At some point in your life, it is inevitable that you are going to give a massage. This situation might be as agreeable as having an attractive member of the opposite sex playfully disrobe and demand that you lay their hands upon their body, or you might be so unlucky as to be a professional masseur and thus be forced to touch people that don’t give you a boner.

Whatever the case, the day will come when you suddenly have your hands full of a person who is expecting a good experience. Luckily, I’m a fully-qualified toucher of people, and I’m more than happy to lend you the benefits of my years of experience in handling the flesh of others.

Collected below are a list of easy-to-master tips and tricks, as well as advice for navigating common pitfalls of skin-rubbing. Let’s jump right in!

- Let’s get this out of the way as soon as possible: yes, learning to massage is going to help your sex life. Oh holy fuck is it ever going to help your sex life. It’s almost unfair how much learning massage helps your sex life. It’s not hard to see how; it’s a hobby that actively demonstrates how dexterous you are, requires your subject to strip at least half-naked before lying completely prone in front of you, and allows you to play mood music while you rub scented lotions into their yielding flesh. If you can’t figure out how that might lead to naughty shenanigans, then you’re either a particularly unattractive member of the clergy or composed of Styrofoam.

- That being said, while some massages are indeed a one-way street to Sextown (Population: Genitals,) it’s important to keep in mind that not all sensuous rub sessions represent extended foreplay. Hoo boy, is it ever important to remember this. I mean, not that I have any direct experience with this kind of misunderstanding, which is definitely what it is, a complete and altogether believable misunderstanding, the kind that could happen to absolutely anyone. And even if something like this does happen, you definitely shouldn’t panic and say something along the lines of “I was only doing it because I thought nobody else would”, which would be precisely the wrong thing to say in that situation. I mean, there’d have to be something seriously messed up with you if you said that! Ha ha! What were we talking about again?

- Never underestimate the importance of the right music. Ideally, you’ll want something relaxing, like smooth jazz or some of Vivaldi’s more mellow selections. However, you don’t want your subject to doze off while the massage is going on, so I recommend throwing in something loud and jarring to shock them awake every few tracks or so. Y’know, something like the sound of an air raid siren, or the baying of a pack of angry hounds, drawing ever-closer.

One of Don Cherry's suits should also do the trick! Ah, fuck you, the Canadians will get it.

- The trick to a good back rub is for your subject to always feel as though you’re confident and in control. You can communicate this with smooth, easy transitions from hand motion to hand motion, and by asking them regularly in a calm voice how they’re doing. A poor way to put your subject at ease is whispering barely-audible prayers under your breath and then excusing yourself from the room to puff on an inhaler.

- Some people are reluctant to disrobe before a massage due to body image issues. Thus, it is considered good manners to try very hard to stifle your laughter when the shirt comes off.

- Never, ever, pinch someone during a massage. Just… don’t. Why would you ever pinch someone who you were trying to make feel relaxed? That is the polar opposite of helping! It’s like you’re some kind of torturer! (This point may or may not be related to an exceptionally terrible massage that the author may or may not have received recently.)

What about this looks relaxing? Was your answer 'fucking nothing'? Well congratulations, I guess you can relate to the human concept of pain, then.

- Engaging your subject in calm, quiet conversation is a good way to both establish trust between you two and give them an additional outlet for their stress. Some people take this trust a little too seriously, however – always be ready to stop your subject with a gentle reminder that you are not a lawyer or a priest, and that you are obliged to inform the police about any murders or similar crimes that you hear confessions to.

- It is considered unprofessional to cast about your room or office for objects that you can rub on your subject ‘just to keep things interesting.’ Inappropriate objects include toothbrushes, headphones, computer monitors, house pets (birds included,) and other guests that you might have over. If you absolutely must violate the trust your subject has placed with you by stroking their skin with a foreign object, at least have the common courtesy to upload a video to YouTube.

- Proper cleanup is the hallmark of a good massage. After you’ve finished, use a clean cloth or towel to wipe off any excess oil or lotion. Under no circumstances should the excess be licked off. Neither should you bury your face in the towel used to clean the excess and draw in a long, shuddering breath which you follow up by leaning in close to your subject’s ear and whispering “It’s you. I’m breathing you.”

That’s all for now! Remember, if my massage tips help you in your quest for love, or even in your quest for basic human contact, I want to hear about it! E-mail me with vivid descriptions (and sexy photos, if possible.)

Nine straight months of radio silence! That’s pretty impressive, assuming you’re the type of person who is impressed by Dickensian levels of neglect.

Yes, like it says in the title, shit is getting red-hot awful soon. The end of my schooling is drawing tantalizingly near, which means that my priorities once more place writing stuff for the internet at the top of the heap!

So stay tuned – Jeff, Jay, Michael, and myself are going to be tearing it up on this comedy dance floor, just you wait.

Until then, why not check out this absolutely fucking incredible music produced by Alijah Ladd, a young fellow in my game design class? He deserves the attention!

Malcolm: Sex! It’s fun, everyone wants it, and there are any number of ways to get it. But where can you go if you’re creepy, spastic, ugly, or just generally unfuckable? The Internet, of course! The Internet is choc-full of creeptastic homebodies hungering after a few sweaty minutes with the person of their choice; some of them are women, most of them are men, and they’re all downright terrifying!

Lucky for you, TLG is on the front line, keeping you safe from scary old men who want to fondle your parts by making ass-fun of the terrible personals they post. For every installment, two TLG contributors will make accounts on one of the many dating sites that populate this web of ours, be immediately inundated with moist fuck-mail, and reluctantly pick out several choice profiles to riff on.

In this inaugural installment of TLG’s newest feature, Michael and I will be examining Seeking Arrangement, a charmingly upscale little slice of webspace dedicated to connecting hot, lazy, young people with rich, horny old people in a process that is just this side of prostitution. In other words, it’s where sugar daddies come to find sugar babies, and that means some truly alarming personals. Let’s jump right into it!

