3588 lines
173 KiB
Plaintext
3588 lines
173 KiB
Plaintext
SUPER COLLECTION OF PRACTIAL JOKES
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(NOTE: This contains all 4 parts, concatenated.)
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From davidv@sco.COM Sat Dec 2 09:53:06 1989
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From: davidv@sco.COM (David Vangerov)
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Subject: Super Collection of Practical Jokes (part 1 of 4)
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here it is, as promised (and requested), 3500 lines of practical
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(and not so practical) jokes that folks have played. my thanks
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to davidbe@sco.com for editing the thing oh so long ago. due to
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the fact that it got edited, attributions have been lost in this
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file, but somwhere in the depths of my account i have the orginal
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headers and what not (360K or so, compared to 170K for this file).
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enjoy...
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-------
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<This batch as of 2/10/87>
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One joke that we did in residence was the Chinese Fire Drill,
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I don't quite know why it is called that. Anyway..
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The victim is on the pot in the dorm washroom. Everyone grabs a bucket
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(we used the waste baskets from our rooms) and fills the buckets with
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water. Take a paper bag and set it on fire, toss it under the door into the
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stall. Yell fire as everyone tosses the water into the stall. Needless to say
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the fire as well as the victim get very wet.
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This one fellow in the house was hit a number of times and took to relieving
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himself in other locals. We followed him a couple of times and nailed him
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in many parts of the residence.
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Later of course we conspired with our victim to get back at the
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original instigator of the drill. The guy in the stall had a bucket of water,
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and when the the instigator tossed the bag in we all hit him.
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*********
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It is common for draftsmen to sprinkle SCUMEX (powdered rubber
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eraser) on tracings prior to doing any drawing on it. This reduces
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smearing of the pencil marks and such and results in a cleaner
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tracing.
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At a former employers we had replaced the Scumex at one draftsmans
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desk with dried parmesian cheese. It looked about the same. It was
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extremely interesting watching him draw for a while and then begin
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to smell the paper. Took the poor dude almost 10 minutes to guess
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that he had been gigged!
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*********
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I just pulled one on somebody -- I slipped some of those anti-
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shoplifting strips into the lining of the victim's favorite
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jacket. I was set to pull another one, but didn't get the chance
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- to cut out a silhouette of a gun from metal and hide it in a
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piece of carry-on luggage.
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*********
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Two teachers at my high school started a practical joke war
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that culminated in a junk mail war of huge proportions. They
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finally called a truce and got it cleared up and the mail stopped,
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EXCEPT for the military mail that one had signed the other one up
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for. He wrote (honestly) that he had graduated from a fine college
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and was interested in the Marines, Air Force, etc. etc.
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When I left, about two years after this, he was still
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getting PHONE CALLS from 2-4 times a month.... they were VERY
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persistant even over he (loud) objections that he was 45 and not
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interested in a career change...
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*********
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New secretary (second day on the job) answers telephone as is told in
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official tones: "This is the phone company. We are testing a new
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circuit wiring scheme in your offices. Please keep everyone off the
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phones for the next 10 minutes. We will be verifying the correct wiring
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of your system by passing HOT STEAM through the wires. Instruct your
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employees to place their phones on the floor, or, better yet, wrap them
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in towels to avoid scalding themselves. We will advise you when the
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tests are complete *click*" After momentary panic, the secretary begins
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a frenzied "Paul Revere" routine, running from desk to desk while
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glancing frequently at her watch. Just as the 10 minutes are about up,
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she bursts into her boss's office (while he is in the midst of an
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important long-distance call) and, screaming, grabs the receiver from
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his hand and flings the whole phone under his desk...
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*********
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Tell someone you can pin a glass of water to the wall --
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a real glass, not a paper cup, using an ordinary straight
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pin. Naturally they won't believe, so you set out to
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prove it.
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Get a glass of water and a pin. Hold the glass up to the
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wall and start to pin it up. And then drop the pin.
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You've got the glass in position just right, so you ask
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your victim real nice to get the pin for you. When they
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bend down to pick it up, dump the water on their head.
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This works especially well when there's a crowd of people watching.
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It can also be very dangerous for the joker, so be careful if you
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try it.
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*********
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one time in my undergrad days, it was snowing like mad
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out. someone decided it was time a make a snowball. then
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someone else suggested that we should put this snowball in
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this one guy's room-- nobody liked this guy-- so when the
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word got around, half the people in our dorm section came
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out and help! we got this sucker so BIG that it must be
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at least 4 feet in diameter. it took about 6 person to haul
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the darn thing up 3 flights of stairs. we got the snowball
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into this guy's room while he was out, turn off the heat in
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the room and left all the windows open, so the snowball
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won't melt too fast. well... the turkey came back 3 hours
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later and found a HUGH snowball sitting in the middle of his
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room, and started melting! I still have the picture of the
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snowball. (if you really wonder how big the snowball is,
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just imagine a snowball the size of a normal dinning room
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chair!)
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*********
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This reminds me of a similar stunt we used to enjoy at the dining hall
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in my undergrad days. The food service used opaque plastic salt and
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pepper shakers with pop-off tops that could be pried off with a knife
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blade if you were persistent enough.
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PREPARATION (in a restroom nearby): (1) Empty salt ( or pepper) from a
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previously 'acquired' container and fill about 1/3 full with
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concentrated lemon juice. (2) Place a thin tissue across the opening,
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poke it down a bit to form a depression, and fill the depression with
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about a teaspoon of baking soda. (3) Cover (from the inside) the
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holes of the top with tape of the appropriate color. (4) Replace top
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on container and trim visible tissue from around the top.
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Carry the device to dining hall (upright and as stable as is
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possible... for your own sake).
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After discretely placing the shaker on your table (only place it near
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to you... see caveat #1 below), observe the next person to use the
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salt (pepper). (S)He will shake lightly at first, then harder as
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nothing comes out. Due to the breakdown of the tissue and the pressure
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resulting from the classic acid/base reaction, the top will pop off
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(quite spectacularly) amidst a shower of foam. Your victim (as will as
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everyone around) should have quite a reaction, since one does not
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usually observe this type of behavior in a salt (pepper) shaker!
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CAVEATS: 1. The top will come off with some force. If the holes are
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sealed well, this will happen on about the second or third shake.
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Once, though, due to poor sealing, it took about 5 seconds, during
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which time our victim started looking at the shaker to examine the
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"foamy stuff coming out" of the holes... we quickly grabbed the shaker
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>from her to direct the top towards the ceiling before it went off. So,
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watch carefully!
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2. The "foam shower" (lemon juice & soda) may ruin you victim meal...
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be prepared to pop for another one.
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3. Don't do this if your victim or anyone near ground zero is dressed
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up (this joke will flop at board meetings and the like).
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*********
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This joke has been done 50 (yes, 50) years ago by my father-in-law.
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First, a little background:
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He lived in a small village, north-west of Quebec City along the St-Laurent
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river. In those days, toilets were located outside the house in what
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we call in good ol' french canadian 'becosse', from 'back house' I think.
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These are a little wood shack with no floor over a hole in the ground
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where you ... You can guess.
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Now, for the joke:
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He and a friend were thrown out of a party by the doorman.
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When it was really dark,, the doorman went to investigate what was
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knocking at the window. They had suspended a rock to the window
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frame so it hung right it the middle and tied another string
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to the rock and hid behind the 'becosse' where they pulled
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that second string to make the rock knock in the window.
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That's an old trick. The doorman wouldn't fall for that one. So
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he followed the second string in the dark
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and soon concluded that they were hidding behind the 'becosse'.
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He ran toward the merely visible wood structure...
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But my father-in-law and his friend had taken care of moving the
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shack six feet ... Boy he fell in the sh*t !!
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*********
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This one hasn't come up despite the presence of UCLA on the net. I'm
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led to the sad conclusion that the tradition has died.
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In the mid '70s, just before it was overrun by fanatic Dungeons &
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Dragons (tm) players, the UCLA Computer Club was host to a long series
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of "glitter traps." Example: joke subject sits at a desk, pulls out a
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drawer. A string runs from the back of the drawer, up the wall, into
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the false ceiling, over to a spot directly over the subject's head,
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where it triggers the trap: a mousetrap whose action snaps a card away
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>from its position covering a funnel, releasing a handful of glitter,
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which flows down the funnel, through its spout, through a hole in the
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ceiling acoustic tile, onto the subject. It was wonderful to watch: a
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muffled snapping noise, a quiet "chuff," and the slow, glittery descent
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of a cloud of brightly colored dust, to settle over the head and
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shoulders of a club member who by now has assumed an expression of
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appreciative resignation.
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Another, more short-lived ploy was to suspend a wooden horseshoe by a
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string from the ceiling in the corridor, such that the horseshow
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dangles a couple of inches above the top of an upright broom. Most
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conventional brooms will stand on their straws with a little coaxing.
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We attached a sign labeling the horseshow "wood magnet." Quite a few
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people took it at face value.
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*********
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Another Cow joke I attribute to my 'Ol chemestry prof was the placement of
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a cow onto the roof. I would presume a fairly storng roof, but once up
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there it would be hard to hide the fact to the cow that any direction would
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be down.
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Another pratical joke involved the use of outhouses. Once the target has
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established himself you take up the slack on the attached rope which has
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been measured to set up tremendious harmonics in the structure. When the
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rope transfers your strumming to the outhouse, it usually falls apart with
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a most revieling nature..
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*********
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I was once in a nice family-style restaurant when I observed
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some kids supergluing the dishes to the table. They also attached
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the silverware, napkins, salt, pepper, etc. If it wasn't already nailed down,
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it was now. They stayed long enough to let the glue set, and then paid and
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left. They watched as the poor busboy tried to get the stuff off of the table.
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Also funny is supergluing a quarter to the sidewalk. I know its old,
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but in the city, with the diverse types of people around, it gets really
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amusing. I watched this old lady whack at it with her cane for about 10 min.
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cursing......
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*********
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A few months ago I saw a newspaper clipping which told of a newspaper in
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Illinois (I think...) which ran a story warning consumers that, on such-and-
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such day, Illinois Bell would be "blowing the dust out of the phone lines" and
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that all phone owners should cover the earpiece of their phones with a bag to
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catch the dust.
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Bell made them print a retraction, after receiving numerous calls asking
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what sort of bag to use ...
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People, they is amazing.
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*********
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When I was in college our RA told us of a good one that (supposedly)
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some friends had pulled a couple of years earlier. These two guys made
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up a concoction of all kinds of left overs, semi-pureed it in a blender,
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and filled a hot water bottle with it. One of them took the hot water
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bottle, taped it to his stomach inside of his shirt and put a short
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piece of hose into the top so that it came up to the front of his shirt
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collar, but not visible. They both went to a local pub and sat at the
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bar, acting already slightly intoxicated. After having a couple of beers
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the guy with the hot water bottle says that he is feeling sick a couple
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of times and "barfs" VERY loudly all over the bar to attract attention.
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Naturally this causes the patrons to move away from him, all except his
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buddy, who calmy pulls a fork out of his coat pocket and begins EATING
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the stuff. ;-) I don't know how true it is, but I'd love to have been
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there watching faces if it was...
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*********
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I can't resist a few:
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1. Once you have stolen a dormmate's room keys, the room is yours to
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plunder. As a variation, steal the dorm keys but reverse the lock
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(so the keyhole faces INTO the room); we had a mechanical engineer
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who got this down to about 20 seconds. Then loudly announce to the
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victim you own the keys, but "let" them win the race back to their
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room. PRESTO! Locked inside their own room (with no keys). If
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you've fixed the phone to continually ring, they get very pliable
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after about 10 minutes.
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2. We connected our secretary's electric typewriter to a variac (can
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vary the line voltage). At about 40-50 volts (out of the 110)
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the little ball makes three or four jerky attempts before finally
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striking a faint imprint. Fairly pathetic looking, actually.
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3. Reverse the horizontal yoke leads on terminals (so the text comes
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out backwards from right to left). This works best on a software
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team who thinks they have just released the firmware for screen
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drivers. Besides, hardware people figure it out too quickly.
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4. Hand lotion inside of an air hose on the final assembly line is
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effective, but very vindictive. Use with caution (now, I'm not
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saying I ever did this, but I "saw" it done once :-)
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And the standard saran wrap across women's toilets, Karo syrup, flour in
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the shower, water-filled surgical tubing jammed in a drawer....ah, for
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the good old days!!
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*********
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One night when you have a few friends around, take turns calling the
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same phone number, a really obnoxious acquaintance that won't
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recognize your voices is always a good choice. When the person
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answers, try to leave a message for John Smith (or any name that
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sounds real). Insist that you have the right number and even read
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their number to them. Have a bit of fun here, and stretch this on as
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long as possible. Repeat several times, once or twice an hour. Let
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everybody have a turn at calling. Just as the party is breaking up,
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call one last time. Tell the poor soul answering the phone that you
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are John Smith, and ask "Are there any messages for me?" This is sure
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to get a groan.
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*********
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Seven friends once pulled this at my college cafeteria.
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One put a hot water bottle filled with pea soup down his chest;
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he sat at the head of a table, with the other six friends
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sitting along the sides.
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When the cafeteria was pretty full of people,
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he made a loud noise (to attract attention),
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stood up, bent over and squeezed his chest.
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This caused a huge gush of green liquid to spew all over the table;
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the other six immediately began to eat this green liquid.
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I think a lot of food went uneaten that night.
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*********
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Here's one that my roommate and myself did to a residence buddy. One
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morning (early) we taped together a bunch of sheets of newspaper to cover
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the victims doorframe. Then taped this big sheet over the doorframe which
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left a gap of about two or three inches between the sheet and the door.
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Then we filled the gap with paper balls right to the top of the doorway.
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When he opened the door he was showered with a barrage of paper balls (makes
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a nice mess too!) Of course, the door has to swing in for this to work!
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My roommate was (and is) rather inventive and can be quite nasty. He buttered
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all of the toilet seats in our wing of the residence (fortunately told me
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first). He also buttered doorknobs at one point. We wrapped celophane over
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the toilet bowl then replaced the seat: this one can be really messy!
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Try this: hang a shower curtain out a window. When the person below reaches
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out and pulls it in, pour a bucket of water onto the shower curtain. Listen
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to hear the results. Requires a nosy neighbor below you.
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Six friends of mine and myself tried a less complicated version of the classic
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dismantling of a car and putting it back together somewhere strange. We lifted
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a friends car that was parked between two other cars and turned it so that the
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front and back end were facing the neighboring cars. This posed quite a problem
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for our friend when he decided to go home. Requires either a small car or a lot
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of very strong people! :-) I take no responsibility for any back injuries that
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result from this. Of course I take no responsibility for any of my actions. :-)
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There are, of course, some fairly standard pranks that are pulled in residence.
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Typically, people are shafted on their birthday which is therefore a hazardous
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date to reveal. Total demolition of a room is quite common, but lacks any real
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humor. A common shaft is to remove everything from the victims room and set it
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up somewhere else exactly as it was. The best examples I saw of this were: a
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room moved to the roof of a science building, a room moved to the front
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courtyard of the residence (really funny when it started to snow!) and a room
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moved to the dining hall.
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When I was younger, I had a practical joke genius for a working companion. We
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both worked in the same computer store for a while. He left and became manager
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of another store. I remember receiving an envelope with his firms return address
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on it. Inside was a very silly brochure. I said aloud "There has to be something
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else in this envelope". So I looked and of course there was a sheet of paper.
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It read "No there is nothing else in this envelope!" I could never get him back
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for anything that he pulled but he was an inspiration. The last practical joke
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that I will relate was one that he taught me and it requires a bit of time to
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prepare. First you need: iodine cristals and some amonium hydroxide. Mix the
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two together and a brown sludge will form. Drain off the excess liquid and let
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the sludge dry. The result? Snap powder, a pressure sensitive explosive. Just
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sprinkle this on the floor and watch people's reactions. Its quite amusing.
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*********
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I have lived in several different houses with a bunch of guys. Needless
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to say things got pretty rowdy sometimes and many were victims of some
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pretty funny jokes. One of the favorites as I recall (and still is) is
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to go into the bathroom while the victim is taking a shower, and pour
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a bucket of extreeeemmmlly cold water on them over the top of the
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shower curtain. This is quite a shocking experience, and if you are
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fast enough you can get away before the victim finds out you did it.
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I remember one guy I lived with getting this all the time. One time
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he got sick of putting up with it and jumped out of the shower into
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the hall squirting shampoo at everyone in sight. The next time this
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happened the guys were ready with a camera to take pictures of him as
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he ran out of the bathroom. These pictures were later shown at his
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bachelor party.
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*********
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1) Got a neighbor that's a real pain in the ass? Do they have a
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lawn? Do they have a garden that's accessible? Yes to all the
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above? Great! Go out and get yourself some grass-killer and fill
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the suckers hose with the stuff. Then sit back and wait for them
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water their lawn! Nuff said?
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2) Does the person that you want to get even with drink red wine? If
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so, have I got one for you! Get yourself some Neutral Red, a water
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soluble, crystalline, red dye. Mix some into the persons wine and
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wait for them to take a leak. (Nuetral Red comes out as red as it
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goes in, and people have a tendancy to get really nervous when they
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start pissing what they think is blood!
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3) (I'm surprised nobody mentioned this one yet.) Go to a pet shop and
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buy a fancy looking pet collar and leash. Then, the next time you
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see a dead animal in the road, attach the leash and collar setup
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to its neck. Attach the whole thing to revengees rear bumper, making
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sure to toss dead animal under the car so it won't be seen. When
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revengee drives away, chances are he/she will be stopped by either a cop
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or a member of some animal lovers group for draggin some poor defenseless
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pet down the road. Either way, they are gonna have some awful quick
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explaining to do!
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4) Last, but certainly not least, is a great stink bomb. This one takes
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a bit of time for preparation, so it's not too good for spontaneous
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revenge. (But it's worth the time!) Get a quart jar with a rubber seal.
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(Mason jars work quite well.) Pour about 1/4 to 1/2 inch of crystal Drano
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along with about an inch or so of warm water into the jar. Place the
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lid on the jar and allow the mixture to sit in a warm place for about an
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hour. Take the lid off and add six egg whites, (no yokes). Add a quarter
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cup of Methylene Blue, then fill the jar to within an inch of the top
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with water. Seal the jar tightly and allow to sit for four to six weeks.
|
|
(I warned you it takes a while!) When the 'bomb' is ready to use, you
|
|
can either throw it like a molitov(sp?) cocktail, or shake it up and
|
|
pour the contents out, making damn sure you don't get any on yourself.
|
|
The results have to be seen, or is that smelled, to be beleived!
