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.
Tag: suffering
Furcadia: An Investigative Report
First came the tentacle rape.
It was the beginning in a long line of horrors that OMGJeremy has subjected me to in his articles since the very beginning in 2002. (OMGJeremy.com was the site that most of us used to write for.) But you know what they say: what doesn’t kill you can only make you stronger. Well, I must be invincible by now. And not only have I seen a lot, but I’ve written about a lot too, articles that have been lost to time mostly, including a review of a site that teaches women how to rape their husbands. But in 2003, I found something that managed to combine all of those and more. It’s as if all my nightmares Go-Go-Power-Morphed into some unholy Megazord and returned to feed me my own ass.
“What is it?” you’re probably asking as you close the door and open a new browser window. Why It’s none other than Furcadia — an online game that let you take on the role of an animal and interact with others in a series of dream worlds. And not surprisingly in the least, it contains the three big staples of the internet diet: furries, cybersex, and MMORPGs.
I Am Occasionally Broken
Clear communication is extremely important to me. I try to maintain a large working vocabulary so that I can choose the precise word I need for any given moment. If I don’t explain something clearly then that is time wasted and I can’t live like that. Being able to express myself to another person in a concise manner is possibly my most valued skill, in myself and others really, and I can’t overstate this enough.
But then some days, I can’t do it at all. On the day of this comic, not only could I not find the right words, I was actually saying the complete wrong words. I was WRITING the wrong words. I couldn’t hear or see, either. It was a mess. I was a mess. It was making me all in a tizzy. I still sometimes have these moments and I still worry. What does it mean? Am I okay?
The Great Grape Soda Review
It’s summertime. It has been summertime for a good long while now, actually, but here in Kentucky the full force of summer hadn’t hit me until fairly recently. It must be said that I generally die during the summer time of year. The blistering heat and suffocating humidity do me no favors, and the harsh rays of the earth’s yellow sun give me freckles and a tan. How can I be “Amandoll, Undead Creature of the Night” if I am sporting a healthy tan? I cannot be, that’s how.
I am a girl who enjoys clinging to the silver lining, however, and fortunately I can come up with two things I enjoy about summer: soft serve ice cream cones from locally owned dairy shacks, and grape soda. Grape soda is probably a tasty treat all year long, but I do not thirst for it until the temperatures reach 90F (32C) and above, which actually is a temperature it still can reach in the autumnal months. It is also better when there is a drought on, because walking down alley ways behind businesses while a fine dust blows in your eyes is the PERFECT time to be sipping from a cold and slender glass bottle of that purple wonder elixir.
Previously, I had been under the mistaken impression that all grape drinks were created more or less the same. How many differences could there be in a product that contained soda water, purple color, and sweetener? Well, actually I don’t really know myself, so I have decided to conduct a Consumer Report for the world to reference as a resource. I am going to select a small variety of grape drink beverages and test them against the horrible summer heat. I will grade them on Flavor, Mouthfeel, Thirst Quench, Packaging, and Arbitrary Impressions. There will be technical jargon bandied about, and an air of scientific study will be apparent. So put on your eye goggles, sneer enthusiasts, because I’m going Purple Drank Sippin’!
A Reluctant Guide to Camping
Camping sucks. Why does anyone do it! Every year, we are all asked to go camping as though our personalities have changed to loving the outdoors suddenly. And no matter how much you are sure you hate camping and don’t want to do it, eventually you break down and say okay, in case THIS time it will be fun for the first time ever.
And it is fun — in theory. However, when you get there it is full of bugs and people want you to do things with them and also there’s no shower. The rest is fun though! The sleeping and eating and some of the seeing your friends is fun. Maybe hiking is part of camping, and that’s fun, but really hiking is its own thing, so whatever. Anyway here’s the foolproof Sneer guide to trying your best not to want to die while being forced to camp.
Pokémon Magikarp Jump, FASTER
This is the most tedious game that you want to play. Most games try to disguise the fact that they are the same thing over and over and are largely based on chance. They try to disguise the fact that you earn points to level up so that you can earn more points. Or it at least takes longer for it to feel like a chore. Or to realize that you’re just playing a clicking game.
But not Pokémon Magikarp Jump! This one is barebones, totally obvious that it’s just a thing to pass the time. And it’s great. It’s finally Pokemon’s version of a clicking/tapping game and the mechanics are superbly mundane.
Movie Review: Dirty Girl
Welcome to my long overdue review of a movie called Dirty Girl! Welcome! Please feel welcome! I just sat down and thought to myself, “Hey what should I do next?” I have like a thousand things that I am behind on. Some things, heck, I am like two years behind on them. Where does the time go? As I perused my List of Burdens that are slowly sapping my will to live — and I look at this list somewhat frequently, and I lament. I lament at how I have all of these responsibilities to other people, or, I guess sometimes you can call them “promises” or maybe even “paid commissions” and I think about how when they are finished, I will be free at last to live my life and gosh that’ll be the day, and then I go and take a nap or something. But not anymore! Not today!
Dirty Girl.
I think it has been mentioned before that I am a terrible movie-watcher. The silliest things bug me and if I am bugged like twice in a film, I get more and more hateful about it all. By the end, if I sit through the whole thing, I have created a mountain of anger out of pretty much nothing at all and I will have a rant if anyone lets me. I am ridiculously hard to please when it comes to films, especially, and I want you to know that upfront, in case you have actually come to this review wanting an unbiased opinion. I am SO biased, so read everything from here on out imagining that I am a hate-filled shrew who can find no joy in any aspect of living.
Improv is EveryTerrible
I like my comedy scripted and rehearsed please. Improvisation is best left for jazz, freestyle rap, and Twitter.
If Pac Man Has a Birthday, That Means It Must Die Sometime
You find yourself in a maze filled with edible orbs, and you are not alone. Monsters lurk in this place, is it a dungeon? Is it a castle? Is it a level of HELL? You must run from these evil things — oh! You catch a glimpse! They’re g-g-ghosts! Vengeful, doomed spirits chase you, wishing to devour your soul. So you run. You dodge them by darting into unused corridors! Oh god but there are more! Mindlessly being forced to eat orbs as you run in terror, you stumble upon one that causes the ghosts to flee from YOU. Ha ha! Who’s chasing whom NOW, you fiends?! You gobble them up for a few seconds, not nearly enough seconds. Then their fear is over. You didn’t kill any of them. You do not kill ghosts. The chase is on again, and again, and again until you somehow eat all of the orbs. Then it all starts over.
No, I didn’t write out an entry from my Terrible Dreams journal. I just described the basic plot of Pac Man, an early video game from the otherwise glorious 1980s. It was released on this date in 1980, and I was never the same again.
Calm Down JUST CALM DOWN: Starring Doofus and Darling
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.