“Muy intersante!  Verdad?”

Michael: Oh… oh man.

Michael: He’s almost 70.

Malcolm: The description of the type of arrangement he wants is what terrifies me the most.

Malcolm: “Satisfying.”

Malcolm: That could mean any number of gruesome things.

Michael: It could mean pumicing his feet for all these unassuming women know.

Malcolm: Or it could mean feasting thrice nightly on the blood of virgins pure.

Malcolm: He looks almost a little too proud of that boat, you know.

Malcolm: I am willing to bet all the cash in my wallet that it was carved from the bones of orphans.

Michael: “I will expect you to fuck the boat. Fucking the boat is a must.”

Michael: “And I will watch.”

Malcolm: “Fucking not of the boat will have consequences. The boat will ANGER.”

Malcolm: “The boat will fuck YOU.”

Michael: Was the boat made in Soviet Russia?

“Metal Guy”

Michael: This man describes himself as “metal.”

Malcolm: Well, “Through the Fire and the Flames” came on just as I clicked that link, so I think he might be onto something.

Michael: Somewhere, Dee Snyder feels a great disturbance in the force.

Malcolm: I wonder what “self-employed” means?

Malcolm: Does he live in the woods?

Malcolm: Michael, I think he lives in the woods.

Michael: Lives in the woods, fighting bears with the power of rock.

Malcolm: You know what, I think he might be a druid. The more I look at this picture, the more convinced I am of how awesome this guy is.

Malcolm: Look at that smirk. That is the smirk of a man who knows that at any given moment he could summon forth a Gargantuan Earth Elemental to smite his foes.

Michael: I can completely picture him wailing on his axe during a thunderstorm, somehow harnessing the awesome powers of nature as an amp.

Michael: Standing atop a mountain, buxom nymphs clambering at his feet.

Malcolm: His “Arrangement I am Seeking” section is a little vague. I bet he’s looking for a second party member to tank for him while he casts Harness Nature’s Rock IV.

Malcolm: Wicked long casting time on that.

Michael: Probably about as long as it takes to play the solo in Freebird.

Malcolm: “Freebird” is totally this guy’s druid name. Agamemnon Freebird of Elad’ras.

Malcolm: He describes himself as a “light smoker.”

Michael: He literally smokes light.

Malcolm: I think we need to move on, or one of us is going to marry this guy.

“Play with Daddy in His Paradise”

Malcolm: You know, on the one hand, I want to slap him heartily on the back and congratulate him for being so sure of what he wants at his stage of life.

Malcolm: On the other hand, Jesus.

Michael: I don’t know, I think he’s got this whole life thing figured out. Here we all are toiling away like chumps when we could be whisked away to this island paradise and live like goddesses. Er, sorry, I get a bit too caught up in my alter ego.

Malcolm: You have to admire his willingness to admit that he can’t get a boner. “Unsuccessful with all viagra-type medications.”

Michael: He finally found the cure men have been seeking all along: hot, bisexual women.

Malcolm: Is it odd that the thing I find most worrisome about this profile is that he used single apostrophes to form quotation marks?

Michael: Freakshow! What does he think he is, British?

Michael: Oh snap, he has a newsletter:

Michael: http://www.pepeshideaway.com/newsletter.php

Malcolm: Huh. That’s actually pretty well-designed. Way to web, creepy metrosexual seventy-year-old dude.

Michael: I’m beginning to think this might not even be a sexual thing.

Michael: This reminds me more of that Simpsons episode where Kang and Kodos whisk the Simpsons off to share with them the wonders of their culture. I believe Pepe is just trying to share that magic he feels everyday with a few nubile bisexuals chicks.

Malcolm: Didn’t Kang and Kodos also want to devour the Simpsons in that episode?

Malcolm: …ooooooooooh.

Michael: No, no, Lisa only thought they wanted to. It turned out they were on the level.

Michael: In the same way, you and I are skeptical of the joys Pepe wishes to share.

Michael: You think he may want to… devour us, metaphorically. But I think there might be more there.

Malcolm: He also has a six-foot-tall statue of what looks like a hippogriff, Michael.

Michael: So, he has a hippogriff. Big deal.

Michael: More and more I find myself pining for this island Xanadu, cursing my father for giving me that damned Y-chromosome.

Malcolm: Dammit, this is supposed to be a “look at these creepy old men” article, not another “Michael wishes he were born a woman” article!

Malcolm: I think we’d better move on before any more uncomfortable epiphanies are reached.

“Gentleman”

Michael: I would certainly say he’s an unforgettable character.

Malcolm: This is what Oompa-Loompas grow into.

Michael: Oompa-Loompa Doompaty-Doo
I have got another riddle for you
What do you get when you make lots of cash?
The ability to buy yourself ass

Malcolm: I know he looks like such a sweet, cherry-cheeked old soul, but make no mistake: he will cut your throat and step over your cooling husk.

Malcolm: As he says, “There’s plenty of time to sleep in the grave.”

Michael: That is essentially the only advice in his book, the rest is just eyebrow grooming tips.

Michael: Step 1. Disembowel your competition and place their head on a stake outside your skyscraper.

Michael: Step 2. I suggest using geri curl for that “interested yet in control” look.

Malcolm: I don’t know why this punk is expecting anyone to respond to his ad. I mean, he’s only got a SMALL library named after him in Oxford University. Pssh.

Michael: You know what they say about guys with small libraries.

Malcolm: They don’t not know too much?

Michael: Also that they are grotesquely wealthy, cherubic millionaires seeking protege/fuck buddies online.

Malcolm: And, presumably, somebody to hang out with their 15-year-old daughters.

Malcolm: That must be one well-adjusted kid.

Michael: “Misty, look! I bought you a friend online.”

Michael: “I’m also totally going to ream her later, hopefully this isn’t weird for you at all.”

Malcolm: “You can play with her just after I’m good and done dragging my moldering sack across her brow.”