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
Is everyone out in net land familiar with Sensormatic? They are the company
|
|
that make the large plastic clips that set off alarms when you exit a
|
|
department store. I used to work for a department store and the is what
|
|
we did.
|
|
|
|
Open up the clip and remove the shiny piece of paper. It is about an inch
|
|
long and about half an inch wide. This is the "thingy" (that is the technical
|
|
word for it) that sets off the alarm. This "thingy" is easy to insert into
|
|
a pen case, lining of a jacket ...
|
|
|
|
We did this to a co worker and needless to say, he had problems wearing a
|
|
particular jacket to work.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
We have various local spots where the teenagers park, cruise, hold drag
|
|
races, drink beer etc. We happen to own a white 1983 Dodge Diplomat,
|
|
the exact kind of car used by the State Patrol around here as well as
|
|
many law enforcement agencies nationwide. (Actually our car WAS a
|
|
state patrol car, but that's another story). Anyway, my brother in
|
|
law, who is a cruiser, would occasionally borrow this car and drive it
|
|
down to the cruising spots. Needless to say, when they saw him coming
|
|
there was brief but furious activity. He finally had to stop doing
|
|
this because it made his friends so mad.
|
|
|
|
People hate to pass us on the freeway too. It is not unusual to see
|
|
some Camaro or Porche come zipping along through traffic until he is
|
|
about 2 car lengths behind us, then decelerate to a perfect 55.00 miles
|
|
per hour. It takes him about 10 seconds to look us over, decide we
|
|
aren't in uniform, notice that we don't have state license plates, and
|
|
make up his mind. He will then typiclaly test how fast his car will
|
|
accelerate to about 90 mph.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
They had a 'witchy' old lady next door that was constantly complaining
|
|
about everything and everyone in the neighborhood. After one really good
|
|
round about kids and pets messing up her spotless front yard, my buddies
|
|
planned what turned out to be a better joke than they originally thought.
|
|
Juvenile as we all were, they planned to write some dirty words in her
|
|
meticulously-groomed front lawn with some kind of powder that would stand
|
|
out. The only thing they could find was some Ortho Super-Gro Lawn Food
|
|
(white powdery stuff). They wrote the message in the dead of night, and
|
|
next morning it was bold and white for the world to see.
|
|
The 'kicker' came after. She came out, saw the graffiti, and immediately
|
|
grabbed a hose and WATERED IT OFF!
|
|
|
|
To this day, those sections of grass are just a little bit greener than
|
|
everything around them, and the words can STILL be read!
|
|
|
|
********
|
|
|
|
This reminds me of a story that a former roommate related to me. In college
|
|
he and a group of friends got revenge on complete strangers. ....Well, let
|
|
me set up the situation.
|
|
|
|
Y'know how sometimes you gotta park real far away from your destination
|
|
because certain types of people like to take up two parking spaces...?
|
|
Well, he and his friends got a little ticked about this, especially during
|
|
weekends at the school. One day, they decided to get even with every
|
|
"#@@#$#@$&&*" that took up "their" space. They turned the car sideways.
|
|
As he said, "He wanted that space so bad, now he can have it for a loooong
|
|
time!"
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
In a similar vein, tell your victim that you have a test of coordination
|
|
you would like him to try with you. Find a door with a fairly large crack
|
|
between the door and the wall when the door is open. (You know, over by
|
|
the hinges; across the width of the door from the doorknob...) You need an
|
|
egg (NOT hard-boiled), and a wood floor (you don't want the egg cracking on
|
|
carpeting, do you??). Now, have your victim get on the opposite side of
|
|
the door from you, and put 2 fingers through the door. Hand him the egg,
|
|
in those two fingers. Working with him, trade the egg back and forth a
|
|
couple of times, moving UP the door frame. After you have his confidence,
|
|
leave. He will be trapped there, holding this egg by two fingers through
|
|
the door. If he lets go and nobody takes the egg, it will crash to the
|
|
floor. Best to do in the person's own room.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
A few years ago some members of the infamous Dartmouth Outing Club pushed
|
|
an occupied one-seat outhouse off its foundations, onto its door. The
|
|
victim tried in vain for a few minutes to roll the entire building onto a
|
|
different side, but soon gave up, as it was too heavy. She then was forced
|
|
to climb out through the seat, and over the pit near the bottom (now side)
|
|
of the outhouse.
|
|
|
|
The followup to this episode was that some `friends' seized me in the
|
|
middle of the night and tied my feet in a noose suspended in a tree. But
|
|
that's another story.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
This practical joke is hearsay. A fellow student some years ago
|
|
related the following. Apparently another student was a bit of
|
|
a braggar. His favourite topic was his car, and one sub-topic
|
|
was the terrific gas milage (pre-metric) it got.
|
|
|
|
So it began one evening. Fill up a one-gallon container of gas
|
|
each night and pour it into the victim's gas tank. Wait for the
|
|
story each day to get better and better. Repeat until it cannot
|
|
be taken any more. I believe 2 weeks was sufficient.
|
|
|
|
Finally the moment (days) of truth. Each night for 2 weeks,
|
|
the effect was reversed, and one gallon of gas was REMOVED from
|
|
the victim's tank. It was amazingly effective at reducing some
|
|
of the stories. I suspect the truth was never revealed to the
|
|
victim.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
Another harmless practical joke to be played on people living in multiple story
|
|
apartment buildings is as follows:
|
|
Knock on victim's door. Say, "I've got to use your window, someone's about to
|
|
jump from an apartment above yours." Run to window and look outside, but don't
|
|
let victim look.
|
|
At this point your accomplice dumps a rag-filled dummy either from the window
|
|
above or from the roof. The dummy should be fully closed; for added realism put
|
|
some plastic bags of fake blood inside the clothes.
|
|
On the sidewalk below, a third accomplice puts down a plastic sheet, then
|
|
covers it with a sheet painted to resemble the sidewalk. After the body hits,
|
|
let the victim see the gore, then convince him to run down and help while you
|
|
stay and call the ambulance. As soon as the victim has left, signal your
|
|
accomplice to remove the sheets and the dummy and head for some prearranged
|
|
hiding place. Then you leave the apartment and disappear somewhere in the
|
|
building; later, you make your way downstairs and leave.
|
|
The victim will race downstairs expecting to find a dead bloody body and
|
|
will instead see only clean, empty pavement. Of course, it is best done late
|
|
at night since the joke would be spoiled by a passer-by who informed the
|
|
victim of the "body's" fate.
|
|
The fun comes imagining the victim trying to convince the police or anyone
|
|
else of what happened!
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
In our residence the lounge door can be locked (or unlocked) by any room
|
|
key from the floor. You can also remove the handles from a door (ie the lock
|
|
comes too) and switch the handles.
|
|
|
|
We did this to one guy, he was the only one who could lock the door to the
|
|
lounge (we never locked anyway) but everyone could get into his room.
|
|
Every night for a week (at about 3:30 am) someone would go in and do something
|
|
to him while he was asleep (nothing really nasty). As he was a sound sleeper, it
|
|
actually took him a week to figure out what was going on.
|
|
|
|
Disclaimer: Kids at home, Don't try this.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
This one reminded me of a joke some of the guys on our floor pulled on another
|
|
guy while he was in the shower. While he was in the shower, they took all his
|
|
clothes and even his towel and hung them outside in the hall (over water
|
|
pipes in the ceiling - we were in the basement). I don't know how long he
|
|
stayed in there and/or whether or not someone ever gave him back his clothes.
|
|
The worst part of this one was that there were 2 shower stalls in the bathroom -
|
|
and I happened to be in the other one; it could of happened to me!!
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
In my younger days, while employed at a warehouse, I was the butt
|
|
of the usual practical jokes directed at newcomers.(Fetch me a light-bulb
|
|
repair kit, son;etc) As days passed, I noticed that one of my antagonists
|
|
was actually afraid of his terminal. This was at the time when the press
|
|
was full of accounts of the dangers of X-rays from color TV's, and this
|
|
guy was deathly afraid of the noise made by the high-voltage section of the
|
|
CRT as it warmed up. Each morning he sat in his swivel chair, coffee in his
|
|
left hand, and with the chair as far as possible away from the terminal, used
|
|
his right hand to quickly flick the ON switch, and then jerked it away from
|
|
THE CERTAIN DEATH THAT AWAITED. After the racket settled down, he would wheel
|
|
up to the terminal and commence operations.
|
|
This situation was too good for yours truly to pass up. I went upstairs
|
|
and pulled out a stock item, a stadium buzzer, used by high schools on the
|
|
football fields to announce the end of a quarter. I came in early the next
|
|
morning and installed it in one of his file boxes, near the terminal. I ran the
|
|
wires out to the next office via a pass-thru, and alerted all of the staff
|
|
(but him) of what was about to transpire.
|
|
He entered the room, coffee in hand, and sat in his chair. All others
|
|
were heads-down in work. He adjusted his chair to the proper distance, reached
|
|
way out for the switch, and as soon as he pulled, I plugged in the cord. As the
|
|
buzzer sounded, he assumed the facial expressions of one who has seen death
|
|
reaching it's skeltal fingers to snatch him from the land of the living.
|
|
Coffee flew to the ceiling, and for a few brief seconds before hitting the
|
|
opposite wall, a new world land speed record for backward swivel-chair
|
|
operation was established!
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
Preface: The person that this is played on must be someone who really
|
|
deserves it because it takes several people to pull off. He must
|
|
also live on the first floor of his dorm. It must also occur in the winter
|
|
in a suitably cold and barren area like Dartmouth.
|
|
|
|
PHASE 1:
|
|
|
|
We did this trick to someone we found very difficult to live with.
|
|
When the victim was away from his room we began to pile up a large amount of
|
|
snow outside of his window. The conditions were perfect. His window was
|
|
divided into two sections. One didn't open, the other (in theory) swung
|
|
outward like a door. The snow was wet and packed heavily and easily.
|
|
(On colder days a hose may be used to harden the snow.) We built a huge
|
|
pile of snow which reached six or eight feet back from the part of his
|
|
window that swung. We then, as a demoralizing factor, put a cosmetic layer
|
|
of snow which completely covered the section which didn't open.
|
|
|
|
When we had finished the outside work we went into his room and closed his
|
|
shade and curtain so that he would not notice what we had done until it was
|
|
too late.
|
|
|
|
PHASE 2:
|
|
|
|
We then waited for him to come home. Luckily his room was on a side of the
|
|
dorm away from the entrance so that our work wasn't visible from the approach.
|
|
He arrived and entered his room. We listened outside his door until we
|
|
heard his shade go up and a sudden "What the F--K?" as only pure, white
|
|
snow was visible through the window. At this point we wedged a paperback
|
|
book between his door and the frame. (Similar to using pennies, but more
|
|
effective.)
|
|
|
|
We then sat back and listened as he started towards the door. "Allright, who
|
|
put all the snow outside my...what the F--K? OPEN THIS DOOR!"
|
|
|
|
The show got more exciting as he, thinking that he could still just go out the
|
|
window, walked over, opened his curtain, tried to open the window, and became
|
|
aware of the magnitude of the problem facing him. He had no phone, and so
|
|
could not call the campus police to come help him. His neighbors would
|
|
not heed his cries, because most of them had assisted us with the trick.
|
|
|
|
We eventually released him, but only after he had come to the realization that
|
|
he needed to be more considerate of those living around him, or else face
|
|
living out the rest of a prematurely shortened life in a small, snow
|
|
covered dorm room.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
My favorite dorm practical joke involved collecting newspapers for about 3
|
|
months by everyone. When a guy on my floor had a three hour lab we crumpled
|
|
up newspapers and completely filled his room from floor to ceiling.
|
|
When he returned, he had to go in through in the bathroom, and wasn't even able
|
|
to get the door open far enough to get through.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
Want some fun times! Heres the way:
|
|
|
|
1. While your friend is sleeping, carefully water down his mattress.
|
|
(If he sleeps in a waterbed, just give it a few punctures)
|
|
|
|
2. Take an extension cord, clip off the cube-tap, seperate the wires,
|
|
and strip the two ends, exposing about two inches of bare wire.
|
|
|
|
3. Wrap one end around his left big toe, the other on his right.
|
|
|
|
4. Stand near an electrical outlet, plug the poor unsuspecting soul in!
|
|
|
|
This is a great ice breaker for your new roommate, etc. Cleanup is
|
|
a bit, er, messy, but well worth the gag. You can be guarenteed that
|
|
the victim will be impressed! And think of it: No retaliation! It's
|
|
the perfect practical joke! And to think that nobody's posted it yet.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
About nine years ago the book "The Adolescense of P1" was very popular at
|
|
the computer shop where I was employed. In case you don't know, this is
|
|
about a hacker named Gregory and a computer program he wrote which is self-
|
|
perpetuating. Years later he is employed as an honest Systems Analyst and has
|
|
almost forgotten about his "child." Then the system downstairs prints out
|
|
"CALL GREGORY" and locks up ... followed by a thickening plot, some
|
|
humorous, some frightening.
|
|
|
|
I worked nights. It wasn't hard to replace the boot file on our system disks
|
|
with another that typed out "CALL GREGORY" before replacing itself with the
|
|
original.
|
|
|
|
It's funny that there haven't been more computer practical jokes posted
|
|
here. What a marvelous opportunity the computer affords the practical joker!
|
|
|
|
I designed and wrote a point-of-sale system which was first installed in
|
|
1976, after which I left the company. At midnight, December 31, 1977 every
|
|
system in the country stopped whatever it was doing, flashed every light and
|
|
sounded every beeper on every cash register, printed "Happy New Year" on
|
|
every printer, and went back to whatever it was doing. I wonder how that
|
|
happened?
|
|
|
|
Some of the least elaborate practical jokes are the most effective. Go with
|
|
a couple of friends, stand near some busy street corner, and take a great
|
|
interest in some point near the top of a tall building, or maybe just up in
|
|
the sky. Watch the reactions of people around you.
|
|
|
|
Take an old windowshade, go to a gymnastics show or anywhere else where people
|
|
wear leotards, wait for someone to do a split, and tear the windowshade
|
|
briskly, making a very loud ripping sound ...
|
|
|
|
Go to any gag store and get a fake plastic vomit. Put it in a drinking
|
|
fountain. Wet it is amazingly realistic ...
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
Back around 1969 at another university, we had just gotten time sharing
|
|
facilities and because of the unrest (this was about Kent State) we had
|
|
armed guards protecting the computer and the few terminals. It being
|
|
around midnight, I got the guards playing an interactive monopoly game.
|
|
The next evening i was confronted by a VERY upset computer operator.
|
|
Apparently at about 4:00AM one guard landed on Boardwalk and the game
|
|
ended when he didn't have enough money to pay the rent. The guards
|
|
DEMANDED the operator restart the game and bcame more and more upset
|
|
when he couldn't.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
Recipe for LARGE quantities of soapsuds:
|
|
|
|
1. Fill a large bucket with hot water.
|
|
|
|
2. Empty contents of one bottle of dishwashing detergent into bucket (Ivory,
|
|
Joy, Dawn, or equivalent).
|
|
|
|
3. Drop in a few pounds of dry ice that has been crushed to small pieces.
|
|
|
|
4. STAND BACK!
|
|
|
|
Recipe will fill a phone booth, or a small room (or even a big one).
|
|
A friend and I once did this in the bed of his truck. While stopped at
|
|
traffic signals the whole bed would fill up to the rim with suds. Then,
|
|
as we would accelerate away from the light, large "chunks" would break loose
|
|
and waft lazily through the air, causing much consternation to the traffic
|
|
behind. On the freeway the result was much smaller pieces of suds billowing
|
|
out of the back of the truck. It looked like a snowstorm! It's funnier to
|
|
see than the description sounds. We were hysterical.
|
|
|
|
Also, the soap can be omitted from the above to obtain fog. A phone booth
|
|
that is opaque with dense fog looks pretty strange too.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
Okay, this is something me and my best friend did to our Comp. Sci.
|
|
teacher senior year of high school.
|
|
|
|
We started this joke by getting into heated arguments for a
|
|
week before the actual event and of course everything was building up
|
|
a big head of steam. By this time the other kids knew something was
|
|
up and we let them in on the joke, so now we have about 30 people
|
|
helping in our cause.
|
|
Anyway, on the day of the crime we went to the school's
|
|
dressing room and, since we were both active in the drama club, no one
|
|
asked what we were there for. So, I get ready for the fun by making
|
|
myself a nice layer of plasti-skin and filled it with stage blood.
|
|
Danny, my friend, obtained the services of a prop knife, you know one
|
|
of the ones that retract and we tested the depth of the cut with the
|
|
thickness of the skin, it was right, so now we are set.
|
|
We walk into class seperated by about a minute and we start
|
|
right where we had left off, teh name calling, the pushing and all the
|
|
other aspects of high schoolers that don't like each other. So Danny
|
|
pulls the knife out of his pocket and yells, "That's it Ray, you're
|
|
dead." So he swings at my neck and the knife cuts the plasti-skin and
|
|
the stage blood goes everywhere, I crumple in a gurgling heap and lay
|
|
prone under the table of trash80's. Mr. Waddington comes up and sees
|
|
Danny standing over me with a blood covered knife and sees me
|
|
apparently dead starts to roll me over. I flop over like any good
|
|
corpse and he dabs at the blood now covering my neck and says the line
|
|
I was waiting for, "My God you killed him!" At that moment, I opened
|
|
my eyes and asked him what he was doing. I have heard of peoples
|
|
faces going white and now I saw it.
|
|
After he relised what we had done, he congradulated us on a
|
|
job well done.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
Where I used to work, one of the group leaders used to have a
|
|
Playboy calender. One of the young ladies who objected to the posting
|
|
did a mastectomy & placed the paper in the phone between the pickup
|
|
and the connection. The phone seemed to be complete, but did not work.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
One prank I haven't seen listed yet is the one I used to do at summer
|
|
camp and the college dorm. Take the top off the toilet tank. Inside,
|
|
there is usually a vertical plastic pipe about 1 inch in diameter.
|
|
Going into the top of this pipe is a little plastic tube. Turn the
|
|
tube outward and, if it is long enough, then put it toward the toilet
|
|
bowl with the end just sticking out. Replace the tank cover, making
|
|
sure that the little plastic tube is just sticking out. When someone
|
|
flushes, the tube will squirt water.
|
|
|
|
One time in Colorado I did this at 3:00am. The guy that got caught
|
|
must have flushed with his elbow while still seated. His back was
|
|
sprayed with ice cold water. His language was abominable, and made
|
|
funnier since this was a Christian camp. Oh well, we're all human.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
These are computer-related practical jokes played by an old
|
|
acquaintence years ago at a nameless university in Northern
|
|
California. He wisened up and stopped playing them when the
|
|
various administrations of the computer centers found out who
|
|
it was. Sometimes I simply could not believe that he would do
|
|
things like this.
|
|
|
|
The first one was probably the worst. The undergraduate computer
|
|
center was being connected to a large terminal lab across campus via
|
|
a long line across campus. This had taken the technical folks who
|
|
worked at the computer center months of planning, pulling cables,
|
|
attaching lines, reconfiguring the system, and so forth.
|
|
|
|
It was at about this time that Jack (not his real name), wrote a
|
|
program called "GARB" (short for "Garbage") This program sat in the
|
|
background running at low priority. It would choose a random interval,
|
|
sometimes seconds, sometimes minutes, sleep for that interval, and
|
|
then wakeup. At that point, it would choose a random ASCII character
|
|
and then choose a random terminal on that computer and send the character
|
|
to the terminal. Then it would loop back into its sleep mode until the
|
|
next time it woke up.
|
|
|
|
The administration and technical people spent weeks wondering why
|
|
their attempts at connecting cross-campus cables were causing spurious
|
|
data across existing lines, as well as the lines that had been connected.
|
|
They had people out there with the elaborate technical equipment trying
|
|
to trace down the source of the "noise" that was polluting the terminal
|
|
lines with stray characters.
|
|
|
|
Quite a while later, they did indeed discover the problem and confronted
|
|
Jack. I'm not sure what happened after that.
|
|
|
|
Another thing Jack did, before that, was write a program called "GOD".
|
|
It would patch the running monitor and actually insert a jump into the
|
|
code that performed the logout-job function within the monitor. The
|
|
jump simply took control of the monitor to a patch-area elsewhere
|
|
within memory where a simple comparison took place to see if the
|
|
logout being requested was of any jobs belonging to Jack. If so, it
|
|
simply did a no-op, with an appropriate return-condition indicating
|
|
success (so that the calling program which initiated the system call
|
|
would not know the job had not been logged out). This program, "GOD"
|
|
most came in handy to Jack during the wee morning hours when few
|
|
people used the system but the proverbial "wheel wars" occurred, in
|
|
which enabled superusers with privileges attempted to conquer each other
|
|
in various ways.
|
|
|
|
Needless to say, none of the above behavior is tolerated by the
|
|
administration any more, with good reason.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
Propose to the victim a co-ordination test, and tell him that it has been
|
|
taken by the brightest people around you (quote some scores!). You sit in
|
|
front of the victim and put your palms about twelve inches apart. The victims
|
|
task is very simple. With eyes closed, his palms clasped together, he should
|
|
cautiously take his palms between your palms, remove them, and repeat the
|
|
process. Of course he must not touch your palms otherwise he "looses". Each
|
|
cycle counts as one point and "any average person can get 100 points". As I
|
|
said, tell him the scores of some other people you know.
|
|
|
|
Let him paractice a little with his eyes open. Then blindfold him (to avoid
|
|
the "natural" temptation of cheating) and say START. After a while leave. it
|
|
is a hilarious sight to see a person rock his clasped palms back annd forth
|
|
for no obvious reason.
|
|
|
|
Be sure to invite many of your friends to witness this sight. You will find
|
|
that this co-ordination test really sounds sincere, and many innocent people
|
|
who listen to you explaining to the chosen victim, actually volunteer to take
|
|
the test before the victim. This gives you a choice of victims to choose from.
|
|
|
|
OK, OK... I insisted on taking this test too and made a fool of myself !!
