Welcome back to our monthly comic series, Doofus and Darling. If you had Highlights for Children magazine when you were young, you’ve seen Goofus and Gallant. If not, it probably doesn’t matter anyway.
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Death and How to Die It
As funny as death is, it also has a serious side. It isn’t ONLY fun and games; you owe it to yourself and others to plan for it and treat it as the solemn event that it deserves. I can think of nothing worse than to find out that you do leave a ghost, and that ghost is embarrassed by a lackluster death and shortly-after events. Eternal damnation has many faces.
Many questions arise when one is faced with the great beyond. Where will I be buried? Will my no-good wife and ingrate children have enough money to squander on shit? Will I die while masturbating? As an expert, I will provide you with a few responsible steps to consider when preparing for death.
Handling Autumn Carnivals: Return to Splendor
Get to your nearest chair and proceed to sit so hard that you accordion your spine in on itself, because that’s what it’s probably gonna take to keep your pants from flying off after you learn that it’s fall festival season again! That’s right, it’s everyone’s favorite time to herd into the smallest towns imaginable by the thousands and then proceed to rip it to shreds like some sort of cursed locust-people. All while buying up every single shitty piece of local art they can find, along with shoving their faces full of food so unhealthy that it should qualify as body torture. Get hype, son!
Now you may be saying to yourself, “But Jeremy, you already wrote an extensive, boring article on fall festivals years ago! In fact, Amandoll just re-posted it a few days ago! It’s right here! Why even bring this up again? Who really gives a shit?” Well, I definitely can’t argue with that last point, but I can confirm that I did write that article well over two decades ago, back when it was all the rage with my family to drag us around the state and partake in whatever festival they could find each weekend during the fall season. And believe it or not, it was something I actually enjoyed. But over the years since then I really haven’t been to many at all, and since I now have way too much free time and literally no friends whatsoever, I figure it’s high time that I return to those cursed festivals to see what I’ve been missing, and also add a few things that I sort of glossed over in the first article. So please, dear reader, take a trip with me to Greenfield, Indiana, for their “Riley Days” festival. Let’s see together just how bored you truly have to be to do shit like this.
How to Write a Bad Story in Four Easy Steps, and One Very Difficult One
As a writer, you may hit a point in your career where you’d like to torpedo your reputation and the goodwill that readers have toward you. I’m not going to lie to you: it may be tough. There may be fans who stand by you in spite of anything you could say or do, personally or professionally. Those are the earmarks of true stardom. I’ve got some strategies that you might want to employ and techniques that suit them.
How to Cope with Fall Festivals
It is already well documented that I am pretty much a giant fucking loser. And because of this, I seem to enjoy doing things that make most people laugh at me. We’ve already covered this in previous articles about yard sales, and virtually everything else I’ve written on this site. So it’s of no surprise when I say that I happen to enjoy going to fall festivals. After all, fall is my favorite time of the year, and it seems to be the only time when I can go out of the house and not be hospitalized from extreme sun exposure, or be treated for frostbite.
Fall has very mild weather that is perfect for the pasty nerd who is afraid to step outside in the heat for more than two minutes, in fear that they would instantly be blinded by natural sunlight and have their skin catch fire. But once we get outside, we usually find that there is little that we know how to do without a computer mouse in our hands. And even if we bring the computer mouse with us, it just doesn’t seem to have the same effect by clicking on things in the real world as it does on our computer. So to combat this strange new world of revulsion, we must find something else to do. Not only do we need to find somewhere that is generally low key and devoid of excitement that might lead to bodily harm, but also somewhere where we can buy incredibly useless crap for large sums of money. The only real answer that meets these criteria, is of course one of the millions of festivals that are being held during the fall. That’s right. Today we’re going to show you just how to navigate your way through a fall festival.
Depression: A Constant Companion
I’m not sure if you guys ever noticed this, but updates on this site can ebb and flow. As we are the most depressed mini-cluster of writers on the internet, this makes perfect sense. At any given moment, one or all of us is in the throes of a crippling despair — or, in contrast, one or all of us is chirpy and pleased with life. This wide range in overall mood is reflected in our overall productivity, here at the Sneer Campaign and also in every single aspect of our lives.
I guess I should start off by telling you about Depression, as if you are at all strangers to the concept. But I know our demographics. You’re all a bunch of first world 20- and 30-somethings mostly. I assume you are all actually in the midst of your own Pity Parties RIGHT NOW, and are just taking a break to read this article in the hopes of finding some gentle humor to ease your troubled souls. Well, indulge me here for a minute. Pretend that you are all perfect spring flowers and have never seen a reason to frown in your life. Do you remember what that feels like? I think I might, but I could also be severely mistaken and I am just emotionlessly imagining the color blue. But emotionlessness is just an absence of sadness, and that doesn’t automatically mean “happiness.” Although some days, it is just as welcome of a relief. Am I even getting ahead of myself here? You can bet no one cares.
Siberia: Land of Delights
It surprises no one, I’m sure, to discover that my secret hidden talent and life path dream is to become the slogan generator of a tourism board somewhere — anywhere! My old pal Esther came to me one day, long ago, with news coming from that harrowing icy land that is so very, very far away. It was a genius effort on their part to generate interest, I’m sure. And that’s all! So I decided to help, too. Then I decided to REALLY help by making it a comic that other people might actually see. I’m sure I didn’t need to convince Esther all that much, after all.
Click on the comic below if you want to see the adorable detail or whatever. And Siberia, you can thank me later for the good I have done here.
Parlor Games: Supplying You with Japeries and Amusements Since 1837
The Victorians are all too often written off as being an uptight bunch of moral nutjobs who lived in an age to which we must never, ever return. That is basically true. There is a whole lot of stuff that was common in the years between 1837 and 1901 that we would be better off without, forever. A whole lot of stuff. But there is one thing that should make a bold return, and that is “Victorian Parlor Games.”
Even though most of the population of the Victorian Age was impoverished and working eighteen hours a day, the middle class formed and luxurious free time started to become available to people outside of the wealthy idle elite. Back then, there weren’t televisions, video games, and apps to waste all of your time with of course, so they had to devise games to play in gentle social settings. They were still joyless and genteel, so they couldn’t just gather and get blasted on booze or the devil weed. Let’s just say that they did their best.
You can do your own research (I love it when you do your own research), or I guess you can just follow this single link I am willing to supply for you, to see for yourself just how they used to do it. Most games seemed to center around getting light-headed or not-laughing. Sometimes those two things would be combined, if they were feeling really full of jolly-beans!
Some day, you may find yourself without electricity. It seems to be a more and more common scenario, as natural disasters are ramping up in devastation, and our infrastructure steadily disintegrates. In some places, even a moderate rainfall could leave you without television channels and with an internet that is so slow that it is worse than not having a connection at all! So, I advise you to print out this article for reference on such times, because you won’t want to use your precious battery all up.
The Uses and Dosing of Common Crystals
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.
Start A Cult!
Too often I find myself searching for a cult to join and finding only religious ones, or creepy death cults, or what could turn out to be a highly illegal sex cult. Much like shopping for trouser-pants, it’s so hard to find a perfect fit! But what is a cult? Why, it’s anything you want it to be, baybee, and therein lies the appeal.
You hear about cults a lot in the news, from time to time, and it’s everyone’s dream to be on the front page at some point. Stop waiting for Fate to strike, and instead take Destiny into your own hands. Attract people to you, make them chant and obey you, dress them however you like, and pick a snazzy name. It’s as easy as that! Enjoy the thrills of having a mass of people flock to you and believe you to be the answer to all of life’s troubles. Who needs a significant other when you can have a modest assemblage of worshipers?