Malcolm: I love how we went to the exact same place with that. There is no way this guy doesn’t tell his daughter all about his freaky sex habits.

Michael: It’s pretty well the logical conclusion.

Michael: Imagine that dinner table.

Malcolm: It’s probably shaped like a map of Earth, with a flag planted in every country where he’s banged a hooker.

Michael: “Honey, did daddy ever tell you about his trip to Thailand?”

Malcolm: gestures to thick clump of flags

Michael: “It was when I first discovered my taste for ladyboys.”

Malcolm: impish wink

Michael: “Daaaaad!” *rolls eyes*

“Iron hand in the velvet glove”

Michael: Here’s one I’m sure you already have, but he sent me an e-mail, so it’s important.

Malcolm: What did his e-mail say?

Michael: You me he didn’t e-mail you?

Michael: I feel special.

Michael: “I am intrigued by your profile. Would you consider a dominant man in his late 60′s that would spoil you when good and spank you when bad? If interested write back.

Michael: “Master Mike.”

Malcolm: Holy shit.

Malcolm: It says here he’s a consultant. Do you think he shows up to meetings wearing a leather corset and assless chaps?

Michael: “Gentlemen, the key to any effective corporation is the principle of ‘iron hand in the velvet glove’”

Michael: “If you would allow me to demonstrate.”

Malcolm: “If you don’t leverage your synergies in accordance with Cisco 4.1 while tonguing my dusty taint, I will leave you in the harness overnight.”

Michael: When I first saw his picture two thoughts occurred to me.

Malcolm: Do share.

Michael: Thought 1: What the hell are the white spots in his picture? JPG artifacts or lice?

Michael: Thought 2: Holy shit this guy looks like the minster from the Baptist church my family attended when I was young.

Michael: Which just makes this one a bit too uncomfortable for me.

Malcolm: Well, that, and the fact that he’s got the same name as you.

Malcolm: Hey, maybe this is you from the future!

Malcolm: You have to admit, a lot of it fits.

Michael: Well, I do get sexually excited when I electrocute a woman’s nipples.

Michael: I figured that was normal.

Malcolm: And I remember you frequently expressing your fondness for over-sized old man indoor-outdoor sunglasses.

Malcolm: You know, I’m feeling better now. At least we know that in the future time travel will be developed, and that you will steal the machine and use it to go back in time to score some submissive tail.

Michael: Good God, I’m having a very existential moment. I’ve seen the path in life I will inexiorbly follow.

Michael: I’ve seen this dark future of knife play and rubber hoses shoved up colons.

Michael: And I’m loving it.

Malcolm: This has been a good entry for everyone, then. Moving on.

“THE HOLLYWOOD PARTY KING”

Michael: Hey! It’s Pat!

Malcolm: Pat?

Michael: It was a Saturday Night Live skit about an adrogynous person and no one could figure out their gender.

Michael: It was turned into a movie.

Malcolm: Yes, but this is very obviously a clay golem in human shape. Duh.

Malcolm: Don’t bother using magic against him, by the way. They’re properly immune to that shit.

Michael:

Malcolm: Okay, I find myself slightly swayed.

Michael: Is he hanging out with Courtney Love in that second picture?

Malcolm: Is he? Is Courtney Love the horrible mockery of the human form that appears to be undergoing an agonizing melting process?

Michael: Yes. That’s Courtney Love.

Michael: He obviously already has a hideous, empty gold digging harpy in his life, why is he on this site?

Malcolm: I hear that if you leave Courtney Love out of the freezer for more than a week, she starts growing mold and smelling like wet leaves, so he probably needs someone for every other week.

Michael: So we’ve established his motivations. I think we should discuss how incredibly WACKY he is. I mean, look at what a fun guy he is, he’s sticking his tongue out! Will wonders never cease.

Malcolm: I also like how he used ALL CAPS in every possibly place where you could enter text.

Michael: In that first picture he’s STANDING AROUND LOOKING AWKWARD WITH A DRINK IN HIS HAND ALSO SOME TACKY CHRISTMAS LITES ARE ATTACHED TO A PILLAR BEHIND HIM. Haha! I want to party with this wild and crazy guy.

Michael: I IMAGINE HE’S ALWAYS TALKING LIKE HIS WORDS ARE IN CAPS! GOSH GUYS THIS PARTY REALLY IS SWELL! I’M THE PARTY KING!

Michael: REALLY! I KNOW COURTNEY LOVE!

Malcolm: The other fields might’ve been dropping him subtle hints about his typography, but FUCK THAT SHIT. THE HOLLYWOOD PARTY KING IS BIG AND LOUD AND IF THE INTERNET CAN’T HANDLE THAT THEN HE’LL FEED IT TO COURTNEY LOVE.

Malcolm: Maybe we should move on. Courtney Love is starting to seriously unnerve me.

Michael: LOOK AT HER FEET! HAHA WACKY!

“Like No One You’ve Ever Met” (Picture split into two parts because… well, you’ll see.)

Malcolm: B-Ben? (Note to casual residents of the internet: you’re probably going to want to check out the videos we link to have any idea of who Mr. Metzger is.)

Michael: If not Ben Ryan Metzger, it’s his spiritual successor.

Malcolm: PLEASE BE SERIOUS ABOUT MEETING (atop the mountain where I have planted the flag with your name on it.)

Michael: Note the numbered list at the bottom where he explains that he’s the only genuine man on SA.

Michael: Admittedly, his list is incredibly accurate.

Malcolm: Wow. The other dudes were creepy, but this guy actually manages to be a cunt about it.

Malcolm: That’s practically zen.

Michael: Somehow Roissy in DC collided with Ben Ryan Metzger and the result…

Malcolm: An incredible cunt.

Malcolm: THE incredible cunt.

Michael: Faster than a speeding tractor tire rolling down a hill.

Malcolm: I don’t think it can be overstated: this dude is a massive cunt.