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
1. This one happened impromptu. A group of us were novice UNIX hacks working
|
|
for our department of computer science, all on similar terminals. I had
|
|
written a small program that would transmit a single character at a time to
|
|
another terminal. (No big deal, but no one else had tried it.) One guy was
|
|
typing away, and I was making his cursor "wiggle" by pressing the forward and
|
|
reverse arrow keys. He exclaimed that something was wrong with his cursor.
|
|
Another guy picked up on this, and explained that the cursor beam must be loose.
|
|
He gave the right side of the first guy's (John's) terminal a good hard whack,
|
|
I transmitted a carriage return. John laughed, but actually sat there typing
|
|
in (some text), and whacking the side of the terminal every time he needed a
|
|
carriage return, FOR SEVERAL MINUTES. Needless to say, we were hysterical.
|
|
|
|
The second guy, (Tim), says "John, watch this!" and put his hand under John's
|
|
desk and gave the underside of the desk another whack: I transmitted a "HOME"
|
|
character, moving the cursor to the top of the screen, again as if the whack
|
|
had moved the cursor. John continues typing, whacking the bottom and side of
|
|
the terminal whenever he needs cursor motion. Tim smacks the top of the
|
|
terminal and I transmit a CLEAR key: it looked as if the characters have been
|
|
"knocked off" the screen. John is just about the get the lab manager when
|
|
we clue him in.
|
|
|
|
2. I once had a job as a COBOL programmer. A particular program was to
|
|
input no more than 20 items from an operator, and them produce the appropriate
|
|
report from them. I asked my boss what the program should do if the
|
|
operator wanted more than 20 items to appear in the report. He said, oh,
|
|
that will never happen. But what if it does, I asked. Gruffly, he said,
|
|
have it notify the operator.
|
|
|
|
This particular machine had a seriously loud bell (control G) that sounded
|
|
like a real bell, plus it was fairly easy to make the screen flash off and on.
|
|
I coded it to flash and ring the alarm for a minute. I tried it once and
|
|
it was truly alarming. I never heard if anybody tried to enter more than
|
|
twenty items, but it is something I think about from time to time ...
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
on the subject of practical jokes on the computer, i pulled the following
|
|
one. when i was in college at new mexico tech (located in socorro, which
|
|
is spanish for help!), i was a programmer for several departments. as a
|
|
result, i was setting up some user interfaces. the machine was a dec 20
|
|
(with tops20) and there was a central terminal room with about thirty adm 3s
|
|
(now, there is a terminal) in it. anyway, when this 20 went down in a
|
|
controled manner it would send out a warning "dec 20 going down", then
|
|
three dots at one second intervals, then a "p", then go down. when it came
|
|
up, it would send out a message "dec 20 coming up", then three dots at
|
|
one second intervals, then a "p", then the login header. anyway, the
|
|
victum sat down to use a statistical package (it is so much fun to play with
|
|
people whose use canned stat packages). after he had been on for ten
|
|
minutes, he received the dec 20 going down sequence and then his terminal
|
|
went dead. so he waited (about five minutes). however, all during this
|
|
time, everyone around him was typing away merrily. finally he asked if
|
|
the system had gone down. everyone said no. then he asked the operator.
|
|
again no. then the system manager. he finally brought back the user
|
|
servant (someone paid to answer user's questions) back to the terminal.
|
|
they played with the switches, then the user servant scratched his head
|
|
and said "beats me". about this time, the message "dec system 20
|
|
reengaged" appeared on his terminal, then the three dots, then the "p",
|
|
then the message "automatic login in effect, status at crash resumed"
|
|
and he was right where he left off! the program that caused this then
|
|
deleted (and expunged) itself. to this day, i don't think he knows what
|
|
happened to him.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
Another practical joke under the guise of a co-ordination test is the
|
|
following. Ask your victim to take a quarter and place it on a piece of
|
|
paper. Then ask him to take a pencil, and without removing his finger off
|
|
the quarter, to draw a circle around the quarter. Have him repeat the same
|
|
exercise with each of his fingers pressing on top of the quarter. Afterwards,
|
|
have him pick up the quarter and rub it along the bridge of his nose. It'll
|
|
then be really funny to watch him walk around with a black line on his face.
|
|
|
|
I also have heard of a practical joke that can be done to a person while
|
|
he/she is sleeping. If the person's hand is dipped in warm water, this
|
|
causes a subconscious relaxation of the bladder and causes the person to
|
|
wet his/her bed. I have never tried this, nor have I seen it tried, but I've
|
|
heard it from quite a few people. Has anyone out there ever tried it?
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
This is true. It seems that a colleague and myself are scheduled to
|
|
present a paper next month at an AI conference. We've never heard of
|
|
the conference nor did we write a paper.
|
|
|
|
Also, just today I got a letter that begins "Thank you for agreeing to
|
|
serve as chairperson of the following session at ICASSP-87 in Dallas,
|
|
texas." I've never met nor spoke to the person sending the letter nor
|
|
did I agree to be a chairperson. Either someone is setting me (us) up
|
|
or this is a sneaky way to get volunteers.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
A computer related practical joke a played in my younger days
|
|
(2 years ago...) was to write an unstoppable program (disabled
|
|
break, ^C, etc...) that would imitate the login procedure. I
|
|
would leave it running on a public terminal and whenever
|
|
somebody tried to logon, it would always print the message
|
|
'User validation error' (Or whatever message corresponding
|
|
to the operating system [that was VAX/VMS.] login error)
|
|
and loop back.
|
|
|
|
Meanwhile, the user ID and the password were written in a file
|
|
in my directory...
|
|
|
|
The only way to get out of the program was to turn off the
|
|
gandalf box.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
--
|
|
David <"I really was just a Theater Arts major, honest!"> Vangerov
|
|
Disclaimer: These are my opinions, all mine!!! Not SCO's, got that?
|
|
Sysmom of the night: keeping the system safe for the everyday user.
|
|
E-mail: davidv@sco.COM || ...!uunet!sco!davidv || ...!attctc!sco!davidv
|
|
|
|
From davidv@sco.COM Sat Dec 2 09:53:28 1989
|
|
From: davidv@sco.COM (David Vangerov)
|
|
Subject: Super Collection of Practical Jokes (part 2 of 4)
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
Back in the good old college days, when pulling all-nighters (sure, you must
|
|
have done some of those before!), at about 2 or 3am, try calling someone to
|
|
"remind" them to go to the bathroom (or do something). Wait for half-an-hour
|
|
or so, call again just to make sure s/he did what you asked them to do earlier!
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
When I was out at Union College in Schenectady N.Y, we had a great college
|
|
radio station that would give away pizzas, movie passes, clothes, etc. for
|
|
answering trivia questions throughout the day. One day, my friend and I
|
|
recorded a trivia question on our tape deck and kept the tape in the deck.
|
|
A little later one of our good friends came over to visit and we were all
|
|
listening to the campus station. As soon as one of the songs ended, we turned
|
|
on the tape with out our friend noticeing and the D.J asked a trivia question
|
|
for a large pizza. Our friend knew the answer and since he was closed to the
|
|
phone, he immediatly picked it up and dialed the station. He was really excited
|
|
that he got through and started yelling the answer at the mystified D.J. He was
|
|
incredibly embarrased, we were trying so hard not to laugh it hurt.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
DEC 20 practical jokes were rampant at an undergraduate computer center
|
|
I once frequented. One practical joker, call him Jack (yes, the same
|
|
Jack mentioned in an earlier message on this list), wrote a program
|
|
that was really rather nasty.
|
|
|
|
This program maintained two tables or arrays of strings. The strings
|
|
would be things like:
|
|
|
|
[FROM TTY NN: HI SWEETIE, JUST CAUGHT YOU LOOKING AT ME]
|
|
or
|
|
[FROM TTY NN: HEY YOU GORGEOUS HUNK, COME OVER AND MEET ME]
|
|
|
|
The program would cycle through the system sending out these messages
|
|
occasionally to a random terminal, insuring that the terminal mentioned
|
|
in the terminal messages above would have an actual logged-in job.
|
|
The person who received the message would either be a) annoyed b)
|
|
flattered and want to meet their admirer or c) angry.
|
|
|
|
I heard that many meetings of users resulted from this program.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
Some friends of mine in high school used to turn in assignments from the old
|
|
IBM /370 with start of execution at 07:58:00 Dec 7 1941 (apologies about the
|
|
time if in error, but history is not my forte).
|
|
|
|
|
|
************ < This batch entered 2/2/87 (or so...) >
|
|
|
|
The hardest to do/forget practical joke that I know is a variation on
|
|
the theme of dismantling something large and then reassembling it in
|
|
someone's office/apartment/dorm room.
|
|
|
|
Locally there was a VP who was a Volkswagen Beetle Fan, so for his
|
|
birthday, some of the people who work for him stuck one in his office.
|
|
It made the newspaper when the refused to take it apart.
|
|
|
|
*************
|
|
|
|
Allow me to be the first to recommend an excellent book of *really*
|
|
nasty revenge getters. It's called "Getting Even: the complete book
|
|
of Dirty Tricks" (in 2 volumes, I believe) Unfortunately, I don't
|
|
have my copy here, so I can't give the author's name, but I think
|
|
it (they?) was published by Paladin Press.
|
|
|
|
It contains real gems for all occasions. (mad at the landlord that
|
|
evicted you? seal the apartment after introducing 10-15 cats and
|
|
plenty of food/water)
|
|
|
|
Warning: most of these dirty tricks are *really* nasty, don't use
|
|
these on people you might have to deal with in the future.
|
|
|
|
*************
|
|
|
|
In 1972 I was working at a very boring job in an aerospace factory.
|
|
There were three guys my age (early 20's) in the department and we
|
|
werw always playing what we saw as a joke on some poor unsuspecting
|
|
soul. I was also in the Navy Reserve at the time and had to take
|
|
two weeks off during the Summer to due my training. When I returned
|
|
>from two weeks off, not yet bored enough yet to begin playing more
|
|
jokes, the other three guys went off their heads pulling any kind of
|
|
trivial, dangerous or otherwise obnoxious stunt they could think of.
|
|
At the end of the second day the supervisor called me into the office
|
|
and said:
|
|
|
|
"Jones, I don't know what's the matter with you but you better knock
|
|
it off. I've had two weeks of peace and quiet while you were gone
|
|
and now that you're back all hell's breaking loose. You go on back
|
|
out there and stop bothering people."
|
|
|
|
I knew that I hadn't done anything but I didn't bother to protest.
|
|
I could recognize a well executed joke when I saw one.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
A great trick I have gotten away with many a time requires a little
|
|
preparation, simply to go to the grocery and get a few packages of Kool-Aid.
|
|
Then while your 'prey' is away, simply spread it nice and liberally into his
|
|
bed, best if done in stripes, to leave his body in different colors. This
|
|
works best in a warm room where he is sure to sweat during the night to the
|
|
utmost.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
If you have access to a two(or more) line phone, this is a great one,
|
|
dial the first six numbers of your prey's phone number, and put that line on
|
|
hold, then dial the other number; a pizza place, or his girlfriend is good for
|
|
starters, then escalate to college offices, activist terrorist organizations
|
|
and the CIA are good from then on. After you dial the second number, quickly
|
|
put the second number on hold, then dial the last number of the first number
|
|
and push BOTH buttons down at the same time to activate both calls at once,
|
|
then listen, but don't laugh, or they might hear you and do worse in return.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
Try taping a drunk to his bed. Get a large roll of masking tape and
|
|
when he passes out wind it around him and the bed.
|
|
|
|
Another good one to do with a drunk is to put one of those fake bald
|
|
heads over his hair. Then when he wakes up ask him if he knows what
|
|
he did last night.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
I am far too Nice a person to ever have done these, but a friend of mine...:
|
|
1. Leave old trash paperbacks around launderettes and other public places.
|
|
Write inside the front cover: Property of <Victim>. I need this book
|
|
for my thesis. If found, please return to <address> for $10.00 reward.
|
|
2. Post ads around town for a garage sale (or open house) at Victim's house
|
|
starting at 7:00 AM next Sunday.
|
|
3. Call lots of people and identify yourself as the victim, and say "I was
|
|
walking throught the neighborhood recently and just realized I dropped
|
|
my wallet. Could you please check the sidewalk in front of your house
|
|
and let me know if you find it? Thanks *so* much. My phone number is...
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
How about some chocolate Ex-lax in brownies.
|
|
|
|
Or maybe some ambesol in the mouthwash.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
The best practical joke I know of is from MASH. However, you need a reputation
|
|
as an incorrigable joker for it to work. Just let the person know you are
|
|
going to play a big one on him within 5 days. (Pick your time frame.) And
|
|
that he will be powerless to stop you. If you do it right, he'll worry himself
|
|
to pieces and make a fool of himself. Then DO NOTHING.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
Go to one of those miniature golf courses that has a windmill hole.
|
|
Replace the motor with one that can spin the windmill at about 1000 RPM.
|
|
Then illuminate it with a strobe light so it looks like its moving at
|
|
about the same speed as before.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
How `bout those relatives that seem to stay longer than expected....
|
|
|
|
If you had someone staying at your house, especially if they're traveling
|
|
with small children, help them pack up the car. Slip some limburger (sp?)
|
|
cheese into their car somewhere where it'll slowly get warm. You can
|
|
imagine the consternation when they pull to a rest stop to change junior's
|
|
diapers and find nothing there. Or the line, "Did you hit a skunk or ...?"
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
1) Get a piece of plastic as long as the victims bed and a little over
|
|
twice as wide. Remove his mattress from his bed frame and line the frame
|
|
with the plastic. Tape the plastic to the bed if necessary. Fill with water
|
|
(a hose connected to the tub is helpful). Fold the rest of the plastic
|
|
over the water, and make the bed. (Done to my roommate by mutual friend.)
|
|
|
|
2) If your victim has a roommate, switch all their possesions. Or, turn
|
|
all the posters upside down and hang the furniture from the ceiling. (Both
|
|
done to me.)
|
|
|
|
3) If your victim _is_ your roommate, switch the material in your waste
|
|
baskets and pull his bed away from the wall a quarter of an inch
|
|
every day.
|
|
|
|
4) Wait till your victim is away for a weekend. Dip everything plastic
|
|
(pens, phones, etc.) in liquid nitrogen, break it, and stick it together
|
|
again. Everything plastic will break when he picks it up.
|
|
|
|
5) Polish the floor and stick teflon to the legs of select items of
|
|
furniture. (The polished floor is a bit of a giveaway, but teflon isn't
|
|
dramatically slick if there's much grime.)
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
Maybe a bit on the "im"-practical side but if REVENGE is what you
|
|
want...
|
|
|
|
I s'pose the keyword (superglue) says it all. The places I've like to hit
|
|
are the person's car - namely the dust caps on the tire valve stems,
|
|
the gas cap, and the windshield wipers. Pretty nasty, ain't I?
|
|
|
|
Then there's always putting a paper bag of sh_t on the person's front
|
|
step, setting it on fire, knocking on the door, and running like h_ll.
|
|
The victim will come to the door, see the fire, and will usually try
|
|
to stomp it out with his foot.
|
|
|
|
I'll be the first that these are rather terrible and childish but...
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
This was done to me when I was in college and living in a fraternity house;
|
|
Take someone's door and hide it for a while. You would really be surprised
|
|
how often you want to close the dang thing and it's not there to do it!
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
A recent favourite in our residence has involved
|
|
the kidnapping of some small beloved object (teddy bear,
|
|
harp seal, stuffed banana, etc.). Once this object has
|
|
disappeared and before its owner has noticed it's gone,
|
|
suspend it from a window in the dining hall, tv lounge,
|
|
physics building,... If small animals don't work for you,
|
|
perhaps mens undergarments stolen from the laundry might?
