WV! That’s really all we did. We took pictures.

not mothman

The museum consists of a gift shop and a room of newspaper clippings, movie props, and costumes. But we learned all that we needed to know to become experts. We have solved the mystery of what this thing was that tormented the good folk of this town. But first, we will tell you what it is not.

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like all the way 90s

I always like to consider myself as “timeless.” I am Amanda Wood no matter what decade or location I am in, and that’s fine by me! Sometimes, though, I do feel like I might be very “90s” about things. It was the ten year span that I was an impressionable teen, so it makes sense that it would leave its stain on me for the rest of my life. And really, with hindsight making things clearer, it is probably a symptom of the ’90s to feel as though you were alone, or in any way apart from the others. A generation of alienated youths probably didn’t have a solid cohort base. I know buzzfeed makes a lot of lists that only ’90s Kids Would Understand, but I often wonder which of us would even bother making that kind of thing?

As an old person now, I derive a little satisfaction seeing that my classmates don’t really want to bother setting up class reunions. We kept the friends we wanted to keep. No one really wants to put forth that kind of effort, anyway. None of us really wants to awkwardly see how much we’ve aged or discuss shattered dreams or whatever. It’s nice. Thanks, class of ’98. I probably like you all better because it turns out we were all as antisocial as I thought only I was! Bonding from afar.

With that in mind, I always planned to preface this article with a disclaimer saying that my impression of the ’90s is probably extremely personal and just one tiny rare facet that is nothing like anyone else’s experience. But, no. I had a teen time probably like everyone else’s, at least in rural Ohio. I’ve heard it suggested that rural Ohio is kind of surprisingly horrible in many ways, so maybe the rest of you dear readers had some sort of decade of playing in flower fields and volunteering your time to good causes. Well la dee da, sunshine. Good for you.

 

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Being a girl is one of the best things ever to happen to me. My gender allows me to live in a pink world filled with unicorns, kittens, pillows, sweets, and all manner of nice things. I get to Girl Talk, rely on boys to lift heavy objects for me, and to remove insects from my sight. Also, for a few days every month, I get to be a hyper-emotional psycho with very little in the way of consequences – whether I want to be or not! Other girls understand and allow it (unless they are also in that time of the Most Terrible of Cycles), and boys understand just enough to try to ignore it. This bittersweet reward is known as the P.M.S.

yaaaay being a girl!

This article isn’t going to be a guide for helping boys to better cope and appease the women in their lives during this bleak moment. Every girl houses a specific, unique, terrible tapestry of physical and psychological destruction, and it changes with every month. So it is nigh impossible to write a comprehensive list on how you could meet your lady friends’ needs. It just isn’t going to happen, fellas.

 

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I intend to begin a series of games articles today, with or without the help of my trusty sidekick, cchris, that take a look at the games out there in the world that are meant for girls to play. Even though I write tons of gaming articles (even though these are generally hardly even to be considered games), I am really not a “gamer.” I am dimly aware that there is a whole Girl Gamer Culture out there, and that there are politics and strife and some kind of women’s liberation movement screaming for equal rights and respect while playing various games, because not only are games a serious part of life, but opposition to women doing anything or having any fun is everywhere at all times. But I am not here to fumble around with explanations about topics I know next to nothing about. WAIT YES I AM. But the topic I choose to fumble with is games, not with complicated social issues.

Hasbro has a bunch of little games on its website, but I haven’t bothered to explore them. Really, I wouldn’t even know that Baby Alive exists at all except that one day cchris linked me to this one, thinking that it would stir up my maternity instincts or foul-mouthed rage – one or the other. He has his own reasons for experimenting on his friends and they are not reasons I bother to question. The only thing I am left questioning, actually, is why I click any link he offers me.

But I do, and I did, and I was immediately disgusted by what I saw before me. Truth be told, as soon as I realized what I was seeing and hearing, I complained to him and threatened to turn it off. Then of course, I proceeded to play the game.

gross

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Times are hard these days. There is no doubting this statement – they really are as hard as you think. Many of you reading this unintentionally exhaustive article in idle moments between job hunting or unemployment checks may feel discouraged to the point of melodrama. There are no good jobs. There aren’t even that many LOUSY jobs, for that matter. Getting a bit desperate to rake in a little spending cash to feed your mouth, family, addictions, or bills, you may begin to consider the ultimate in desperate sources of income: Prostitution.

amandollissa

Street Whoring is an ancient profession, dating back to caveman days, when cavewomen would wear short, sheer smilodon pelts and entice the cavemenfolk into sexual congress in exchange for brontosaurus steaks or pretty rock bracelets. Not much has changed since those glorious days, except that there are more options for the average woman or man in these modern times, and possibly more STDs to be passed around, as viruses had not been invented back then.

There are a variety of kinds of whore these days, ranging from the lowly crackwhore to the lowly camwhore to the haughty housewife. One could say that any of you working a job you do not care to perform are prostituting yourselves in another sense. Don’t worry. Nobody judges you for it, because at the end of the day, perhaps we are ALL whores, at least metaphorically. And in some places, there are legal prostitutes who have willingly joined that workforce because they love what they do, and can make a lot of money doing it. That is as good as any other job, as far as I am concerned – maybe even better in some cases! But I am actually trying to dissuade you from being the commonly accepted form of whore, here. This paragraph was probably unnecessary, but I am not in the habit of deleting anything.

 

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For many people growing up, they never questioned why some occupations might have names that allow you to identify the worker’s gender while others don’t (actress/actor vs teacher). As one matures and learns, it’s important to begin to question some things you take for granted. Is this good? Is this bad? Does it effect me differently from the way it does others?

jimmy

Lucky for you, I’ve thought about this already and have some insights into why gendering the titles for occupations is more helpful than first glance would let you know. I’ve selected some examples and tried to add some explanation in hopes that our readers can spot gendered titles with a newfound appreciation.

 

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Considering the weird and angry comments about our Star Trek post even though the post was very clearly a joke, I almost did not write this. But, oh yeah, who cares?

You will see it all over the internet. You will see it on real news sites, viral sites, Facebook rants, Twitter hashtags, angry memes, and unfortunately you will even hear it right into your own ears: people shouting about how spec work sucks, you shouldn’t do it, and nobody should ask about it.

People refer to it a lot of different ways, but what we’re talking about here is doing (usually) creative work for free. You guys are gonna hate me for this, but here is how I feel about it: I WILL DO CREATIVE WORK FOR FREE AND SO WILL AMANDOLL.

will work 4 attn

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Marilyn Monrotund

I’m sure no one here is a stranger to the popular internet image stream of Marilyn Monroe being depicted as a curvy ideal of Hollywood’s yesterdays. “Women used to have CURVES, Marilyn was a curvy curvy sex GODDESS, round and lush and built real like really real women are!” And it’s true. Marilyn Monroe did have curves! She was built that way. But if you really look at most of her pictures, she was actually really slender and healthy looking. I saw a picture of her measurements and she had a twenty three inch around waist! I saw this picture on the internet and it supported the beliefs I already held, so I didn’t bother verifying it, but clearly it must be true.

So, one day I was talking to Chris about this very interesting Marilyn Monroe information regarding how much she was a gentlelady of leisure and he went and Chrissed it all up. Then I Amandaed it up by turning it into a comic!

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