Malcolm: I mean, Jesus, look at his requirements.

Michael: So I can’t think of much more to say about this guy other than, man fuck this guy and his extreme cuntitude.

Malcolm: If Obama wants to fix your economy, he just needs to tax cunts.

Michael: And disband the disastrous Bush Tax Cunts.

Malcolm: Shut up, I’m serious. Fine someone a hundred thousand dollars every time they’re photographed on a jetski.

Malcolm: Add another fifty thousand for every time they use the word “natural” in online dating ads. BAM, GNP sorted out.

Malcolm: Hold up – that photo of him standing in front of Angkor Wat – does that look Photoshopped to you?

Michael: He definitely looks like he belongs somewhere else…

Malcolm: Hm…

Michael: Hm…

Malcolm: Well, that does it for this installment of Don’t Fear The Creeper! If you have any especially creepy dating sites that you’d like us to hit next time, don’t hesitate in leaving a comment or e-mail us your suggestion! ‘Bye for now!

LOGASM

You’re probably saying to yourself right now “Hey Malcolm that is all sorts of tits, how about you and me head over to that seedy alley for a congratulatory handjob,” but alas: your handjob would be misplaced. I had almost no hand in the creation of this thing, which is probably for the best because when it comes to art and drawing I have all the natural talent of a bowl of oatmeal.

The original artwork was created by Cracked forum user Lotharian, in the very first response to the thread I created whoring the site out back in January. I was pretty floored, seeing as how the best idea for a logo I’d had up to that point was “TLG” against a metallic disc (I wasn’t kidding about my utter dearth of artistic talent.)

Fast-forward to a few weeks ago, when I was advised by another friend that my current site design was a big pile of dicks, and that a bunch of changes (including getting a logo,) would really help it look more professional (and you cunts know I am all about professionalism.) I remembered that I had this sweet-ass giraffe picture floating around, and I press-ganged Bobby into helping me make it presentable. The result is above!

Insanely big ups to Bobby, Lotharian, and Curtis (the dude who told me my current site sucked and that I should go on a two-week-long redesign binge, which I quickly did.) Without you guys, the site would not be the sleek, presentable bitch that it is today. I couldn’t be happier with all this.

Anyhow, this is all a very roundabout method of telling you lovely people that update droughts like this are not something we here at TLG plan on making a habit of, and in that spirit, here’s a little poem Jay whipped up in honor of Memorial Day.*

FUCK YOU, THIS IS A MEMORIAL DAY POEM

By Jay Thomas

Twas the day of Memorial, as I sat in my room
Watching t.v., and tripping on shrooms.
While a dragon and elf made love in my bed.
I sincerely hoped they were just in my head.

The summer was sweltering, humid and hot.
“Shit! I need fireworks.” I said as I thought.
Excited and smiling, I rose to my feet.
Then the elf winked at me and said, “take a seat.”

I ignored the elf and his lover the dragon.
And got in my car, a Ford Taurus Wagon.
With a wizard beside me, I rode into town.
And searched for fireworks while I came down.

I stopped at a station and pumped some gas.
Saw an old shopkeep and thought I would ask.
“Sir, I need fireworks. Where might they be?”
“Not here.” He said. “Them’s illegal in Tennessee.”

To Alabama I went, despite my head being clearer
When I noticed the gas pump, in my side view mirror.
I stopped and trashed the hose, right next to a sign.
“Welcome to Alabama – where we don’t like mine… orities”

When what to my wandering eyes should appear
But a specialty store, selling fireworks and beer.
I walked in and demanded I be sold some wares.
And walked out with Chinese explosives bundled with care.

I started driving back home, feeling just super
And saw the blue lights of TN state trooper.
He tapped on my window, but I stepped on the gas.
“Eat my dust, you hole of an ass!”

I floored it back home, not feeling dumb
Lit up a rocket and blew off my thumb.
“Holy shit! Holy shit!” I said with a shout
as ounces of blood. Wait. No. Pints poured out.

My douchebag neighbor, Ted called 911.
And the paramedics arrived, stopping my fun.
The police came with them, arrest warrant in tow.
“Fuck you, Ted! I blame you, you homo!”

I was put in a squad car, still minus a thumb.
And seated beside an old smelly bum.
The hobo turned to me, coke dust on his nose
“Who are you? And where are your clothes?”

“Quiet down back there.” Said the cop in the front.
I hated that guy. He was such a huge cunt.
It’s Memorial Day, so go have a blast.
As I await trial and cover up my ass.

*Of course, being Canadian I don’t celebrate Memorial Day. Unlike citizens of some nations, I had to work today. I mowed sixteen goddamn lawns while you yanks were shoving firecrackers up your nostrils or whatever it is you do on you queer-ass holiday.

Last week I introduced the Internet to some of the targets of a landscaping laborer’s mangling ministrations, and in this Saturday edition of LAWN TERROR I’ll be taking you through some of our equally clumsy and imprecise devices for getting the job done!

Well, apart from mulching plugs, the use of which essentially amounts to buttfucking your lawnmower without lube.

A WARNING: The sheer variety and lethality of the landscaper’s arsenal may stagger and befuddle the uninformed, but know this: Mother Nature would like nothing more than to see clean, hard-working human men and women such as yourselves forced out of their home and jobs by unhealthy floral elements. Lawn-care professionals need nothing less than the most up-to-date array of tools in order to stem the unending tide of leafy intrusions springing from Gaia’s viridian vagina.

CHAPTER TWO: YOUR WEAPONS

LAWNMOWERS

Ask any landscaper which machine he uses most often, he’ll invariably respond by saying “my lawnmower.” It is incredibly important that you flee the conversation at this point, because if you don’t then with his next breath the landscaper will begin listing all the things wrong with his piece-of-shit lawnmower. And believe me, there will be something wrong with it. No gas-powered lawnmower manufactured in the past fifty years has performed to its owner’s satisfaction; maybe it’s too heavy, maybe it doesn’t bag properly, or maybe it’s too slow. Maybe the tires are bare. Maybe it gets terrible gas mileage.