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
I think I have one of these books. It is by George Heyduke (Hayduke?). When
|
|
I read it, I was practically overcome with mirth. Some of the things he sug-
|
|
gests are hilarious! It says right in the book that it is written for enter-
|
|
tainment purposes only, and not to try any of the ideas, so I guess he has his
|
|
behind covered. Some of the better ideas that I remember are:
|
|
|
|
1. "Time bombs." This is the phrase he uses to describe chicken parts.
|
|
Easily gotten at any supermarket, they are innocent little items that
|
|
can be carried almost anywhere (in a baggie, if neccessary). But when
|
|
stashed in an out-of-the-way place, like under furniture cushions in the
|
|
house or under car seats or in the trunk in a car, and given a little
|
|
time, YOW! Watch out for the smell! Gotten ripped off by a used-car
|
|
dealer? Wait awhile, then take some test drives in some other cars.
|
|
With a few strategically placed "bombs" in a car with the windows closed
|
|
in the hot sun.... use your imagination. Getting evicted? Remove some
|
|
outlet covers or switch covers and stuff some of these babies down inside
|
|
the wall. They'll be impossible to find, and won't start to smell until
|
|
after you're long gone.
|
|
|
|
2. Parties. Parties are great fun to plan, especially if you plan them for
|
|
someone else to host (as a surprise). Print up a few flyers for a party
|
|
at your victim's house and distribute them where undesirables will be
|
|
sure to see them. For example, you might put up flyers around biker bars
|
|
advertising "all the beer you can drink", and "crowning of Miss Biker", or
|
|
something equivalent. Even if the reluctant host doesn't let them in his
|
|
house when the horde shows up, he will still wind up with a party on his
|
|
lawn. Of course, if you're his neighbor this gives you a good reason to
|
|
complain to the cops or to his landlord, etc.
|
|
|
|
3. Set your victim against a third party, or against another victim. Let
|
|
other people do your dirty work for you. Here's an example: Call up
|
|
the electric or gas company and impersonate your victim. Request that
|
|
service be terminated for a week or two (going on vacation, or whatever).
|
|
As soon as that happens, call your victim. Impersonate an officer of the
|
|
gas/electric company, and be very nasty and abusive, saying that service
|
|
has been discontinued because of non-payment of bills. This should rile up
|
|
your victim, asasuming that he HAS paid his bill and knows it. At any rate,
|
|
tell him he must come down to the office immediately to discuss the problem
|
|
or you will send the police to his house to collect, or something like that.
|
|
Then, once you have him mad, and know he is going to the gas/electric
|
|
company, call up that company. Impersonate your victim. Be very nasty,
|
|
and try to get into an argument with a supervisor. Wind up the conver-
|
|
sation by saying that you are coming down there right now with a gun, and
|
|
you are going to kill somebody. Then hang up.
|
|
|
|
Or, if you call enough times so that people associate your voice with his
|
|
name, you could call back some time after the argument and make a bomb
|
|
threat. They would recognize the voice as being 'him', and knowing that
|
|
he was disgruntled would make him a prime suspect.
|
|
|
|
4. Buy a cheap toy gun. Plant it in your victim's car. Then call the police
|
|
and anonomously report that you saw a suspicious armed person in the area,
|
|
and give the vehicle's description and location. A variation of this would
|
|
be to plant baggies full of phony drugs. He probably won't be arrested,
|
|
but he will probably be stopped and harrassed.
|
|
|
|
5. Enter subscriptions in his name to the most filthy homo/bondage/snuff
|
|
magazines you can find, and change his address by one so his NEIGHBOR
|
|
receives them. His neighbors will not only be disgusted by his perver-
|
|
sions, they will also be irritated by the fact that he is too dumb to
|
|
even get his address right on a subscription.
|
|
|
|
6. If you can get one of his credit cards, or even a charge receipt or
|
|
carbon copy of one, use the account to order gifts through the mail.
|
|
Order gifts for REAL friends and relatives of the victim, and have
|
|
them delivered directly to the recipient. It puts him in an embarras-
|
|
sing position to have to explain to his family and friends how his
|
|
gift to them must be returned. Also, can you imagine the guy trying
|
|
to convince the bank that HE did not make the purchases? Don't use his
|
|
charge accounts for your own benefit, or you will very likely be caught.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
Another joke which one can easily perpetrate goes like this:
|
|
|
|
Fill a plastic, or rubber, tube with water. Hold the tube
|
|
vertically up into the air and with the thumb of one hand
|
|
plug up the bottom hole of the tube and place it next to
|
|
your ear (hide the fact that you are plugging the hole).
|
|
|
|
Next, call a friend, or victim, and tell him that you are
|
|
hearing something really strange through the tube and he
|
|
should come over and listen in on it. When he gets close
|
|
enough to your ear to listen turn the tube towards his ear
|
|
and release your thumb.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
My favorite was to place a singles' advertisment for the victim.
|
|
I'll leave it to you to think of what to say, but my favorite was
|
|
(for a heterosexual person) to place an ad looking for someone of the
|
|
same sex.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
I believe this is from "The Complete Book of Dirty Tricks."
|
|
|
|
First, go to the library and find some phone books for large cities.
|
|
In one of the phone books you should be able to find a person who has
|
|
the same name as the target. Then go down to the post office and file
|
|
a change of address for the target, forwarding his mail to himself in
|
|
a far away city.
|
|
|
|
If I remember correctly the book states that this is very illegal and
|
|
is only included for amusement.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
> Enter subscriptions in his name to the most filthy homo/bondage/snuff
|
|
> magazines you can find, and change his address by one so his NEIGHBOR
|
|
> receives them. His neighbors will not only be disgusted by his perver-
|
|
> sions, they will also be irritated by the fact that he is too dumb to
|
|
> even get his address right on a subscription.
|
|
|
|
An ex-brother-in-law of mine did something like this for revenge on a
|
|
downstairs neighbor. He put a very kinky ad in the Berkeley Barb, which
|
|
included said neighbor's phone number -- "call any time".
|
|
|
|
Another person I know told me he once ordered some phony business stationary,
|
|
and used it to place an order for a 70,000 pound steel coil to be delivered
|
|
to this person's (a high school teacher) address. The coil showed up
|
|
and got dumped on the front lawn.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
One of the best ones I heard, was to do the following:
|
|
|
|
During winter time in any part of the country where it gets really
|
|
cold, take your victims mattress, soak in water until it has reached
|
|
it's saturation level, then hang it outside until it freezes solid.
|
|
Once solid, replace on the victim's bed and make the bed up to look
|
|
like normal. Boy will they be surprised when they go to bed.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
Next time when you are having dinner, keep an empty jug of water on the table.
|
|
When somebody asks you to pass the jug, pretend while picking it up that it is
|
|
full of water and heavy. Keep the jug on the table near the victim. The
|
|
victim will apply what he/she considers is appropriate strength needed to pick
|
|
up the jug. This will cause the jug to jerk up to a significant height. The
|
|
sight is very funny and so is the victim's face.
|
|
|
|
Must try to believe. Even the most prude of your aunts will not mind being a
|
|
victim of this joke.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
AH yes.. ye ole highschool days.... (seems everyone knows of or has done a
|
|
VW bug stunt already). We also had a rather unliked teacher, whose VW was
|
|
carried up onto the gymnasium stage on the last day of school. Needless to
|
|
say, every year after that he arrived on the last day of school driving
|
|
the cab of his brother's semi.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
This is more of a practical joke WITH a Beetle . . . . MIT has some very wide,
|
|
very long corridors that turn out to be VW-accessible. One night a guy I knew
|
|
started cruising the corridors. The practical joke came when the campus police
|
|
started chasing him. He whipped around a corner, into a freight elevator, and
|
|
away. They never found him.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
My favourite practical joke involves on of those long line-ups
|
|
for tickets to a concert or something. First you go to the front
|
|
of the line and then walk the entire length, looking over everyone
|
|
as if you were trying to find a friend. When you get to the back you
|
|
walk back to the front doing the same thing, but this time even
|
|
slower. Then when you reach the front you turn and quickly run
|
|
to the back again, machine-gunning everybody as you go. Then you
|
|
go up to the ticket office and say "Get it?" This is a classic
|
|
joke and as you can see it is also quite practical, since it gets
|
|
you to the front of the line very fast.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
If you live in a dorm with tiles on the bathroom door, pour rubbing alcohol
|
|
in the cracks, wait for your victim to go into the bathroom and seat
|
|
himself, and light the alcohol.
|
|
|
|
If you can get into your victim's house, staple the sides of many paper
|
|
cups together so that they are in a ring or matrix configuration (anything
|
|
too large to drag out the door), and fill them all with water.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
A friend who lived in Durham sent a postcard to his girlfriend in Milwaukee
|
|
that said "Here is a check for the twenty dollars I owe you." and had a
|
|
blank spot and a piece of tape on it.
|
|
|
|
Six letters came to him from Milwaukee, some with photos, none from people
|
|
he knew, and all expressing interest in a personal to which they alluded.
|
|
One was from a male. He assumed that his girlfriend had placed a personal
|
|
with his address in the paper there; she had just enlisted help in letter-
|
|
writing.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
One good practical joke that I've seen done to somebody:
|
|
|
|
1) Take an old record album cover.
|
|
|
|
2) Fill the insides with shaving cream.
|
|
|
|
3) Place it halfway under a locked door to the victim's office, home, room,
|
|
etc. with the open end inside the room.
|
|
|
|
4) Jump on it.
|
|
|
|
Another, if you can get access to the victim's key chain is to switch all
|
|
his keys for keys that look exactly the same, but don't fit the locks he's
|
|
trying to open. If you can be around for this one, it's much more fun to
|
|
watch the person go crazy as he cannot open anything he owns.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
This reminds me of something a friend of mine did to get
|
|
even with a landlord that evicted him. There was a hole
|
|
in one of his walls so he put a couple of dead fish in
|
|
in the hole. He then plastered over the hole and repainted
|
|
the wall. Can you imagine the smell after a month of summer
|
|
heat? Nobody could tell where the odor would be coming from
|
|
until the bottom of the wall would start to rot. He did some
|
|
other things to the house but this was by far the most
|
|
subtle and undetectable until some time later.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
One of my favorite practical jokes is to get a somewhat long
|
|
spool of rope, and when walking down the street ( acting official..),
|
|
get someone to assist you in measuring a distance. Pick a spot near
|
|
a corner , go around, and find another person to hold the other end of
|
|
the rope. Go across the street and just wait...
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
Ask somebody what time it is when he/she is holding
|
|
a glass of fluid in the hand attached to the wrist where he/she wears
|
|
a watch. You'll be surprised how many people pour fluid onto themselves
|
|
trying to be helpful to you.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
Buy a BIG pile of magazines of every conceivable sort, and clip every
|
|
coupon for a catalog, trial product, free brochure, etc. Specialty
|
|
magazines have the most, such as hobbies or sports (or computers).
|
|
Your victim should be deluged with junk mail (and since most such
|
|
lists get sold to other lists, the response will be a geometric
|
|
function of the number of clips you send).
|
|
|
|
A friend of mine and I once almost started a junkmail war, but formed
|
|
a truce before, because we knew it would follow us around for years...
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
It should be noted by people wishing to play practical jokes, that
|
|
some people take them dead seriously. Such people tend to escalate
|
|
the level of jokes by a couple of magnitudes. My three favorite stories
|
|
are from different colleges.
|
|
|
|
One joker sprinkled finely ground powdered milk underneath his
|
|
victim's sheets. It acts like powdered sugar in the sense that, as you
|
|
sweat in your sleep, it dissolves and comes up through the sheets onto
|
|
your body and into your pores. But your sweat makes it sour, and when it
|
|
gets into your pores, it stays there. You smell very strongly of sour
|
|
milk for about a week (4 days if you shower and sauna every day). The
|
|
next weekend, when the joker was walking back from a party, three guys
|
|
jumped him. They were dressed in ski masks and painter's suits (those
|
|
light paper/cloth jumpsuits that people wear to paint autobodies). They
|
|
stripped, tied, blindfolded and gagged the joker, and spraypainted
|
|
him blue. No one was ever caught.
|
|
|
|
In another case, a yuppy practical joker taped a guy's car closed with
|
|
strapping and duct tape (the thing apparently looked like a ball of tape
|
|
when he got through). For those of you that don't know, the adhesive on
|
|
such tapes ruins a car's paint job, and can, if you try to remove it en masse,
|
|
even take off chips of paint and door guards (especially in winter). Two days
|
|
later, the yuppie's BMW was found with all four of its racing radials slashed
|
|
to ribbons. The yuppy of course, called the police on the guy who's car he
|
|
taped. The guy did not admit to slashing the tires, as opposed to the yuppie,
|
|
who told the police why he thought the other guy was responsible (ie: he
|
|
admitted to the police that he taped the other car). Charges were never
|
|
pressed about the BMW (lack of evidence), and charges were pressed about the
|
|
car taping. Did the guy actually slash the BMW wheels? He always claimed
|
|
that he didn't (of course the last time I knew, the statute of limitations
|
|
wasn't up yet).
|
|
|
|
Then of course there's the people who take the direct route to revenge.
|
|
Some guy thought he would make a very large, easy going, farm boy feel more
|
|
at home. So he got some fresh pig manure and dumped it in the farm boy's room.
|
|
The very large farm boy, apparently lacking a cultured sense of humor,
|
|
beat the living shit out of the joker. Then he told the joker that if it
|
|
happened again, the joker would eat the pigshit. Nobody doubted him.
|
|
|
|
So be very careful who you decide to pull a practical joke on, because they
|
|
may not think it's as funny as you do.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
Call a mortuary and report the victim dead. Arrange to have his body picked up
|
|
at his house sometime when he is at home.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
One of my favorites is to put a couple of ping pong
|
|
balls in someones gas tank. The car will start just
|
|
fine and will run for a couple of blocks. Then the
|
|
balls will get sucked into the gas feed and cause
|
|
the car to die. The balls will now float back to the
|
|
top of the tank and he will be able to restart the car.
|
|
This will be very frustrating to the car owner, espiality
|
|
if he works on his own car. First he will replace the
|
|
fuel filter then maybe the fuel pump. From there on out
|
|
he will be pulling his hair out to figure out what to do
|
|
next.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
Another door-related practical joke, good in dorm-life scenarios:
|
|
|
|
1. Locate undesirable LP record w/ jacket. I recommend "Mystic Moods".
|
|
2. Fetch cardboard jacket-- should be in good condition, no split sides
|
|
or the such. (Save disc for frisbee-- they shatter in fine fashion when
|
|
hurled in a room. But I digress.)
|
|
3. Fetch can of shaving cream, e.g. Gillette Foamy or the like. Fill
|
|
album cover with shaving cream.
|
|
4. With accomplice, go to room of victim. Their door should be closed.
|
|
5. Fit open edge of cream-filled album cover under bottom of door.
|
|
6. Accomplice braces album cover.
|
|
7. Jump on album cover, ejecting shaving cream into dorm room.
|
|
8. Run like hell.
|
|
|
|
Note that if the intended victim's door fits the frame very tightly,
|
|
leaving little or no room for the escape of the shaving cream, step
|
|
number 7 will instead result in a shaving cream explosion in the
|
|
faces of the would-be jokers. This suggests an obvious alternate
|
|
"patsy" scenario...
|
|
|
|
This was funny when tried. Of course, most things are funny at 4 AM.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
My favourite was one I heard that someone at Boston University did to his
|
|
roomate, who he hated. Late one night, while the roomate, a very sound
|
|
sleeper, was asleep, this chap superglued his...er...male organ...to the
|
|
inside of his leg.
|
|
|
|
The roomate must have been a sound sleeper.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
I guess I am too restrained to perpetrade anything that might get
|
|
the victim shot by the cops, or committ credit card fraud in
|
|
the process.
|
|
But...
|
|
My favorite was always the Saran wrap on toilet bowl one.
|
|
Second prize goes to the chubby girl eons ago in high school.
|
|
A single teacher had made out of line remarks *during class* about
|
|
her size. She got him a paid subscription to a raunchy skin-mag
|
|
*delivered to the school*. He got called on the carpet but good,
|
|
and the Superintendent would not believe his protests of innocence..
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
Okay!! Here's one I haven't seen:
|
|
|
|
Get a list on the free classified throwaways in town
|
|
and print the following:
|
|
|
|
RED 86 Vette: Won on game show, must sell, leaving
|
|
country. Steal!! First reasonable offer takes...
|
|
Call <Victims #> after 1 am (I work nights) and let it
|
|
ring. Desperate, please hurry...
|
|
|
|
This should bring the desired results for at least a
|
|
week...
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
We once pulled the reverse trick. The victim's room had a door whose latch
|
|
was of the pattern: handle each side; latch mechanism in middle; square rod
|
|
passes through latch mechanism and seats in handles (invisible from outside).
|
|
We removed the outer handle, took away the rod, and replaced the handle. In
|
|
the morning, he couldn't get out of his room. Took the maintenance person
|
|
TWO HOURS to figure out what we had done; by which time the victim rather
|
|
badly wanted a trip down the corridor!
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
To be done in warmer climates: break apart oreo cookies so that
|
|
white, creamy filling sticks to 1/2 of cookie (the way most kids
|
|
eat them). Discard or eat other 1/2 of cookie without filling.
|
|
Place cookies (filling side down) on victim's car -- this should
|
|
take several bags of cookies. When the warm sun hits the victim's
|
|
car, the cookies ooooooooozzzzzzzzzzzzzzeee down the car, leaving
|
|
opaque stripes. Really quite a sight! Really!
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
We did something like this, the night before a friend got married.
|
|
To keep him from waking up, we covered his face with a rag soaked
|
|
in ether or chloroform (I'm not sure). We proceeded to shave off
|
|
*half* his mustache.
|
|
|
|
His intended was slightly disturbed when she heard the news the next
|
|
morning, so she decided to get us back. While we were in the ceremony,
|
|
she had someone sew up the pants legs to our clothes.
|
|
|
|
We got the last laugh though. As the newlyweds were getting into
|
|
the car, we pulled up in a truck, kidnapped the groom, and drove away.
|
|
We took him a few miles out of town, stripped him, and hand-cuffed
|
|
him to a road sign. Taught her.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
At one of the dorms here (Techwood) I remember when lots of practical jokes
|
|
were played on people. Of course there was the 'penny in the door frame' to
|
|
'penny' them in (keep the door from opening). But i always liked the more
|
|
original versions. Cover the door with paper, just paper. Let the mark
|
|
open the door, find the paper, and break it all down... do this as many times
|
|
as you wish. The next time, paper the door and either place a wall of bricks
|
|
or cement blocks behind the door (by this time, he just walks thru the paper)
|
|
or even prop a trashcan full of water against the door...
|
|
|
|
These and other jokes became quite popular, but, alas, a new class of students
|
|
seems to have moved in (they actually **study**) and these jokes became out-
|
|
lawed by the RA's (hall monitors)... (RA's used to help... and were usually
|
|
helpful with their pass key)... But these jokes were called a fire hazard (i.e.
|
|
would block people in, in a fire...) "so it goes..."
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
In the afore-quoted book, such a trick is suggested as a way of getting
|
|
even with your bank. Rent a safety-deposit box and fill it with fish. I
|
|
don't know how you can prevent them tracing it to you, though...
|
|
|
|
The oft-quoted "Volkswagen-in-the-bedroom" schtick is good. A simpler variant
|
|
avoids the hard labor involved here by subtituting a self-propelled obstacle
|
|
for the VW. In this case, one or more sheep.
|
|
|
|
While the animals themselves are easily removed from the abode, they do
|
|
leave behind "the gift that keeps on giving" !