Or maybe it has a handle set-up that was designed by retards for aliens where, in order to keep the blade lowered while engaging the engine, you must crush your thumb between two steel handles every FUCKING time you mow some old motherfucker’s goddamn lawn.

Honda to Rest Of Planet: "Lick our taints."

Seriously, how do you fuck up a lawnmower handle this badly? Put the fucking blade control on TOP of the main bar and the fucking engine control on the BOTTOM of the main bar, and then nobody has to mangle their fucking hands trying to operate one of your shitty thousand-dollar-a-pop mowers-

Hey! Wait a minute! Where’s everybody going?

WEED TRIMMERS

Uneducated louts might tell you that weed trimmers are typically used for precision cutting in areas lawnmowers can’t reach, but they are lying. The true purpose of a weed trimmer is to launch pebbles into your co-workers’ faces at speeds approaching seventy miles an hour, and anyone who says differently has obviously never finished a workday with half a gravel pit embedded in one cheek.

SPREADERS

Fly spreaders (such as the one above) are actually pretty unobjectionable tools. You pour some powdery shit in the top, you push it, and then that same powdery shit comes flying out the bottom at high speed. There’s very little to fuck up.

Drop spreaders, on the other hand, have much more personality. See, you only use drop spreaders when the powdery shit you’re spreading is powdery shit that you very much don’t want to be breathing, such as iron phosphate (a common mosskiller.)

Cheeky little bastard.

Drop spreaders work fine in theory, at least until you’ve been using them for thirty seconds and some little piece of grit in the teeth makes it stop working. Intelligent landscapers will solve this problem by fiddling with the opening mechanism, eventually dislodging the grit. Unintelligent landscapers will thump the spreader against the ground several times, sending clouds of iron phosphate in the air like some sort of noxious fireworks display. Guess what kind of landscaper I am.

(It’s important to note that iron phosphate isn’t actually poisonous; believe me, if it were I wouldn’t be typing this right now. It basically dries out your skin something fierce and makes everything taste like nails for a while.)

AERATORS

Aerators are perhaps the best argument that landscaping is less about beautifying unkempt yards and more about fucking up Mother Nature no matter the cost. See, aerators drive large hollow spikes into the ground over and over, depositing the retrieved earth onto lawns in convenient little turd-shaped cylinders. If there were a weapon like that, it would be banned by international treaty in seconds.

There are also hand-powered aerators, like this one, for when your lawn has really pissed you off and you want to make it suffer.

What’s more, there are people who claim that aerating is good for lawns. That is how much people hate nature; when shown an implement that can stab a lawn hundreds and hundreds of times, these people will say “Yep. Musta had it coming.”

DE-THATCHERS

In the same way that insult typically follows injury, dethatching typically follows aerating. A dethatcher is basically a cylinder covered in long hooks that reach down and tear up all the dead moss and grass that accumulates on a lawn over the year, while also breaking up the little dirt dog-turds left behind by the aerator. To further illustrate that, imagine being stabbed a dozen times and then having someone wax your chest.

HAND TOOLS

Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a picture of a double-bladed axe that isn't from World of Warcraft or that isn't covered in fakey dwarven runes or some shit? FUCKING NERDS

Apart from wimpy little weeding implements, hand tools are fucking boss. I dare you to prune a blackberry bush down to nothing with a pair of lopping shears, chop down a cherry tree with a hacksaw, or even just dig a bigass hole with a spade without feeling like a big tough man afterward. Granted, you’ll likely be a big tough man with severe muscle fatigue covered in various cuts and bruises, but if you wanted to live a painless life free of open wounds you shouldn’t have become a lawncare professional, jerkass.

Tune in next time for the third and final installment of LAWNTERROR: CHAPTER 3: TROUBLESHOOTING.

Even though producing and publishing top-grade internet comedy meets my financial needs in ways that most men can only dream of, sometimes I get a hankering for an honest day’s work amongst the little people. Or even nine hours of honest day’s work, five days a week, in the beating sunlight and blisteringly fresh Vancouver Island air.

Yes, I have recently found gainful employment with a local landscaping company. The Comox Valley (where I live,) houses many such businesses, as it also has the world’s largest population of retirees living in houses with yards that are far beyond their means to maintain. This means that basically anyone with a lawnmower, rake, and a truck to carry them around in can slap a phone number on a business card and have a hundred clients inside a week. I’m doing my best to avoid outright calling landscaping a conspiracy to take advantage of the elderly, but after two weeks on the job it’s pretty hard to see it any other way. In our defense, those octogenarians are totally asking for it.

"No, don't bother telling us your hourly rate, we'll just sign a cheque and leave it blank."

Sadly, a landscaper’s lot is not all hoodwinking the infirm. No matter how many codgers you bamboozle, eventually you will have to scape some land. But if you, like so many other amateur landscapers, balk at this daunting proposition, fear not! I have prepared several exhuastive glossaries of terms to help smooth your transition from Normal Human Being to Lawncare Professional.

CHAPTER ONE: YOUR OPPONENTS

THE LAWN – Your primary foe. A well-kept lawn is nothing so much as it is segregation in action: a patch of level, fertile ground has been strewn with good, wholesome grass seeds that are not to be sullied by association with impure, shiftless weeds (bushes and trees are allowable on a lawn so long as they keep to themselves, but we’ll get to them in a minute.)

Just look at that clean, pure, healthy lawn! I bet that lawn never commits any crimes or worships any heathen gods.

Besides being constantly mowed, lawns need the following actions to be performed with varying regularity in order to stay healthy:

- Weeding (once per week)

- Fertilizing and Liming (no more than once every two months)

- Moss control (once a season)

- Aerating and De-thatching (once a year)

- Pedicures and Manicures (whenever the lawn is feeling down)

- Pep Talks (for when the lawn’s self-confidence has been shaken by harsh language)

- Fervent Worship (once at sunrise, once at sunset)

- Blood Sacrifices (when you have incurred the lawn’s wrath or once every Winter Solstice, whichever comes first)

- Foreplay (whenever you feel your lawn needs a little “extra attention,” if you get my drift)

- Trimming (whenever you mow)

FLOWER BEDS

Sometimes, when there is little to no mowing to do at a client’s house (or when your boss is feeling like an asshole,) you will be tasked with cleaning up flower beds, a job for those seeking to contract arthritis in both their knees AND their hands but don’t feel like planning two separate activities.

Flower beds come in two distinct varieties:

- Regular Dirt Beds: the standard variation for people who like growing plants. Full of dirt, weeds, rocks, and flowers. Take the weeds and rocks, leave the dirt and flowers.

- Rock Beds: the variation for idiots who have no goddamn business owning a flower bed, or a house for that matter. Rock beds are made up of golfball-sized white stones spread thickly on top of black canvas, the theory being that this will make them easy to maintain. This theory is retarded, because weeds grow everywhere, and all these proud homeowners have accomplished is the installation of an ugly shitpile that can’t be weeded using tools costing several hundred dollars.

Oh, look! Someone put a big fucking pile of weed-infested rocks in the middle of your lawn! And you paid them to do it! Smooth thinking, dipshit.

TREES AND BUSHES

Despite their daunting size and menacing foliage, trees and bushes are nowhere near as dangerous as their vicious outward appearance might make them out to be. Possibly the greatest danger a tree faces to the careless landscaper is trepanating him as he blunders blindly into a low-hanging branch while mowing (which, admittedly, is fairly unpleasant.) Bushes are more docile than their taller cousins, though some of the more ornery species can cause unsuspecting lawncare professionals no end of grief by ensnaring them in their spiky tentacles.

On the whole, however, the relationship between a properly cautious landscaper and these noble flora is a healthy one. On the part of the landscaper, that is, because most of his interactions with trees and bushes involve him cutting parts off of them (or, in rare cases, removing them altogether, which means that he gets to use the really fun tools.)

You people seriously have no idea how great it is to just wail on a tree root with a pickaxe. It feels AMAZING.

However, I’m getting ahead of myself here – CHAPTER 2: YOUR WEAPONS will be published later this week, and will detail all those lovely implements that the modern age has blessed the humble lawncare professional with. See you then!

"You passionate lovers are in for it once the Internet tells me what to do about your shenanigans!"

As so often happens with threads like this, most of the responses either consisted of unfunny people trying to take the original poster seriously, and funny people taking the piss out of those people and the original poster. Then ominousoat (Micheal’s handle on the forums,) said this, which got my motor running (the motor in my brain, not the one in my pants*. Micheal’s the crazy pervert, not me:)

*Why yes, my junks are gas-powered.

“Yes, but if I don’t defend boning, who will?”

Googling "boning" turns up the expected gamut of porn and fish mutilation, but I also found this guy, whose name is actually "Duane S. Boning." He seems like he's got it together; I don't think he needs defending.

A lesser man might have let this go, but I am very large and thus was instantly inspired. I recall thinking to myself: “Hm, Micheal’s doing a pretty good job of making himself look like a sex-obsessed maniac… but I can probably one-up him.”

And so it was that I wrote and published the following chatlog. It’s important to remember that even though the entirety of what you are about to read is completely fictional, this is still a fairly accurate approximation of what it’s like to associate with Micheal Rader.

———————————————————————————————————

Oh Christ, not this again.

Dude, I get that everyone has their pet cause, but it’s really annoying when you make every conversation about boning.  Do you not remember the conversation we had about it online the other day?

Shenanigans4Lyfe says: hey dude

Shenanigans4Lyfe says: you got a sec?

OatLuvs8008135 says: JUST A MINUTE FINISHING SOMETHING UP

OatLuvs8008135 says: whoops capslock lol

OatLuvs8008135 says: but yeah no seriously I’m just having some pretty wild sex with a lady right now

Shenanigans4Lyfe says: again?

Shenanigans4Lyfe says: oat, this is the third damn time I’ve tried to talk to you about important shit and you’ve been too busy fucking to care

OatLuvs8008135 says: whoa, chill out

OatLuvs8008135 says: I can do both at once probably

OatLuvs8008135 says: hang on, I’ll ask her if she can hold the laptop

Shenanigans4Lyfe says: um, no

Shenanigans4Lyfe says: that’s alright, I’ll wait

OatLuvs8008135 says: cool, peace

OatLuvs8008135 is now known as OatIsHavingSex

OatIsHavingSex is now Away (Message: “Sorry, but all this sex I’m having has gotta come first, lol”)

OatIsHavingSex is now known as OatSexPlease

OatSexPlease is now back from being Away

OatSexPlease says: okay what’s the haps

Shenanigans4Lyfe says: wtf I thought you said you were almost done

Shenanigans4Lyfe says: I had time to watch last night’s Lost

OatSexPlease says: was it a good one?

OatSexPlease says: did they have sex in it?

Shenanigans4Lyfe says: I guess there was a little sex

OatSexPlease says: I KNEW IT

OatSexPlease says: I like sex

Shenanigans4Lyfe says: yeah um that’s kind of what I wanted to talk to you about

Shenanigans4Lyfe says: the article you just sent me is kind of weird

OatSexPlease says: you mean “80 Words I Can Type With My Penis”?

OatSexPlease says: what’s wrong with it?

Shenanigans4Lyfe says: well for one thing I thought we agreed that you were writing about “The 7 Burliest Lumberjacks”

OatSexPlease says: oh yeah well Prometheus thought that topic blew

OatSexPlease says: so we had a little brainstorming session and it all just kind of ‘came’ together

OatSexPlease says: lol

Shenanigans4Lyfe says: Prometheus?