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
I remember a practical that failed -- or I guess you could say
|
|
that it succeeded too well. In Philadelphia, 10-15 years ago,
|
|
a man decided to play a practical joke on his best friend. He
|
|
took out an add in the "help wanted" section of the Bulletin,
|
|
advertising job openings for demolishing houses. Applicants
|
|
were to meet in front of the site at 6:00 AM Saturday morning.
|
|
Naturally, the site was the friend's house. The perpetrator imagined
|
|
a couple of hundred men waking up his friend and asking to
|
|
demolish his house. Alas, the friend was not home. Another
|
|
problem was that this was during a recession, with high
|
|
unemployment. About 2,000 men showed up. It was apparent
|
|
that only a small percentage would be hired, so a few
|
|
decided that if they could present the employer with
|
|
an accomplished deed, they would be the ones to get the jobs.
|
|
Everybody joined in. A few minutes later, they sat down to await
|
|
the coming of the employer.
|
|
|
|
I can't remember what happened after that, if I ever knew. I imagine
|
|
it got pretty unpleasant. It made the evening news.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
This is a very simple trick, but you'd be surprised just how effective it is.
|
|
When the victim is sleeping, make a shallow paper tray and scotch tape it to
|
|
his door AND to the door frame near the knob. Fill it with unpopped popcorn.
|
|
When he opens the door (from the inside, obviously) he'll have popcorn flung
|
|
all over the place. Not only does it pack quite a little surprise, it also
|
|
takes forever to find all of the popcorn afterwards.
|
|
|
|
It works! Someone tried this on me when I was in first-year of my undergrad
|
|
days.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
My favorite practical joke was performed back in high school on the director
|
|
of our Audio Visual Dept. Upon purchasing a brand new, expensive video
|
|
camera, he set it up in the AV lounge so he could watch us hoodlums
|
|
on a monitor in his office. While he wasn't looking we taped a clear
|
|
piece of plastic over the lens of the camera. Then the designated
|
|
provacateur made sure that he was watching while another went up to the
|
|
lens with a squeeze bottle of highly caustic liquid, and crusty, grime
|
|
laden rag, to "clean the lens". Fred jumped over his desk and knocked
|
|
over a couple of onlookers before realizing what was going on.
|
|
|
|
( All the standard things happened to this guy too! remove all the screws
|
|
>from his chair, disconnect ( or reverse ) key components of his phone,
|
|
placed packing material in his fan. )
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
When I was living in the dorms on campus, frequently someone with
|
|
a car would offer to drive into town on a rainy day, to save a
|
|
wet bike ride. There were always takers. I have a car, so
|
|
I took many friends to the store, post office, or Bank. If
|
|
someone banked at the same place as I did and I knew they were
|
|
going to make a deposit, sometimes I would get a few bucks together and
|
|
also make a deposit. BUT, as I was standing at the little table
|
|
(you know with the little chained pens) I would take a deposit
|
|
slip and write THIS IS A STICK-UP GIVE ME ALL THE MONEY IN YOUR
|
|
DRAWER on the back. Then I would casually slide it over to my friend
|
|
and hand it to him, face up. After making my deposit I would
|
|
leave the bank. The friend would step up and hand the teller
|
|
the deposit slip. They always check both sides to see if any
|
|
additional checks are listed. Sitting across the street was
|
|
a good place to see the cops pull up. Usually things took
|
|
about 20 minutes before he convinced them he was not a bank
|
|
robber. You have to pick a friend with integrity and
|
|
a quick mind though. If he panics and gives your name,
|
|
you are history. I only tried it twice.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
Practical Joke 1: After making sure that the victim is out or sound
|
|
asleep (if the victim is in make sure he can't get out),
|
|
put a line of baby powder along the bottom crack of the
|
|
door (or on a piece of paper and slide it under the door --
|
|
hold onto one end). Then use the blow-dryer to spray the
|
|
powder into a fine mist that will cover everything in the
|
|
room.
|
|
|
|
Practical Joke 2: Make a small, off-center hole in a can of shaving
|
|
cream and then heave the can into the victims open door.
|
|
As the pressure spews the cream out, it will spin the can
|
|
and create a real mess all over the place.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
A simple yet effective joke for all seasons...
|
|
|
|
Fill the sugar bowl with salt...
|
|
|
|
Mmmmm...sure makes them wheaties/coffee/etc taste good !
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
Do it the Caltech way. Dump water on the victim's bed until it's soaked, and
|
|
pour liquid nitrogen on the bed until the water freezes. You're right that
|
|
it's heavy -- so heavy that the victim must wait for it to melt before he
|
|
can get rid of it.
|
|
|
|
PS - It destroys the mattress covering, so be prepared to replace the mattress.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
Back in the OLD days while in college, a "friend" of mine one day used the
|
|
pointed end of his umbrella to knock on our dorm room door. He poked so
|
|
hard that the point went all the way through the door (cheap door). A
|
|
couple of days later, a janitor noticed the "bullet" hole and called the
|
|
police. My room mate and I decided just to play it dumb; "Gee officer,
|
|
we didn't notice a hole there", "We never heard a shot", etc. The police
|
|
never did find the bullet nor where it hit the wall on the other side.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
For a more light-hearted collection of jokes, see the section on
|
|
Hugh Troy in _Merry_Gentlemen_and_One_Lady_, by J. Bryan, III.
|
|
Troy's jokes did not get people in trouble or stink up innocent people's
|
|
apartments; they did cause utter bewilderment worthy of talk.bizarre.
|
|
|
|
I think Bryan also tells of the time Robert Benchley and a fellow
|
|
Harvard undergraduate, dressed in work clothes, went to the door of
|
|
a house on a veddy nice square in Boston and said to the maid,
|
|
"We're here for the sofa."
|
|
"Which one?" she said.
|
|
This was a dangerous moment, but Benchley saw a sofa in the
|
|
corner of the living room and said, "That one."
|
|
They then walked, carrying the sofa, to another house on the
|
|
same square, rang the bell, and told a second maid, "We're here with
|
|
the sofa."
|
|
"Um, I guess you can put it there," she said; and so they did.
|
|
|
|
Benchley heard, in a roundabout way, that the lady of the
|
|
first house visited the lady of the second one some six months later
|
|
and recognized her old sofa.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
Another good one that I've heard about is to put cherry Kool-aid in
|
|
the shower head.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
I had this joke played on me and it was quite effective.
|
|
|
|
A small box was filled with the punch-holes from paper tapes.
|
|
The bottom was removed and it was placed on my bookshelf at work, with
|
|
no trace of the punch-holes. Seeing the box, the first thing I did was
|
|
pick it up. Needless to say, the little things were everywhere for
|
|
several days!
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
I have never tried this, but a chemist friend of mine told me of a
|
|
practical joke. Get a hold of the victims coffee cup. Make sure its
|
|
empty. Put one drop of phenolthalien ( excuse the spelling, I'm refering
|
|
to the acid/base indicator) in the cup and fill it with water. Empty the
|
|
cup and let it dry. When the victim fills it, their is still residue of
|
|
the phenolthalien in the cup. The effect!, the victim will not be able
|
|
to make it to the bathroom in time.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
A nifty, if difficult, practical joke:
|
|
|
|
This only really works with friends
|
|
(preferably the trusting type). Get the victim to
|
|
your house, then talk (or do whatever you normally
|
|
do together) for a while. Then mention an
|
|
interesting effect you read about recently and
|
|
wanted to show him/her. Fill a glass (preferably
|
|
a short, squat glass) with water, and have a
|
|
baseball bat or a similar long, cylindrical object
|
|
handy. Stand on a chair with the glass, and press
|
|
the mouth of the glass against the ceiling. Have
|
|
your friend/victim press the bat/whatever against
|
|
the bottom of the glass hard enough so that the
|
|
pressure will hold the glass to the ceiling. The
|
|
theory is that if you keep the glass against the
|
|
ceiling long enough, it will adhere to the ceiling
|
|
without the bat holding it up. Then put the chair
|
|
back, and tell your friend that it'll take about
|
|
five minutes or so for the bond to form. Take
|
|
turns holding the glass up with the bat to avert
|
|
suspicion. When the victim is "on duty" once
|
|
again, casually mention that you have a few things
|
|
to do. Put your jacket on and leave the house.
|
|
(Of course, you're going to come back, aren't you?
|
|
You just wanted to see the look on his face,
|
|
right?) If you can get this to work (which you can,
|
|
if you are convincing and the victim is gullible), it's a
|
|
marvelous joke. I pulled this on my roommate -
|
|
but there was one small problem - when I left our
|
|
room, the door was locked and I had forgotten my
|
|
keys. My other roommate showed up in about ten
|
|
minutes, but it was not a happy scene...
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
Yet another answer to that silly revenge problem:
|
|
Tape down the little white things that spring up when you lift the
|
|
receiver. (another alternative would be to open up the phone
|
|
and remove two little spring things so that the white things don't
|
|
come up at all.) Of course all this should be done in the victims
|
|
absence.
|
|
Now the fun begins...
|
|
When he arrives, dial his number from a nearby phone and don't
|
|
hang up.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
Good for aracniphobics (check the spelling on that one.)
|
|
Get approximately 20 pieces of 1 metre or yard long white string.
|
|
Tie a knot at one end and temporarily secure it to the centre of a closed
|
|
door. Begin to tape the ends to the door frame being careful not to close
|
|
the door itself. It should begin to resemble a large spider's web.
|
|
Get the rest of the string and start weaving spirarally just like
|
|
Charlotte would. Complete the masterpiece by purchasing plastic
|
|
creepy crawlies and attaching them also to the string (eye level,etc.).
|
|
Unsecure the centre knot and instant spider web.
|
|
You might want to try it with fishing line and smaller creepies if you're
|
|
really mad.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
Instead, get a cannister of the foam insulation that is used in
|
|
home construction (IT EXPANDS TO SEVERAL HUNDRED TIMES ITS VOLUME IN
|
|
THE CANNISTER). Make sure victim is not in his/her office, bedroom, etc...
|
|
Then fill room into solid block of foam.
|
|
|
|
Baby powder inside someone's hair dryer, causing the CASPER THE FRIENDLY
|
|
GHOST look is also a cute one.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
A friend and I pulled a similar stunt on a co-worker some time back.
|
|
After a long series of joke-perpetrating back and forth, we procured
|
|
a rather large box and filled it with packing 'peanuts', then proceeded
|
|
to cut a large hole in the bottom and invert the box on the victim's
|
|
desk. We then took a short length of string and fed it into a tiny hole
|
|
in the top of the box, taping the other end to the side of the box.
|
|
This 'red herring' was easily mistaken for some type of trip-wire to
|
|
be engaged if the box was opened. When the victim saw the parcel, he
|
|
immediately knew the source and, wary of opening the box, followed his
|
|
initial instincts and quickly grabbed it to move it off his desk ...
|
|
the rest is fairly obvious ...
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
I had a mischevious roommate in college. Fortunately, I was the object
|
|
of his machinations only once. It didn't take long to track down my furniture
|
|
>from the ten places on campus where he had distributed it over spring break.
|
|
|
|
His masterpiece, however, was a concerted effort that involved everyone
|
|
on my hallway. The victim: our "sponsor" (at Pomona College, an upper-
|
|
classperson in charge of a gaggle of fledgling freshpeople).
|
|
|
|
This one takes some preparation. Wrap very thin filament wire (high
|
|
resistance, low flash point) around the fuse of an M80 firecracker. Imbed
|
|
this assembly in a box of cornflakes, leading the wires out of the box.
|
|
|
|
Next, wire several old-fashioned camera flashbulbs in parallel, and put
|
|
them in a circuit with the firecracker wire and a 12 V lantern battery. Rig
|
|
a solenoid to close the circuit (we used an old clothespin).
|
|
|
|
Now you're ready. When the victim is out of his/her room, hang the
|
|
cornflake box in the middle of the room. Arrange the flashbulbs near the
|
|
door. Place the solenoid so that opening the door will close the circuit.
|
|
Lounge nearby and watch the fun.
|
|
|
|
When the victim opens the door, s/he thinks that the room just exploded.
|
|
Bright light, loud noise, and the burnt cornflakes feel like a bomb-blast
|
|
concussion as they hit your body.
|
|
|
|
Boy howdy, that woman could run. Caught up with her somewhere around
|
|
North Campus. Being dutiful sponsees, we helped clean up the cornflake mess
|
|
later.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
This sounds suspiciously like one of David Brenner's "Best Practical Jokes
|
|
In The World". He claimed to do this and put the slip back, three or four
|
|
slips down. The lucky recipient was a kindly-looking little old lady who
|
|
had a habit of smiling vacantly and nodding. When the bank teller read the
|
|
back of the slip, and saw this little old lady smiling and nodding, he tripped
|
|
the silent alarm, the doors slammed shut, the guards all pulled out their guns,
|
|
and the only two customers in the bank were the little old lady and David
|
|
Brenner in the corner laughing his ass off. Naturally he recommended that
|
|
against trying this little stunt.
|
|
|
|
The other practical joke of his that I remember involved getting a friend with
|
|
a car to help you. Pick up about a dozen cheap brooms, and get on a local
|
|
(downtown) bus. Of course, the brooms will be impossible to manage as the
|
|
bus bounces and sways, and will annoy passangers and driver alike. But, as
|
|
you've paid your fair, the driver figures you'll be off the bus soon enough
|
|
and he'll be done with you. Get off at the last stop, hop into your friend's
|
|
waiting car, and zip back to the stop you got on at, and get on THE SAME BUS.
|
|
Much yucks.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
Back in my graduate days, I used to bring my lunch to school which consisted
|
|
of a sandwich and usually a hard boiled egg. I kept a small jar of salt in
|
|
my desk for the eggs. One day I dipped my egg in the salt only to discover
|
|
it was sugar. It was easy to spot the prankster(s); everyone in the room was
|
|
snickering!
|
|
|
|
I used to bring my lunches in plastic lined paper bags with bend-over tabs
|
|
on the top. The bags were very good and kept my sandwiches fresh. I got
|
|
them for free from the pockets of airline seats. One day as I was opening
|
|
my "lunch" bag in the lab, the same bunch of pranksters from above gathered
|
|
around my table and opened their own barf bag lunches (they had just gotten
|
|
back from an out-of-state conference). However, the joke was turned around
|
|
on one of them. He was spooning yogurt out of his bag and eating it. After
|
|
I told him what it looked like, he lost his appetite.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
--
|
|
David <"I really was just a Theater Arts major, honest!"> Vangerov
|
|
Disclaimer: These are my opinions, all mine!!! Not SCO's, got that?
|
|
Sysmom of the night: keeping the system safe for the everyday user.
|
|
E-mail: davidv@sco.COM || ...!uunet!sco!davidv || ...!attctc!sco!davidv
|
|
|
|
From davidv@sco.COM Sat Dec 2 09:57:31 1989
|
|
From: davidv@sco.COM (David Vangerov)
|
|
Subject: Super Collection of Practical Jokes (part 3 of 4)
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
You take the top off the standard sugar dispenser found at restaraunts
|
|
around the country. You place a single layer of paper napkin over the
|
|
opening in the glass part, then put salt on top of that. Put the top back
|
|
on and tear off all the paper showing around the edges. The first victim
|
|
gets salt in his coffee, which I suppose is funny to some people. But what
|
|
is even funnier is this same guy, or the next, trying to get sugar out of
|
|
the thing. They think the sugar may be caked and bang the dispenser on the
|
|
table, shake it, hold it up to the light and squint at it, etc. ...
|
|
|
|
Many years ago, before all the young studs started taking their dates to
|
|
motels for, er, recreation, there were always Lover's Lanes around. On a
|
|
typical moonlit night there might be a dozen cars at one of these places
|
|
with the windows all steamed up from the activities within, and occasional
|
|
flashes of red as flailing feet inadvertantly hit brake pedals. Some people
|
|
I knew used to get their jollies chaining the bumpers or axles of these cars
|
|
to the nearest fence or tree ...
|
|
|
|
The most elaborate joke along these lines was played by three friends of
|
|
mine, whom we'll call Tom, Dick and Harry.
|
|
|
|
On a moonlit night as described above, Tom came running out of the woods
|
|
onto the Lover's Lane screaming, "No! NO! Oh, God, Please NO!"
|
|
|
|
When Tom had everybody's attention, Dick stepped out of the woods with a
|
|
shotgun, yelled "Now I'll get you, you bastard!" and fired the gun over
|
|
Tom's head.
|
|
|
|
Tom dropped to the ground and lay there writhing and screaming until Dick
|
|
came over and fired a blast into the ground near his head, then went limp
|
|
and quiet.
|
|
|
|
Then Harry came rushing over, yelling "Jesus, Jack, why'd you DO it? He was
|
|
our FRIEND!! Oh, my God! ..." and the like. Then both Dick and Harry
|
|
grabbed Tom by the heels and dragged him back to the woods. When they were
|
|
out of sight Tom got up and all three enjoyed the activity back at the scene
|
|
of the "crime", which needless to say had changed considerably from a few
|
|
minutes before.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
Something I have done before is wire someones bed to give them a nice shock.
|
|
|
|
It was done as follows:
|
|
|
|
strip some stranded wire and use the wire to form a grid under the top sheet.
|
|
it works best to have this grid look like fingers that interlace but don't
|
|
touch.
|
|
|
|
this was then connected to the 110 V side of a texas instruments calculator
|
|
transformer. to the calculator side of the transformer add a 12 or 24 Volt
|
|
DC supply (i can't remember which we used) connected through a normaly
|
|
open switch.
|
|
|
|
then press the button rapidly to cause a transient in the transformer.
|
|
|
|
It is funny as heck to watch someone wake up as they are getting the
|
|
shock. if you stop while they are still partially asleep they really
|
|
have trouble figuring out whats going on.
|
|
|
|
i'm sure you could automate the process so the person has just enough time
|
|
to fall a sleep before the next shock.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
When I was at Burroughs Corp., a couple of co-workers got into a get-even
|
|
contest with each others' toolboxes, including such niceties as:
|
|
|
|
--Filling toolbox with punched-card chad.
|
|
|
|
--Same as above, then pouring oil over everything! <<yuchh>>
|
|
|
|
--Wiring toolbox to 110 VAC. (I'm not endorsing these activities; simply
|
|
including them for sake of completeness!!)
|
|
|
|
--Supergluing handle to top of toolbox. (Thought that one up myself.)
|
|
|
|
--Removing tools; bolting toolbox to floor; replacing tools. (Good one!!)
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
Here is a simple, but fun, practical joke you can try.
|
|
|
|
You need a phone with a handset so that you can unscrew the
|
|
mouth piece and remove the pickup. It's real easy, they are just sitting
|
|
in there and not wired down. Replace the mouth piece and think up a good
|
|
excuse to get someone to use the phone. This joke was done to me when I
|
|
was in college. My roommate told me that this girl who I thought was cute
|
|
had called, and that she wanted me to call back. I felt pretty stupid yelling
|
|
into the phone trying to talk to her. And all I heard was her say 'Hello,
|
|
hello, is anyone there, hello?' After I realized what had happened, we
|
|
went out and tryed it on some other friends, with similar results.
|
|
It's a good joke because it is totally harmless, and even more
|
|
fun after a few drinks.
|
|
|
|
For a quick laugh, try:
|
|
|
|
zork | valspeak
|
|
|
|
If you don't have valspeak, I would suggest getting a copy. It's a
|
|
great way to hand in weekly reports to your boss.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
In the good ol' days of punched cards, every keypunch machine had a container
|
|
into which the square "chips" fell. A favorite practical joke at a certain
|
|
famous Eastern Technological Institute, paralyzed around science, was to dump
|
|
a bag of these collected chips on someone taking a shower and shampoo in the
|
|
dormitory. It could take weeks to get rid of all those wet chips ....
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
Other types of phone fun...
|
|
|
|
While we were in the other room, listening through a modem (we were in NY
|
|
State), a friend of mine, using his impeccable british accent, would
|
|
call a random number in London England..... collect; stating that he was
|
|
Sir so-and-so from the British consulate or some other such agency.
|
|
These people would almost all accept. (It was about 2:00 AM for them,
|
|
so I guess that might be part of the reason...). He then proceeded
|
|
to take an official telephone survey:
|
|
|
|
"1) Do you believe Margret Thatcher's handling of the Falklands crisis was
|
|
|
|
a) Excellent
|
|
b) fair to good
|
|
c) fair
|
|
etc...
|
|
.....
|
|
|
|
At least at the time, it was hillarious... especially his ability to sound
|
|
and act authentically enough for these people to accept the collect call in
|
|
the first place.. form the USA... and then stay on long enough to actually
|
|
do the survay!
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
Here is a classic which has been fading into a lost art. It works extremely
|
|
well someplace like a military academy or such, where everything must always
|
|
be in impeccable order, but can be used for good effect in a dorm room, too:
|
|
|
|
It's the fine art of stringing up a room. The idea is to string the room
|
|
(trough makeshift pullies and levers, etc.) such that as the victim turns
|
|
his door knob and opens the door, his entire room is upset. One classic
|
|
example involved stringing the bunkbed so that it lifted itself up of the floor
|
|
and turned upside down, books would tumble off a shelf, in turn moving a
|
|
dresser across the room, emtying a wall locker, pulling the shoes up into the
|
|
light fixtures and otherwise creating serious havoc. What's nice is that
|
|
the destruction itself is done by the victim; all you did was run a little
|
|
string.... This, however, can lead to serious counter-pranks. Don't say
|
|
I didn't warn you!
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
Now to add my $.02...
|
|
(This works best if you have several people to work on it)
|
|
One night when one person in my dorm was away at a party, but for some
|
|
unknown reason left his door unlocked (trusting sucker!), several other
|
|
people removed all his furniture and belongings. Most of the stuff went
|
|
to a garbage/storage room, but some of the stuff (the more valuable)
|
|
went to other rooms. When he got back (at 3:?? AM), good and tired, he
|
|
was met with a nice floor lamp in the middle of the room and a telephone
|
|
in the trash basket.
|
|
Then for the next several weeks, anyone who left their door unlocked
|
|
was asking for it...
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
Reminds me of when I was in first year at UVIC. At that time, punch-cards
|
|
were used for programming still (They added terminals the year after I left).
|
|
The rectangular cardboard confetti had many uses :-) That stuff was hard to
|
|
get off of clothes, out of your hair, etc. One friend of mine decided to
|
|
collect the stuff, so every day he would go around and empty the confetti
|
|
>from the punch machines. At a party he was going around tossing the stuff
|
|
at people and laughing as they tried to get it out of their clothes (it sure
|
|
itches if you get it in your clothes!). He had collected a whole paper
|
|
shopping bag full - one of the big ones. When he got around to me I reached
|
|
out and whacked the bag hard on the bottom as he was reaching in to get another
|
|
handfull. Well he was looking down into the bag and had his mouth open. The
|
|
confetti exploded upwards into his face and mouth. We were practically rolling
|
|
around on the floor watching him trying to clean the stuff out of his mouth
|
|
an off his tongue. A few days later he got me back by collecting more and
|
|
dumping it on my car, into the ventilation inlets. To this day years after he
|
|
did this, an occasional rectangular cardboard piece of confetti will float up
|
|
out of the ventilation system every time you turn on the fan/heater.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
Here are two of my favorites (which I've never yet performed: maybe I'm just
|
|
not spiteful enough.)
|
|
|
|
Prickly pear cacti have two kinds of spines: large ones and tiny reddish
|
|
hairs that are incredibly irritating. Gather the tiny ones, and distribute
|
|
them into the clothing of someone you detest, perhaps the underwear. They
|
|
will probably be noticed too late. Caveat: this should make the clothes
|
|
permanently unusable.
|
|
|
|
Collect an engorged tick from a dog, and keep it until it produces an egg
|
|
mass. Hide the egg mass at a spot where the victim sits. Several hundred
|
|
tiny "seed ticks" will patiently wait their opportunity to swarm over the
|
|
first warm-blooded creature available. They are too small to easily pick
|
|
off, and just large enough to see. (This happened [by accident] to me in
|
|
Georgia this summer. I wasn't disturbed much, but then I study ticks and
|
|
mites for fun.)
|
|
|
|
Don't make an enemy of an imaginative biologist.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
Speaking of practical jokes, my wife pulled one several years ago...
|
|
|
|
For my wife's birthday several years ago, some people at the law office
|
|
where she works hired a male belly dancer to entertain her. She swore
|
|
sweet revenge. Six months later, the instigator of the belly dancer
|
|
incident had her birthday. My wife arranged for the single brother of
|
|
another secretary to meet the instigator for lunch, etc. The instigator
|
|
didn't know the brother before this, so it looked like someone had hired
|
|
an escort service for her to help celebrate her birthday. The joke,
|
|
however, backfired. The secretary and the single brother are now
|
|
married. At the wedding, held at a large and famous Chicago hotel,
|
|
a gorilla handed out bannanas to the guests, courtesy of my spouse.
|
|
|
|
**********
|
|
|
|
This reminds me of something I saw at our residence a couple of terms ago.
|
|
Outside one of the houses was an entire bedroom suite! (bed, desk, chair,
|
|
the whole bit - even the bed was made!) I don't know exactly from which dorm
|
|
it came from or whodunnit but I imagine somebody was not too happy!
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
My favorites:
|
|
|
|
Dump a whole bottle of detergent into the
|
|
toilet tank. This produces great billowing
|
|
suds out of the bowl on first flush. Especially
|
|
great if first flusher is sitting at the time.
|
|
|
|
Use a clip lead to connect the brake light switch
|
|
to the horn relay on the targets car. Every time
|
|
they step on the brake the horn blows. It's
|
|
amazing how many people can't associate the horn
|
|
blowing with using the brake. They just report
|
|
that the horn blows at random times. This is
|
|
especially useful joke to watch in parking lots
|
|
when work lets out.
|
|
|
|
Carefully pick up sleeping targets bed and set it on
|
|
four coke bottles. When target rolls over or makes
|
|
any significant move bed will crash 6 inches to the
|
|
floor and there will be bottles rolling all over the
|
|
place but not a soul in sight.
|
|
|
|
Steal a banana from targets lunch. Use large sewing
|
|
needle to pierce skin at seam and move needle back
|
|
and forth to "cut" banana in half. Continue doing
|
|
this along the seam and banana will be sliced when
|
|
peeled by target.
|
|
|
|
Saran wrap on reading glasses that have been left on
|
|
desk is good. Trimming at edge of lens is hard but
|
|
effect is great. Not usually noticed when first picked
|
|
up but optical quality of saran is spectacularly bad.
|
|
|
|
I know of a variation of the fake workmen digging the street
|
|
that worked well. In the original (very risky) you
|
|
masquerade as real workmen and dig a hole in the street
|
|
and leave. When this was first done in NY in the fifties
|
|
it was days before anybody realized something was wrong and
|
|
traffic was a disaster until the street department patched
|
|
the hole. In the variation, the jokers observed real workmen
|
|
digging the street and reported to the police that college
|
|
students were again digging up the street as a joke. The
|
|
police thanked the tipster and headed for the dig. In the
|
|
meantime the jokers approached the workmen and toldthem that
|
|
the college had freshmen dressed up as cops as part of
|
|
fraternity initiation and that they would be around soon to
|
|
give the workmen a hard time. The workmen thought this was
|
|
great and agreed to give the "cops" a hard time back.
|
|
It was a long time before this mess was sorted out.
|
|
(this was my all time favorite practical joke)
|
|
|
|
Another idea that I couldn't perfect might be of interest.
|
|
I got one of the air freshener gadgets that had a battery
|
|
operated timer that causes a brief push on a self-contained
|
|
can of air freshener every 10 minutes. I guess you leave this
|
|
thing in the bathroom and get a brief pssssst of freshener
|
|
every ten minutes. Anyhow, I tried to change the can of air
|
|
freshener (which is indeed replacable) with a freon horn.
|
|
Unfortunately the freon horns sold for emergency use in boats
|
|
etc. have a different cap on top that I could not adapt
|
|
to the freshener. If you could make this work you could
|
|
plant this thing in somebodies shrubs or cellar or warehouse...
|
|
or office.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
This supposedly happened a bunch of years ago, when deposit slips imprinted
|
|
with one's account number were becoming available, but banks still had
|
|
trays with generic deposit slips for their customers' convenience.
|
|
|
|
This gentleman opens an account, deposits a few thousand dollars. He then
|
|
leaves _his_own_ deposit slips in the counter slots in various branches.
|
|
A few days before next month's statements appear, he goes in, checks his
|
|
balance, withdraws one hundred eighty thousand dollars in cash, and
|
|
disappears. Seems the system credited his account with deposits that
|
|
others made (seemingly to their accounts) using his slips.
|
|
|
|
And one that doesn't involve banks, but allegedly happened...
|
|
|
|
College student returns to his room to find a bucket of water amateurishly
|
|
balanced above the door, ready to fall on him when he opens the door. So
|
|
he lifts down the bucket and empties it into his sink.
|
|
|
|
Too bad the perpetrators also removed the drain pipe from the sink.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
In the last few hours before the Corps of Cadets dorms closed for
|
|
Christmas break, someone led a horse into a departed friend's room
|
|
and shot it. When the dorms reopened a month later, the smell was
|
|
so fierce that the entire wing of the building was unusable.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
These were told to me by a friend who once attended Devry Inst. in
|
|
Arizona (a tech. school for electronics types). Three favorite
|
|
practical jokes were:
|
|
|
|
(1) The access to the supply room (to obtain lab materials) was via
|
|
a Dutch door (two-piece job where either top or bottom could be
|
|
opened independently), where the top half was left open so
|
|
students could lean over and request supplies. The lab grunts
|
|
wired a thin filament wire to a power supply and strung it across
|
|
the top of the bottom portion of the door. Normal instincts of
|
|
students led them to lean or place hands there while waiting for
|
|
materials, and were met with a small yet satisfying jolt.
|
|
|
|
(2) This one I've heard of from various sources. Charge up a bell-type
|
|
capacitor and tape the leads in such a way that they are almost
|
|
but not quite touching. Call to the victim with a rousing "Here,
|
|
catch!" and lob the cap to them. When they catch, the slight
|
|
squeezing pressure will connect the leads and the capacitor will
|
|
pop. (VARIATION: Leave 'loaded' cap on chair for them to sit on)
|
|
|
|
(3) The most common labs involved circuit design and troubleshooting,
|
|
and students were forever wary as they applied power to a new circuit
|
|
for the first time. My friend's prank involved running some thin
|
|
hollow plastic flex tubing from his lab station to a point below and
|
|
behind the victim's station. He would then light up a cigarette and
|
|
wait. As soon as the victim applied power to his circuit, he would
|
|
blow ciggie smoke into his end of the tube. Within a few seconds,
|
|
victim would see smoke rising from his board and cut power. He would
|
|
examine board, find no trouble, and fire it up again. Soon smoke
|
|
would appear ... this can be stretched out for a good long time, or
|
|
until he sees the tubing.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
Try this one out sometime. While the victim is asleep
|
|
carefully put Vaseline between his/her toes. What you will
|
|
obeserve is the person's toes starting to wiggle. The
|
|
apparent mechanism is that when your toes start slipping against
|
|
each other, your mind insists on making them slip and slide
|
|
more and more. The upshot of this is that the part of the mind
|
|
that's supposed to be getting rest is busy moving toes. The
|
|
victim wakes up having had no sleep at all.
|
|
|
|
How 'bout this: if the victim uses Head 'n Shoulders or Selsun
|
|
Blue shampoo, and a few drops of methylene blue (available in pet stores)
|
|
to a FULL bottle. Over time (if the victim is fair-haired), you will
|
|
notice their hair turning blue, as methylene blue stains all organic
|
|
material.
|
|
|
|
Also writing things on someone's back with indellible ink is pretty
|
|
good. Use your imagination. "Laugh, but don't tell me about it." is a
|
|
pretty good one.
|
|
|
|
Get a group of people to chip in 1 or 2 bucks, and bet the victim the collected
|
|
sum that he or she can't put a cue ball in his/her mouth. Hint: cue balls
|
|
go in, but they don't come out. In fact, medical science has developped a
|
|
tool to aid in the removal of cue balls.
|
|
|
|
Take doors. Just take them off the hinges and put them somewhere else.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
Another paper punch-hole trick that is even better is to take
|
|
a plastic 35mm film canister, paper punch-holes and a can of freeze
|
|
spray (at fine electronics stores everywhere). Fill the film canister
|
|
with about 1/4" of freeze spray then add punch-holes until the film
|
|
canister is at least half full, replace the lid on the canister, set
|
|
the canister on a desk or shelf and then wait for the fun. The neat
|
|
thing is that when the canister pops it shoots paper all over the
|
|
area (sort of like a party 8-)). Before you try this with the con-
|
|
fetti, experiment with just the freeze spray and canister, different
|
|
amounts of liquid causes it to pop at different times.
|
|
I know one person who filled one of those blue solder extractor
|
|
bulbs half full of freeze spray, sealed the end and put it under his
|
|
bench at work, he thought it might make a pretty good pop and after
|
|
30 minutes had completely forgotten about it. It went off about ten
|
|
minutes later and could be heard all over the building (he later told
|
|
everyone that a power supply had blown).
|
|
Bubble pack behind the wheels of an occupied chair also causes
|
|
some fun when the unsuspecting person rolls back.
|
|
|
|
Actually I'd rather hear mind game type jokes which are
|
|
a lot more fun. ex:
|
|
Bet some one they can't eat a slice of bread in less than a
|
|
minute. Conditions are, nothing on the bread and nothing with the
|
|
bread (like water). There are people who can win the bet, but
|
|
watching them suffer is worth loosing, and I have won more money
|
|
than I have lost.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
Back when I was in high school a friend of mine, Robert, hurt his back while
|
|
rolling his car and had to wear a plaster cast around his torso, from
|
|
just under his armpits to a few inches below the navel. When he wore
|
|
a jacket it was impossible to tell he had on a body cast. Now, for
|
|
maximum effect you have to picture Robert. He was a tall beanpole with
|
|
hair down to his butt (this was around 1975), a scraggly beard, John Lennon
|
|
type glasses with blue tinted lenses, and old clothes. One day we
|
|
decide to go on a picnic at a local park. So here we have 4 hippies
|
|
in a park surrounded by families, when Robert grabs a large butcher
|
|
knife, jumps up, yells 'GODDAMN IT I CAN'T STAND IT ANYMORE', and
|
|
plunges the knife into his chest. This was followed by some very
|
|
dramatic histronics as he fell to the ground, ending up on his back
|
|
with the knife sticking up in the air. Well, the three of us knew
|
|
the knife was really in the cast, not his chest, so we double up
|
|
laughing as these families are looking on in shock. I'll never forget
|
|
some of the looks on those people's faces.
|
|
|
|
Good ol Ray decides to do Robert one better. He grabs the picnic
|
|
basket, yells 'lets go!', and runs off to the van. Naturally we
|
|
followed, leaving Robert laying on the ground with the knife sticking
|
|
up. Boy, this really got them families into shock! Robert realizes
|
|
he's suddenly all alone and tries to get up and run after us. If you
|
|
want to see something funny sometime watch someone with 50 pounds
|
|
of plaster wrapped around their chest, who can't bend at the waist,
|
|
try to get up unassisted off their backs. Then picture this person
|
|
trying to run after a van, in which his 3 buddies are driving off.
|
|
Remember, Robert still has this knife sticking out of his chest.
|
|
Boy, them families didn't know what the hell was going on.
|
|
|
|
Anyway, we went down the road 100 yards or so, just enough to scare
|
|
the crap out of Robert, and stopped to let him get in the van. I still
|
|
wonder what some of those families thought of that episode.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
I became a somewhat involved spectator in a similar incident...
|
|
The biology teacher at my high school, Mr. Evans, was an incurable wit. He
|
|
was the one teacher everybody liked. He was the one who made sure that we
|
|
dissected Ascaris worms (long white stomach worms) the same day the lunch
|
|
room served spaghetti. One day, he fished out a four-foot preserved boa
|
|
constrictor and laid it on the floor just inside the biology lab door. Then
|
|
he put a preserved frog in its mouth. Then he stood by the door waiting for
|
|
class to start, watching students' reactions as they opened the door. I had
|
|
the misfortune to arrive right behind one of the more excitable girls.
|
|
(click.) (door opens) AAAAAAAAAAAAK! She ran right over me!
|
|
|
|
Mr. Evans related tales of his college days. He said one of his professors
|
|
was a real joker (by HIS standards!) who let his pet tarantula roam loose in
|
|
the room during class. You could track its progress by watching people pick
|
|
up their feet. He made some ammonium tri-iodide and painted it on the floor
|
|
before class. People walk in. BANG! POP! POW! When you pick up one foot, you
|
|
have to put the other one down. BAM!
|
|
|
|
I always wanted to put some inside the school bell. Ding-BOOM!
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
Switch the "MEN" and "WOMEN" signs on a pair of public bathrooms while
|
|
they're occupied. Great at airports, hotels, and bars.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
You can do this to a business associate whom you think is a jerk:
|
|
|
|
Get a few copies of his business card. Hopefully, it has his home
|
|
phone number on it. Go to your local red-light district and
|
|
pass them out to the girls (or guys) saying "Call me some time."
|
|
|
|
This is most effective if he has a family. If he is single, he
|
|
may want to thank you.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
My father loves to tell of the builder he knows who had to evict some guy
|
|
>from one of his rental houses. It seems the renter left his pet in the
|
|
master bedroom. A duck with lots of food and water... The builder
|
|
didn't get around to checking out the house for about a week.
|
|
Yech. Needless to say, the not only the carpet needed replacement, but
|
|
the sub-floor also.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
Apparently there is a well-known story in the television industry about the
|
|
early days, when parts were scarce and 'friendly competition' was just be-
|
|
ginning between the networks. There was going to be an important speech by
|
|
someone important, probably President Eisenhower or someone of that stature.
|
|
Naturally, all (both?) of the networks wanted to cover this speech. But on
|
|
the day of the speech, the tube in NBC's camera went dead. There was no hope
|
|
to order a replacement in time, so the NBC brass called the CBS brass to ask
|
|
if they could borrow a tube until they could get a replacement (maybe they
|
|
borrowed a whole camera, I don't know). At any rate, the good-natured guys
|
|
at CBS said sure, they would deliver a tube to them in plenty of time for the
|
|
speech.
|
|
|
|
Well they DID loan NBC a tube, but not before setting it up in a camera and
|
|
focusing it on the brightly lit door to the men's room. To understand what
|
|
happened, you must realize that these early "image-orthicon" tubes were ex-
|
|
tremely sensitive. So sensitive in fact, that a bright unchanging image would
|
|
"burn-in" to the face of the tube and remain for hours, or even permanently
|
|
if the damage was severe enough. So to make a long story even longer, when
|
|
NBC brodcasted the speech, the president appeared with "MEN" emblazoned across
|
|
his forehead. Of course they discovered it much too late to do anything about
|
|
it (this was live TV, folks).
|
|
|
|
(This was a story I heard from someone who worked at a CBS affiliate TV station
|
|
and may or may not be true, or the networks involved may be wrong.)