Shenanigans4Lyfe says: oat, please tell me that’s not your dick’s name

OatSexPlease says: what?

OatSexPlease says: he brings the heat

OatSexPlease says: he’s got a big heart and a poet’s soul

Shenanigans4Lyfe says: so you’re telling me that you just smacked your cock against a keyboard eighty times and sent me what came out

OatSexPlease says: only seventy times actually

OatSexPlease says: I had to bring in Wilbur and Orville for a consult on the last ten

Shenanigans4Lyfe says: oat

Shenanigans4Lyfe says: oat, why on earth would you name your testicles after the Wright brothers

OatSexPlease says: they’re very lively

OatSexPlease says: all they want to do is fly

OatSexPlease says: that reminds me, we gotta wrap this up

OatSexPlease says: Prometheus and the fathers of powered flight have got some surly bonds to slip, if you get my drift

Shenanigans4Lyfe says: oat I think you’ve got a problem

Shenanigans4Lyfe says: maybe you should take a break from sex

Shenanigans4Lyfe says: like, just for an afternoon

OatSexPlease says: man fuck you

OatSexPlease says: you’re not my mom what you do care

Shenanigans4Lyfe says: you just sent me an article that you wrote by humping your keyboard for five minutes, I’d say that’s pretty serious

OatSexPlease says: I’ll have you know that that didn’t take nearly five minutes

OatSexPlease says: shows what you know

Shenanigans4Lyfe says: listen oat just get some help

Shenanigans4Lyfe says: I’m begging you

OatSexPlease says: oh yeah speaking of sex

Shenanigans4Lyfe says: what

OatSexPlease says: gotta motor

OatSexPlease says: (boat)

OatSexPlease says: lol

OatSexPlease has Quit (Message: “My dick’s got a table at Chez Vagina and he’d hate to miss his reservation.  Later Hater.”)

———————————————————————————————————

I should emphasize that this wasn’t the end of my fictional-chatlog-creation days. A little while later in the thread, the talk turned to a possible excursion for that meatiest of loafs, meatloaf. Obviously, my fictional self was determined to try and break fictional Micheal out of his self-destructive downward spiral:

——————————————————————————————————–

ShenanigansInDaHowse says: hey oat

ShenanigansInDaHowse says: buddy

ShenanigansInDaHowse says: some of us are going out to get some meatloaf, how ’bout you come with?

OatFuriousDickings says: sure that

OatFuriousDickings says: sounds like

OatFuriousDickings says: a good plan

ShenanigansInDaHowse says: oat, why are you talking weird

OatFuriousDickings says: got my leg stuck

OatFuriousDickings says: in a sex swing

OatFuriousDickings says: can only reach

OatFuriousDickings says: the keyboard by swing

OatFuriousDickings says: ing back and forth

OatFuriousDickings says: alright, grabbed the desk, we’re good

OatFuriousDickings says: that was a lousy six hours

ShenanigansInDaHowse says: um

ShenanigansInDaHowse says: do you want me to come get you down

ShenanigansInDaHowse says: oat are you still there

OatFuriousDickings says: sorry typing with one hand

ShenanigansInDaHowse says: oh, right

OatFuriousDickings says: not that that’s much different from how I usually do it

OatFuriousDickings says: lol

OatFuriousDickings says: but yeah my vision is getting pretty spotty and I swear I can hear the lamentations of dead relatives

OatFuriousDickings says: it’s killing my boner lol

ShenanigansInDaHowse says: oat, I would consider it a personal favor to me if you didn’t have a boner when I came over to cut you down from your sex swing

OatFuriousDickings says: no promises

OatFuriousDickings says: no regrets

ShenanigansInDaHowse says: whatever, I’m coming over now

ShenanigansInDaHowse has Quit (Message: “Don’t die, because then we can’t go for meatloaf.”)

OatFuriousDickings says: yay

OatFuriousDickings says: meatloaf

*Why yes, my junks are gas-powered.

"Oh look, TLG updated. I guess I owe Todd in HR a dollar."

(I’m not going to link to the thread that today’s bit comes from, not because it was an especially terrible thread or anything, but just because it’s in a restricted area of the boards and a good part of you wouldn’t be able to see it anyway.)

So in the Cracked Writer’s Lounge, someone had started a thread asking about the pay scale for writing articles. It was kind of a dumb question, since the answer is plastered all over about eight different places (the answer is fifty dollars, no matter what. In case you were curious.) However, it led to someone else making the joke that they had thought that we were paid by the dick joke, which served as my inspiration for the coming three-hundred-and-fifty-word travesty.

"Wait, he just mentioned dicks! I LOVE dicks!"

There really isn’t a funny story to go along with today’s update. I just remember being in kind of a dumb, over-caffeinated mood and wanting to see just how many times I could use the word “dick” in a single post. Some TLG readers may be shocked to learn the answer: a whole bunch.

Now, with the preamble out of the way, let’s wait no longer before stumbling headlong into my explanation of the majesty that is Cracked’s approach to a dick-joke-based economy. For your enhanced pleasure, I have modified the original post in order to highlight every single reference I make to the male genitalia. Enjoy!

RANDOM FORUM USER: “Wait, I thought we were paid by the dick joke.”

That’s how it used to be in the old days when Cracked was the only place on the internet to find penis jests. But pretty soon that shit went mainstream and we entered the period of time most commonly known as the Dick Boom. No matter where you looked, there were people giggling about cocks; anonymous sources telling the Drudge Report that George Bush had eighteen ballsacks, people buying face-penises for their avatars on GaiaOnline. 4Chan was so inundated with dick jokes that simply typing in the web address caused your monitor to turn into an actual severed penis. It was bad, but it didn’t get really bad until people started trading dick jokes on-margin. Do you know what happened then?

The price of dick jokes plummeted overnight to a rate of 400 dicks to the titter.

Sorry, fellah. That last sentence isn't nearly as filthy as it sounds. We're talking economics, not bukkakenomics.

Panicked dickvestors rushed the dick-banks to make mass dick-withdrawls, causing the banks to exhaust their dick supply in less than four hours. Millions went dickless, jokeless. Wailing filled the internet, and sorrow reigned. The Dick Bubble had burst.

Luckily, while frenzied investing was ruining the American dickonomy, David Wong had predicted the dick market crash and began exploring dick futures overseas. He managed to convince a consortium of wealthy Greek aristocrats not only that Cracked-flavor dick jokes had value as exotic tourist attractions, but that he would also personally guarantee a minimum of fourteen such dick jokes in ever Cracked article from thereon. A rate of fourteen thousand drachmas to the dick joke was agreed upon, and thus when dickvestors were losing their shirts the country over, only Cracked.com managed to stay afloat. Thanks to Wong’s guidance, Cracked was once again free to bring the magic of laughing at cocks to a new generation of internet users.

(David Wong would later realize that he didn’t know the drachma-to-dollar exchange rate, and decided that it probably worked out to about fifty dollars an article because “You know, what the hell.”)

Cracked: The Purest Dicks, Into The Future

I’ll do my best to provide context and background, and also correct some of my more glaring mistakes of formatting and punctuation. Oh, and if this whole business seems uncharacteristically lazy and narcissistic, then you obviously haven’t seen my Twitter account.

Let me put it this way: Dane Cook LOVES my Twitter.

Okay, today’s forum bit was inspired by 5 Ways To Stop Trolls From Killing The Internet, an article by Cracked editor David Wong, and was posted in the discussion thread on the forums. It’s a script of an idyllic little father-and-son scene that will play out in the not-too-distant future, after the Internet has been legislated to death.

This script contains a lot more ridiculous scene-setting than I generally trouble myself to do in comedic scripts (I find characters and what they’re doing much more interesting than where they are. This is a bad habit, and seeing how well this script turned out makes me think I should really break out of that rut.) I inserted this ludicrous imagery because I had recently been reading through the archives of Anthony Clark’s site, Nedroid. For those of you not in the know, Clark is an inexhaustible fountain of riotous whimsy, and this was my attempt at aping his staggering imagination.

In addition to being very funny, Clark is an amazing artist. He also recently started doing the colors for Dr. McNinja, so you should really go check him out.

This script is also something of a record-holder in how fast I turned it out. All 500 words of it were written between 10:00 and 10:30 on the morning of November 11th, 2008. November 11th is Remembrance Day in Canada, and I was meeting my sister to attend the Remembrance Day ceremony at 11:00. Remembrance Day is sort of a big deal in my family, and neither my sister nor I have ever missed a ceremony, so I wasn’t about to bail because I was too busy making dick jokes on a comedy forum. However, I also knew that the images in my head wouldn’t survive the ceremony’s proceedings (paying respect to our nation’s fallen being something of a somber business, you understand.) Thus, the finished product suffered somewhat in terms of formatting (I normally agonize over every bracket, space, and italicization,) though you will be enthused to note that I have cleaned the errors up for this occasion.

So, with no further masturbatory rambling, I present to you: THE FUTURE!

Ooh! Aah!

The scene: a quaint suburban backyard. Father is on the deck in some comical apron, barbecuing all-American meat products. A robot drifts casually by, as though this sort of thing were completely unremarkable in the near future.

Suddenly, the virtual holo-door performs its opening animation and through dashes Junior, looking cute as a button and wearing impractical future-clothing.

Father: (Seeing his offspring approach, he lets go of his tongs. They continue to flip bratwurst independently of foreign impetus, looking totally rad.) Junior! I didn’t expect you home from E-School so early!

Junior: Father, you know that we get half the day off for the remembrance of the LoLocaust! You know, the day all those years ago when all those brave lawmakers gave their lives to scour the Internet of trolls?

Father: Ha ha! I remember, now that you’ve reminded me! Of course, in my day-

Junior: (Wearily cutting him off.) -in your day, you called it Christmas. I know, Father. You’ve told me before.

Father: (Embarrassed.) Yes, of course.

They stare off into space for several seconds. In the distance, three more robots float by, followed closely by a dinosaur.

Junior: (Obviously anxious to break the silence.) Father, I stumbled across something queer during my mandatory government-ordered three hours of browsing Wikipedia.

Father: Oh? And what did you find in the single largest and most trusted repository of human knowledge?

Junior: I’m not quite sure what to make of it. (He pauses. His voice quivers with uncertainty.) I was looking at the memes, you see. They all seemed rather foolish, but then I came upon what I thought must have been an error.

Father: (Leaping back with a start.) An error in the infallible Wikipedia!?

Junior: I could scarcely believe it myself, Father! The article was entitled “Milhouse” and the body consisted entirely of “Milhouse is not a meme.” It confused me ever so greatly, Father.

Father regains his composure and chuckles easily to himself upon hearing the source of his boy’s consternation. He walks over to and sits down in a deck chair, which morphs into a Lay-Z-Boy-brand recliner at the push of a button. Neither father nor son appear to regard this as remarkable, which is stupid, because it is. Father beckons to Junior to sit on his lap. Junior obeys.

Father: (Picking his words carefully.) You didn’t find any error, my boy.

Junior: But Father -!

Father shushes Junior.

Father: You didn’t find any error, but what you did find was one of the strangest artifacts of the wild days of the Internet.

Junior is rapt.

Father: You see, Junior… (He pauses, savoring the melodrama.) “Milhouse is not a meme” is, in fact, a meme.

Junior ponders this for a very long time. He scratches his head and furrows his brow. While he thinks, Father again stares into the distance, where the dinosaur can now be seen to be wearing rocket-powered rollerblades and sunglasses. Finally, Junior speaks.

Junior: That’s… stupid.

Father nods sagely.

Father: Yes, my son. (A single tear rolls down his cheek.) Yes, it was.

Fini