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
A little gentler trick that a co-worker pulled up here a few years ago
|
|
depended on the sound module from one of those dolls that cries unless
|
|
you rock it back and forth. He fastened it to the bottom of someone's
|
|
chair. The someone comes and sits down, and starts working on his
|
|
terminal. As he gets into it, this vague "wa-wa" noise starts up from
|
|
some unidentifiable direction. The victim looks around (moving the chair)
|
|
and the crying stops. Oh, well, who cares. Back to work. A little later,
|
|
the crying starts up again. This one was good for several minutes.
|
|
|
|
Oh yes, someone mentioned freon bombs. Things can get hairy with those
|
|
around a power supply design group. And the following is a good way
|
|
to make a switcher designer an enemy for life - or a few days, at least:
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
Now for a *harmless* practical joke. My favorite telephone gag is to
|
|
call someone at random, and with an official tone rattle off this warning
|
|
before they can interrupt:
|
|
|
|
"This is the telephone company calling. There is some trouble with
|
|
your line. Please do not answer any calls for the next five minutes
|
|
or the person on the other end may be electrocuted. Thank you."
|
|
|
|
Hang up, and wait about two minutes. Call them back. When they answer, just
|
|
scream "AAAAAAAAAAAARGH!!!" and hang up.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
My freshman year we had a trick that went around my old dorm.
|
|
Someone would put shaving cream on a phone receiver and a
|
|
confederate would call. The victim would then answer the
|
|
phone and sploosh the shaving cream into his ear. Worked
|
|
90% of the time.
|
|
|
|
One kid in particular got hit hard. Once a day for two weeks.
|
|
Even when no one suspicious was around. It became a challenge to see
|
|
how many times he could be had. One day he was in another part
|
|
of the dorm, where the craze to get your roommate with the
|
|
trick had just begun. The kid came into the room of a mutual
|
|
friend totally depressed about having been had *so* many times. He
|
|
proceeded to demonstrate to everyone in the room what would happen:
|
|
"The phone would ring and I would pick it up like this"--
|
|
he picks up the phone and -- sploosh: gets it again! The phone
|
|
had been set up for my friend's roommate seconds before the kid had
|
|
entered.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
I start to laugh when ever I think about this one...
|
|
A friend who works at a company I will all inhel for lack of a better name,
|
|
loves to tell this story about "Ralph" (names changed to protect the guilty).
|
|
|
|
Being in the electronics industry, TAK-PAK is very common (for you S/W types,
|
|
tak-pak is thick super glue that comes with a bottle of 'accelerator' that
|
|
makes it stick VERY fast). It was decided to wait until Ralph was far
|
|
enough away that it would be a long run to phone, but he would make it if
|
|
he was quick. The 'handle' was then tak-pak'ed to the little white buttons
|
|
on top of the phone. The call was placed. Ralph goes running down the
|
|
hall full steam ahead, leaps for the phone, and snatched it off the desk!
|
|
The hole thing. Now, he hased to try to answer the thing only he can't.
|
|
And if he sets it down it hangs up!
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
Practical Joke at a party.
|
|
|
|
Take a sheet of cardboard or a throw away magazine, form a cone with it.
|
|
Take the cone, a coin, and a liquid refreshment (water causes least damage)
|
|
in a bottle or a cup, of course you will be pretending its your drink.
|
|
Challenge the victim (bet a sum), that they can not drop the coin, placed
|
|
on their forehead, with their eyes closed, into the top of the cone shoved
|
|
into their pants at the waist within so many tries.
|
|
To prove that it is possible, demonstrate the procedure a few times, you'll
|
|
be supprised that it is possible. (practice before hand)
|
|
When the victim tries it, as soon as the eyes close, pour the liquid down
|
|
the cone.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
I was party once to an attempt at humorous cow placement. I attended a
|
|
boarding school that actually had a dairy farm ( George School, Pa. -
|
|
The farm is since defunct ) We thought it would be a simple matter to coax
|
|
a cow over to the main building.
|
|
|
|
Cows, however, live a life of routine, to which they adhere tenaciously.
|
|
I'll never forget the sight of that cow placidly loping back to the barn
|
|
with two or three upperclassmen dangling from it.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
Another idea for a practical joke is to put goldfish in all the toilets.
|
|
I haven't tried this, but it should be interesting to see what people do.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
An acquaintance of mine and his friend were once asked to leave a rather
|
|
posh country club for what they considered innocent fun-loving behavior.
|
|
To get revenge for their inconvenience and show what truly obnoxious
|
|
behavior is like, on their way out the door they went into the coat room,
|
|
and exchanged all the keyrings they could find in people's jacket pockets
|
|
for similarly shaped keyrings from other pockets.
|
|
|
|
Then they sat in their car in the parking lot and enjoyed their revenge! It
|
|
was evidently quite a show.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
In view of the large number of recent postings of college practical
|
|
jokes, I'll 'fess up that some friends and I were the instigators of many a
|
|
prank while undergraduates in college. The following are some of the better
|
|
pranks:
|
|
|
|
1. I lived in a three-story dorm during my freshman year. Most everyone
|
|
listened to the same radio station, which played the National Anthem at the
|
|
stroke of midnight every night. It occured to my roommate and I that there
|
|
should be some kind of stunt that could be arranged which could use the
|
|
playing of the National Anthem as a coordinating cue. Finally, we hit upon
|
|
the answer: at the stroke of midnight everyone in the dorm would flush their
|
|
toilet! Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending upon your point of view),
|
|
all of their toilets were of the tank variety so that a simultaneous "flush"
|
|
would guarantee a copious discharge of water into the sewer.
|
|
We really didn't know what would happen when The Time arrived; bets
|
|
ranged from "no event" to blowing the basement rec room toilets off the
|
|
floor.
|
|
The Time was a Monday evening, and I figure we had about a 90%
|
|
participation rate. The results were not disappointing: a cleanout plug
|
|
(which upon retrospection must not have been properly secured) blew out
|
|
of the floor in a basement utility room, resulting in about 1/2 inch of
|
|
water over the basement floor.
|
|
The campus maintenance people went apeshit the next day trying
|
|
to figure out what happened; as far as I know, no one ever told them the
|
|
truth.
|
|
|
|
2. It somehow came to our attention that most of the campus street
|
|
and walkway lighting came on _simultaneously_ each night, the actual time
|
|
being based upon the actual level of ambient light. It was obvious that
|
|
there was a central control point with a photoelectric sensor somewhere.
|
|
After a few exploratory tours of the campus, we came upon a likely
|
|
location: two photoelectric controls mounted on the roof of a service
|
|
building directly across from the campus electrical substation.
|
|
After "borrowing" an extension ladder from a telephone company truck
|
|
(which was always left parked near a service building), one Friday night
|
|
about 10:00 PM (peak campus traffic time) we climbed on the roof of the
|
|
service building and taped flashlights to each of the two photoelectric
|
|
sensors. Instant blackness!
|
|
Actually, the most amazing part was that it took OVER ONE HOUR for
|
|
the campus maintenance people to restore the lights! I would have thought
|
|
there to be some kind of manual override for the photoelectric cells, but
|
|
perhaps the maintenance people thought there was some kind of underground
|
|
cable fault so they didn't rashly restore power.
|
|
|
|
3. My father managed a soap manufacturing company ever since I was a
|
|
little kid, so I grew up with some knowledge of soap formulation chemistry.
|
|
There was a civic building near the campus with a large outdoor fountain,
|
|
and it occurred to be that the water in this fountain needed "treatment"
|
|
when the fountain was turned on in the spring. While home for spring
|
|
break, I swiped from my father's plant two gallons of a surfactant called
|
|
Triton X-100 (a tradename of Rohm & Haas). This surfactant _really_ foams;
|
|
like a few drops will fill a bathtub with suds.
|
|
So one night, some friends and I carefully filled some thin plastic
|
|
bags with the surfactant, and then casually threw the bags into the fountain
|
|
(the bags broke upon impact). The next morning, the fountain was a mass of
|
|
soapsuds. The next evening, the picture of the fountain made the front
|
|
page of the local newspaper. The caption beneath the picture attributed
|
|
the soapsuds to college "spring fever". Since we weren't caught, I wonder
|
|
how they knew that???
|
|
|
|
4. The father of my dorm roommate worked as a repairman for the Otis
|
|
Elevator Company. One weekend, I stayed with my roommate at his parent's
|
|
home. While talking with his father, we learned an _amazing_ fact: almost
|
|
all escalators are reversible for use in breakdowns or emergencies; there
|
|
is usually a key-operated reversing switch located under the handrail at
|
|
each end of the escalator. We also learned a second _amazing_ fact: most
|
|
all Otis elevators and escalators use the _same_ key. While my roommate's
|
|
father went out for the evening, we swiped his work keys, and were able to
|
|
get many of them duplicated.
|
|
As soon as we returned to campus on Sunday evening, we went in
|
|
search of an Otis Elevator (we didn't have to go far - our dorm had one).
|
|
Sure enough, we had The Key. Over the next few days, we found that The Key
|
|
worked on every Otis Elevator that we tried on campus.
|
|
We were now ready for en escalator (there were none on campus), and
|
|
we readily found one in a five-floor department store in the heart of the
|
|
downtown shopping district. It was an Otis, and sure 'nuff it had a reversing
|
|
switch at each end beneath the handrail.
|
|
We came back on Wednesday night, which was the peak shopping night
|
|
of the week. There were two pairs of escalators - one at each end of the
|
|
store. After nervously waiting for the right moment when no one was on
|
|
the UP escalator, and no one was looking, my roommate inserted The Key, and
|
|
turned it. Grrr-klunk-grrr. The UP escalator came to a halt, and reversed
|
|
direction - it was now going DOWN! We quickly went to the other escalator
|
|
pair, and I got the honor of inserting the key.
|
|
We now had an increasingly crowded department store with four
|
|
escalators on the main floor, all going down! We tried to act inconspicuous
|
|
as possible (not easy with half dozen 18-19 year-olds sporadically going into
|
|
fits of hysterical laughter!) and watch the action. People would step on the
|
|
UP escalator without looking at direction, and then step back in shock.
|
|
Then shock would change to disbelief: an UP escalator going DOWN - impossible!
|
|
People in the store were forming an oval as they traveled from the front
|
|
escalators to the rear and back, trying to figure out how to get to the
|
|
second floor. After about ten minutes of this, with the main floor crowd
|
|
growing larger, a _very_ agitated person wearing a suit (must have been the
|
|
manager) came by with a big ring of keys, frantically trying each key in the
|
|
escalator until he found the right one to operate the key switch. Since
|
|
the manager was eying us suspiciously, we didn't stick around to find out any
|
|
more about the situation.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
The apocryphal friend-of-a-friend brought a can of chunky
|
|
beef stew on board an airliner. At some point he emptied the
|
|
contents into the barf bag. Later during some minor turbulence
|
|
he pantomined using the bag in the conventional way. When the
|
|
flight attendant asked if she could dispose of the bag for him,
|
|
he replied, "Not yet, there are some choice bits that I haven't
|
|
finished with yet," and proceded to pick out chunks from the bag
|
|
and eat them. According to my informant, everyone nearby immediately
|
|
tossed their cookies.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
Here's another way to have Fun with Sound:
|
|
|
|
Several years ago, a friend who manages a large retail store gave
|
|
me an electronic bird call used to add "realism" to store displays. This
|
|
device was about 4 inches in diameter and 2 inches high, with a speaker
|
|
on the top. It was powered by a 9-volt battery, and had two controls:
|
|
a 5-position "voice" selector, and a time delay control to set the
|
|
interval between calls (up to 60 seconds).
|
|
For a device which used just discrete transistor circuitry, the
|
|
bird calls were amazingly realistic - especially if the time interval was
|
|
long between calls.
|
|
I have had much fun with this gadget, especially planting it in
|
|
people's houses (basement and garages are good places). The unsuspecting
|
|
victims really believe that there is a bird trapped in their house - and
|
|
go ape trying to find it.
|
|
If anyone wants one of these devices, they can be purchased from
|
|
any company which sells retail store display fixtures; I don't believe they
|
|
cost much money.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
Another good practical joke taken from the "Tippy Turtle" series on Saturday
|
|
Night Live is as follows:
|
|
|
|
Take one of those musical grreting cards (the type that play a song when
|
|
opened) and carefully rip out the part that actually plays the music. This
|
|
is only about the size of a quarter. When the victim isn't watching, plant
|
|
this somwhere near him/her. Since it is so small, it is relatively easy to
|
|
hide in a pocket, purse, etc. Afterwards, watch the victim become maddened
|
|
by the recurrence of Jingle Bells, Happy Birthday, etc. in the background.
|
|
|
|
I was a victim of this one, and at first I thought I was hearing the muzak
|
|
at the restaurant I was eating at. After I was done, I returned to my car
|
|
and the music followed me. I thought I was going insane.
|
|
|
|
********* < This batch entered March 1 >
|
|
|
|
My sister was the butt on this one.... She had a box turtle who
|
|
lived in a terrarium in her room. I haunted pet shops and bought a
|
|
series of turtles, as identical as possible, but getting smaller and
|
|
smaller. She was quite concerned....
|
|
|
|
After a while, I got tired of the game, so I reversed the process till
|
|
she had the original (who was bigger by now) back, and took the rest
|
|
down to the woods and let them loose.
|
|
|
|
STella Calvert
|
|
|
|
Love is the law, love under will!
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
Gather a bunch of freshmen together at a party, telling them the punch
|
|
is spiked. Observe for about half an hour while some of them get
|
|
high on the sugar. Then bring out a couple of bottles of Everclear
|
|
and dump them in. People will sober suddenly, then dip in and rapidly get
|
|
silly. Let simmer for about an hour, preferably taking pictures.
|
|
Then announce that there is still no alcohol in the punch.
|
|
Make sure that film is safe first. Everyone goes home safe and sober.
|
|
|
|
Not very funny you say? Well, then use real alcohol instead of sugar
|
|
water and laugh hysterically while people get sick, slip on the stairs,
|
|
wreck their cars, etc. Great fun.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
Way back when, like before electric lights were invented, I worked in
|
|
an engineering department where the general-use computer was an IBM 1130.
|
|
This was a standalone computer of roughly PDP-11/34 power with a disk,
|
|
console typewriter, slow line printer. Its primary I/O was a combination
|
|
card reader/punch. Some things you ought to know before proceeding futher:
|
|
|
|
1. The card reader/punch had one input hopper and two output hoppers.
|
|
Cards came from the input hopper through the read station, through the
|
|
punch station, to whichever output hopper was selected. Cards could be
|
|
read, punched, or both as the program saw fit.
|
|
|
|
2. The CPU had a "bootstrap" mode in which it read one card as the
|
|
binary image of a program and executed that program. The standard
|
|
"coldstart" card had enough program on it to read in the operating
|
|
system's startup block which then got the whole software system going.
|
|
|
|
3. The user community used the machine mostly for applications written
|
|
in FORTRAN and was largely ignorant of the details of computers and
|
|
how they work.
|
|
|
|
Still with me? Good. Naturally, _any_ card without characters printed
|
|
on it and with lots of holes all through it looked, to the uninitiated,
|
|
like the "coldstart" card that people placed at the start of their decks.
|
|
So it was a small matter to leave a few spurious cards around the computer
|
|
room and wait for the results.
|
|
|
|
My favorite was the card that just ran the deck through the reader/punch,
|
|
placing alternate cards in the other output hopper. What a delight with
|
|
long decks! One fellow was so sure he'd done something wrong that he
|
|
took his cards, reassembled them into the right order, and ran them through
|
|
_again_ with the same bogus coldstart card.
|
|
|
|
I never did work up the nerve to write the one that punched all the holes
|
|
in all the cards following.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
All this talk about practical jokes reminds me of one I heard about in high
|
|
school. It seems that a psychology class decided to give their new found
|
|
knowledge of the "power of suggestion" a little test. Some of the students
|
|
had another class together and decided to play a little trick on their teacher.
|
|
Whenever the teacher was on the left side of the room, they would act really
|
|
interested and when he was on the right side of the room, they would act really
|
|
bored. Well, it seems that this behavior did its job on the teachers sub-
|
|
conscious and he was practically crawling on the left wall by the end of class.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
At my high school (many years ago) over a dozen Polymorphic 88 S-100
|
|
computers were used to teach computer lit in the math department. Now I
|
|
was the curious type and I took to reading the supplementary documentation
|
|
to the operating system and I implemented a number of nasty suprises for
|
|
the other students.
|
|
|
|
NOTE: These changes were never to the boot tape just to the currently
|
|
running copy, so the changes dissapeared when the system was rebooted.
|
|
|
|
1. Change the prompt to some strange greek character that no-one knew
|
|
existed in the machine before.
|
|
|
|
2. Change the opening logo to something humerious and strange like Muppet
|
|
Labs Operating System V.0.1
|
|
|
|
3. Change the (Go to Monitor) command to return. To leave monitor a
|
|
command must be entered which is terminated by return, which is no longer
|
|
available from the keyboard and results with the screen clearing and the
|
|
monitor all fresh and ready to accept a command! Very nasty!
|
|
|
|
[Englishmania - It's not English, but an INCREDIBLE simulation!]
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
One that's good for a few chuckles with a new user is, while they're away
|
|
>from the terminal put a few cute aliases in their .profile, .login,
|
|
whatever, for example:
|
|
|
|
alias ls echo 'ls: command not found.'
|
|
or alias vi rm
|
|
|
|
(The second one is admittedly a bit nastier).
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
A simpler variation was played on me when I was but a mere first-year at U of
|
|
Toronto. One day, I was logged in at a terminal and I left for a few minutes
|
|
to go collect output from the printer. A friend of mine leapt into action and
|
|
changed my prompt from $ to 'Login incorrect. Login:'. Then he logged me off.
|
|
He told me that the daemon had logged me off because I'd been on to long.
|
|
Needless to say, when I tried (and unbeknownst to me, succeeded) to log on, I
|
|
was told that I hadn't logged in correctly. Well as I said, I was a first-
|
|
year and thoroughly unfamiliar with UNIX so I became very confused. My friend
|
|
did tell me what happened, however, since we were limited to 5 hours a week.
|
|
|
|
Incidently, he's no longer my friend (oohhh hint hint hint).
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
Many years ago, when some neighbors moved away and their house was
|
|
vacant for a few weeks, my brother installed an extra doorbell in
|
|
the basement, and ran the wires out along the rear sidewalk,
|
|
terminating them under a flagstone tile by the alley. After the
|
|
new neighbors moved in, if he was coming home late at night (1 A.M.
|
|
or later) he'd stop by with a lantern battery and connect it up to
|
|
the wires. After about 20 seconds you'd see the upstairs bedroom
|
|
light come on. Another ten seconds later the hall light would come
|
|
on, then a few lights on the first floor. At this point he'd
|
|
disconnect the battery and go home, and not repeat it for a couple
|
|
of weeks. He continued this for a couple of years.
|
|
|
|
He had also installed a loudspeaker in the attic, running the wires
|
|
outside, but either they found that one, or the wires broke, so he
|
|
never got to use it.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
This is one that a friend of a friend of mine did to his mom.
|
|
|
|
This kid was going somewhere with his mom in the car. The kid
|
|
was in the back seat, and the mom was driving. It was summer
|
|
time, so the kid had the window rolled down.
|
|
|
|
Anyway, the kid see's this jogger comming up the side of the road,
|
|
so he starts motioning to the jogger. The jogger didn't really
|
|
know what was going on, but just as the car passed the jogger, the
|
|
kid reached out of the window, and whaked the side of the car rather
|
|
loudly with his hand. The jogger, getting the idea, dove in the ditch
|
|
and acted like he was in great pain (similar to the pain he would
|
|
feel, say if he just got hit by a car).
|
|
|
|
The mother obviously notices the loud noise and see's the dieing
|
|
jogger in the ditch, slams on the breaks to see if this poor guy
|
|
is dead or not. Naturally she is worried sick.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
Put a couple of cc's of methylene blue in a coke/coffee/dark colored
|
|
drink.
|
|
|
|
The next time the person has to use the restroom, surprise!!! blue
|
|
urine.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
A friend of mine, "BUX", recounts a tale of mirth caused to by two bored
|
|
hackers on a PDP/11 running RSTS/E. They wrote a program which wandered
|
|
around the system looking for people in the editor. Once found they siezed
|
|
control of the terminal. On the bottom of the screen the program wrote
|
|
|
|
"I think there's a bug in your program!"
|
|
|
|
Then a cute little character'ature of a bug ran across the screen. Then
|
|
the screen was repainted and they relinquished control of the terminal.
|
|
Leaving the poor victim cleaning his glasses, checking his coke can, and
|
|
rubbing his eyes. This worked best late at night.
|
|
|
|
**********
|
|
|
|
Ok, this forces me to tell one more of my favourites. I worked once in an
|
|
academic setting where folks tended to complain that UNIX operating system
|
|
was user-unfriendly. I had a program that generated the message (to random
|
|
users)
|
|
|
|
Hello. This is the new user-friendly interface of the UNIX operating system
|
|
wishing you a pleasant day and happy computing. UNIX is the registered
|
|
trade mark of Bell Laboratories.
|
|
%
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
Here is a practical joke I played on a substitute teacher in junior
|
|
high. Numerous variations on the theme are possibile (jury-rigged
|
|
showers in chem. labs, fire sprinklers, etc.)
|
|
|
|
The classroom (Earth Science class)had the normal lab sinks with spouts
|
|
shaped like inverted J's. Over the years (old school) some of the
|
|
J-shaped pieces of pipe had broken off. This was during the energy
|
|
crises years, and the schools shut the classroom's heat off after
|
|
school. In order to prevent the pipes from freezing, they were drained
|
|
nightly. The janitor would often forget to turn the water on until 4th
|
|
period, much to the consternation of us 1st period students when we had
|
|
to use the sinks.
|
|
|
|
I waited until a day when a substitute teacher showed a film. After
|
|
everyone else filed out of the room, I simply opened a faucet or two
|
|
that led to a broken sink. As luck would have it, the water was turned
|
|
on during 4th period *in the middle of the film*. To make matters
|
|
worse, the broken pipes had been used to dispose of used gum at various
|
|
times. All this old hard gum acted much like a finger on the end of a
|
|
garden hose. Naturally, the first thing the sub did when utter chaos
|
|
broke out in the middle of the film was to turn on the lights.
|
|
Unfortunately, one of the lights was right over one of the `geysers,'
|
|
and the lights stayed on for about two seconds before going off again.
|
|
It was several minutes before everyone figured out what had happened,
|
|
the faucet was turned off, and the janitor had turned the circuit
|
|
breaker to the room on again.
|
|
|
|
No matter how hard the sub tried, she could never get anyone to confess
|
|
to doing it. She even kept the class after school without success.
|
|
|
|
When a friend in 4th period told me what had happened, I almost died
|
|
laughing.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
--
|
|
David <"I really was just a Theater Arts major, honest!"> Vangerov
|
|
Disclaimer: These are my opinions, all mine!!! Not SCO's, got that?
|
|
Sysmom of the night: keeping the system safe for the everyday user.
|
|
E-mail: davidv@sco.COM || ...!uunet!sco!davidv || ...!attctc!sco!davidv
|
|
|
|
From davidv@sco.COM Sat Dec 2 09:57:42 1989
|
|
From: davidv@sco.COM (David Vangerov)
|
|
Subject: Super Collection of Practical Jokes (part 4 of 4)
|
|
|
|
**********
|
|
|
|
Odd that no-one mentioned the fun to be had with all the new and
|
|
wonderful phone features available now. None of the below are truly
|
|
destructive. Adjust gender as appropriate (women's lib be damned, I'm not
|
|
going to type his/her, s/he every time). Switching these on/off from time
|
|
to time can drive people nuts trying to figure out what is going on.
|
|
|
|
1) If call forwarding is available at your company, forward the
|
|
victims calls to an "appropriate" number (Highly moral people get
|
|
dial-a-sex, bosses get dial-a-joke, boring people get time/weather,
|
|
flamboyant ones get dial-a-prayer, etc). Victim may go days without
|
|
figuring it out. Spouse may get interested in what's going o at office as
|
|
well. Forwarding to a VP makes for interesting reactions as well.
|
|
|
|
2) Variation on above is to get an answering machine, record an
|
|
imitation of victim's with outragous comments (busy right now with X-rated
|
|
move sound track going in background, inviting all callers out on dates,
|
|
denouncing whatever private beliefs they have, etc). Forward calls OR
|
|
splice into phone line so only happens on occasion.
|
|
|
|
3) If someone is silly enough to put call waiting onto a line used
|
|
for modems, call it EVERY time they use it. Vicitm will complain to phone
|
|
compnay about "line noise".
|
|
|
|
4) Reprogram all their speed calling to dial-a-sex, etc numbers
|
|
(as appropriate for victim). Love to watch the face of someone who thinks
|
|
he is calling his wife and a sexy girl comes on the line demanding a credit
|
|
card so she can "talk dirty" to him...
|
|
|
|
5) If victim is out of office for an extend period (week+), answer
|
|
his phone and say "Oh, Mark doesn't work here anymore. I think that the
|
|
company caught him stealing equipment/supplies/money; using drugs; sleeping
|
|
on the job; sexually harrassing the boss; etc."
|
|
|
|
6) If the phone system depends on * or # pound keys, reverse them.
|
|
Most confusing. Even better, rewire 0-9 as well! Interchange only 2 keys
|
|
for continuing wrong numbers.
|
|
|
|
7) Replace answering tape messages with something "more exiting".
|
|
Effects records make good backgrounds. Barmaids and dancers will often
|
|
help you out on this one as well.
|
|
|
|
8) Call victim's answering machine. Leave what sounds to be an
|
|
important message and, 3 digits into the phone number, end the message.
|
|
|
|
9) If the company tracks every phone call, have everyone in the
|
|
office make long distance calls from the victims phone whenever victim
|
|
leaves the room. You need a spotter to keep from getting caught at this
|
|
one. 900 numbers that charge 0.50 per call are good for this.
|
|
|
|
10) One of my favorites works best in large office buildings:
|
|
Stay late one night. Go through the building and forward EVERY phone to
|
|
victim's line. Be sure to do yours also to avoid being suspected.
|
|
|
|
11) If victim keeps phone numbers online and you have write access
|
|
to database, scramble the numbers (Be sure not to mess with medical or other
|
|
emergency numbers. You can't play as many pranks on dead/maimed victims).
|
|
|
|
12) Turn off bell on victims phone. On AT&T phones this requires
|
|
a bit of disassembly to implement but may be corrected by just adjusting
|
|
the volume (there is a stop to keep bell from going off but lifting a lever
|
|
permits the dial to rotate past the stop. Rotate back and no-one can tell
|
|
that it was done. This is a design feature of the phones).
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
This is a good one for school or business.
|
|
It's probably been used in movies and TV.
|
|
It was used at this site, to the embarassment
|
|
of one of our department heads.
|
|
|
|
While he was chairing a rather boring department
|
|
meeting, the Manager (referred heretofore as Mr. Pid)
|
|
Wanted to emphasize a point using the conference room
|
|
blackboard.
|
|
|
|
Several meetings had been recently held in the same
|
|
room, and the last had used the pull-down projector
|
|
screen, which was now covering much of the blackboard.
|
|
|
|
With chalk in hand, Mr. Pid gave the screen a little
|
|
tug, and released it, sending it straight up and out
|
|
of reach.
|
|
|
|
The entire department almost immediately broke into
|
|
uncontrollable laughter.
|
|
|
|
Mr. Pid was at first surprised, thinking the group to
|
|
be amused by the action of the screen.
|
|
|
|
When he turned around to start writing, we were told
|
|
he turned the most lovely shade of beet red, as
|
|
taped to the blackboard was a luscious and smiling
|
|
Playboy centerfold.
|
|
|
|
To this day, the identity of the perpetrator is unknown.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
Several years ago at our site I had an argument with a
|
|
co-worker about the use of menu screens. I argued that
|
|
they are fine for a while, but that soon become tedious
|
|
and that direct verb commands were preferable. His
|
|
argument was that menus were the ultimate in user-
|
|
friendliness, and that he would always prefer them.
|
|
|
|
A few days later I heard him holler from his office.
|
|
Seems he started up the local editor, which gave him
|
|
a menu selection to
|
|
a)insert
|
|
b)modify
|
|
c)delete a character
|
|
|
|
It was talked about for some time.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
One of my favorites is to go into somebody's room and turn EVERYTHING upside
|
|
down. This was done to the cook at a summer camp I worked at (she was a lousy
|
|
cook; this was revenge for hamburger in white sauce for breakfast). We invertedeverything in the kitchen; the stove, the refrigerator (both previously
|
|
disconnected) and everything in the refrigerator; everything on the shelves and which (i.e., top, bottom, middle) shelf it was on. Best of all, there was a
|
|
table in the middle of the room with large JARS of ketchup, mustard, etc.; the
|
|
tops of all of these were hidden and they were inverted (place waxed paper over
|
|
mouth of jar, invert, remove paper) and the table rested on top. We also
|
|
inverted several posters on the walls.
|
|
Of course, the cook wasn't very happy about this; after she'd gotten it cleaned
|
|
up she demanded that whever did it apologize and wash dishes for a week. If
|
|
nobody claimed responsibility, she said, she would quit.
|
|
We cheered.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
On the other hand:
|
|
one day some friends of mine and I were going to 7-11. There were several
|
|
parking spaces open along the wall of the store. We were in two cars: a 14
|
|
year old chevy wagon and an 10 year old dodge dart. As the first car was
|
|
about to pull in to the lot, a brand new cadillac pulled in from another
|
|
entrance and PARALELL parked accross 3 perpendicular spaces. Needless to
|
|
say we were not amused, and quickly retaliated. Before the driver (a man
|
|
in his 60's) could open the door, my friend and I (in the wagon) drove up and
|
|
paralell parked alongside him 6 inches from his door. The other car pulled
|
|
up so that he couldn't pull up past us. This left him hemmed in by brick
|
|
walls on two sides and cars on two sides. Of course, he could have slammed
|
|
his way out, but since his car had just cost 10 times the combined values of
|
|
our cars, he didn't try it. We left both cars parked there (with doors
|
|
locked, brakes set, etc.) while we picked up some party supplies and left him
|
|
there fuming.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
Forget about phenothaline, coat the inside of the cup with Nitrogen tri-
|
|
iodide, when it dries, don't move the cup! When the owner attempts to do
|
|
anyhting with the cup, even breathe on it, it will probably exsplode!
|
|
Don't use to much or the mug will shatter very viontley!
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
There was a computer operator at a certain college (I don't know where),
|
|
who had been fired for something (I don't know what). He acquired one of the
|
|
ten platter disk packs that the university was using on its mainframe computer
|
|
system, and took it home. He disassembled the pack and replaced the disk
|
|
platters with phonograph records. He then sneaked back into the computer
|
|
center one night, placed his new pack on the shelves, and wrote a script that
|
|
would prompt the operator to mount the pack. Later, when the new operator
|
|
came in to do his job, he saw the message to mount the pack, so he did so.
|
|
Being new, he didn't know how heavy the disk packs actually were so he didn't
|
|
suspect anything, until he powered up the drive. The phono records literally
|
|
exploded inside the drive and sent the spindle straight through the drive door.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
One time a group of friends were working on an assignment for
|
|
their artificial intelligence class. It was the first machine
|
|
problem, it was due that day, and they hadn't started it yet.
|
|
Their task was to implement an expression analyzer - nothing
|
|
fancy, just a conversational calculator.
|
|
|
|
Their teacher had said many times in class that a program exhibits
|
|
"artificial intelligence" if you cannot distinguish it's reponses
|
|
>from those of a human being. They were asking me to help them do
|
|
it the other way around. They would type in the expressions and I
|
|
would use a calculator to simulate their homework problem and
|
|
type back the answers.
|
|
|
|
The first few problems were easy ones. Their teacher remarked
|
|
that their program seemed to be one of the slowest ones (I am
|
|
not notorious for my speed with a calculator). The last expression
|
|
was some really long thing involving lots of parentheses and
|
|
somewhere along the way I made a mistake and so their "program"
|
|
got the wrong answer.
|
|
|
|
You would think the gig would be up, but, being fast on his feet,
|
|
one of my friends typed in TRY AGAIN. So, I did, and this time
|
|
typed the correct number. Not to be outdone, my other friend said
|
|
"We still have a few bugs yet. We haven't taught it about long
|
|
division."
|
|
|
|
(Of course their teacher didn't buy any of this, but he was so
|
|
amused he gave them an extra week to work on the problem.)
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
Everyone's heard about filling the victim's room with balloons, right?
|
|
(balloons are great, especially if the victim is your SO and you come by
|
|
later, acting innocently, and suggest...well, you get the idea.)
|
|
|
|
Unfortunately, inflated balloons are bulky to carry, and it can take a
|
|
dangerously long time to inflate them in the victims room. There is a
|
|
solution. (I've actually done this, it really *does* work, even if it
|
|
sounds ridiculous) Go out and get 2 or 3 styrofoam beer coolers. Inflate
|
|
the balloons in the privacy of your own room. Fill the beer coolers
|
|
with liquid nitrogen. (at 77 K it can liquify air) Stuff all 2 thousand
|
|
or so inflated balloons into the beer coolers. (don't worry, they will fit,
|
|
liquified air occupies *very* little space) You may need a refill or 3 of
|
|
liquid nitrogen. Get a friend or 3 to help carry the coolers to the victims
|
|
room. Make sure there isn't any paper or other water-damagable stuff on
|
|
the floor. Strain out the majority of the LN2 and dump the inflated balloons
|
|
onto the floor. Close the door. (if there is a window or transom, it's
|
|
great fun to watch the balloons reinflate to fill the room)
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
During my freshman year at OSU, Some of the guys in my floor
|
|
"discovered" this (on about the second day 8-). The doors in the
|
|
"Tower" dorms have a lever shaped door handle, but the pennies still
|
|
work if the person has locked their door (for instance, to sleep). I
|
|
discovered that if you flip the flashplate for the door over, and
|
|
re-install it, then the pennies only place pressure on the door handle
|
|
latch, not the deadbolt. You should have seen the look on Chucks face
|
|
when I opened the door in the morning after he pennied it in...
|
|
|
|
As a parting gift to the dorm staff, we turned our bathroom into a
|
|
pool/sauna, but that's another story...
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
I had a UNIX practical joke pulled on me that was absolutely
|
|
insidious: the perpetrator simply changed my .profile to
|
|
include a stty call to change my wake-up character from a
|
|
newline to a space. The effect was that if I typed a command
|
|
in correctly everything worked, but if I 'kill'ed the line
|
|
or tried to delete characters, only the last parameter would
|
|
be deleted. He had me going for WEEKS trying to figure out
|
|
what was wrong with the system...
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
the dept administrator is somewhat of an msdos jock, and one day, he changed
|
|
my adviser's rainbow prompt to be something like:
|
|
|
|
fatal disk error
|
|
|
|
so everytime the return was pressed, this was displayed... now seeing that
|
|
we have been having various hardware and software problems, one after the
|
|
other with the little trash machine rainbow, my adviser was very upset...
|
|
when he realized that it was a joke, he thought that maybe i had done it...
|
|
(i don't know why, because i don't normally do this type of thing).
|
|
|
|
once we had sorted out what had happened, we set up the administrator's
|
|
account of the vax to behave in a similar, but more frustrating way...
|
|
i am a bit worried about this, though, because he rarely uses the vax...
|
|
it has been about two months, and still no screaming... (just redefine
|
|
some symbols in his login.com... important ones, like:
|
|
|
|
$ dir*ectory :== type
|
|
$ type :== directory
|
|
$ show :== logout
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
An OSU Architecture prof (I'll call him Dr. Jones) had a habit of telling his
|
|
students to "Go take a flying leap" when they gave dumb answers. One student
|
|
decided to take the prof to task; the class was taught in a second floor room
|
|
so the student practiced jumping out the window (with the help of an
|
|
assistant who would catch his arms as he jumped). The two got this down to
|
|
an art, and one day provoked the "flying leap" comment from Dr. Jones. The
|
|
student said, "Okay, if you say so," turned around, and leapt out the
|
|
window. His partner (who was supposed to grab him but say, "oh God, I missed
|
|
him !") *did* miss, and the jumper fell and broke his ankle.
|
|
|
|
No, this is not a cut on stupid practical jokes. The humor follows:
|
|
|
|
As a result of this episode, the department chairman had to file an
|
|
accident report. One line of the form requires the DC to outline
|
|
"What actions will be taken to prevent future recurrences of this accident ?"
|
|
|
|
The Department Chief answered, "In the future, all of Dr. Jones's courses
|
|
will be taught in the basement."
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
Last year I had a job teaching an officeful of secretaries to use their
|
|
IBM XT. Well, for April Fools Day, I inserted a Pascal program at the
|
|
beginning of the AUTOEXEC.BAT file (runs on startup). The program
|
|
essentially said "Hello, Department of Defense Missile Network..." and
|
|
gave instructions which led to "Missiles Launched", and "congratulations,
|
|
you have just launched World War III. Say goodbye to everything you
|
|
love." I slowed down the printing to match 300 baud, so it looked quite
|
|
threatening. After the "say good-bye message", I had it tell the user
|
|
to hit RETURN, after which the program said APRIL FOOL and went on to
|
|
the normal programs.
|
|
|
|
The results were interesting. The people who were comfortable with the
|
|
computer loved it. The real computerphobe registered only that this wasn't
|
|
her database program, and (as usual) demanded key-by-key instruction,
|
|
ignoring the prefectly good instructions on the screen. No-one really
|
|
was startled, they didn't have the background.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
Get a thin sheet of lead, cut out the outline of a reclining nude
|
|
(trace from a magazine if you wish), tape it onto an inside wall of
|
|
your suitcase. If you're really artsy, glue or sew on a cover sheet,
|
|
such that the deception is non-obvious when the people check it.
|
|
Other shapes, or messages (taped onto cardboard) work too. Don't
|
|
do something that suggests a hijack attempt.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
A few months ago I was flying down to L.A. from San Francisco with
|
|
a friend. He had stayed up too late the night before and promptly fell
|
|
fast asleep as soon as we were airborne. The airline magazines soon
|
|
paled, so I looked around for some way to entertain myself until we
|
|
reached L.A.
|
|
I went up the steward and asked if I could borrow one of the oxygen masks
|
|
that they use in their little speech just before take-off. He looked
|
|
puzzled and said that they didn't work and were just for demonstration.
|
|
I said I didn't care, and much to my surprise, he gave it to me.
|
|
I took it back to my seat, put it on, and strung the hose to the
|
|
up just above my head. Then I reached down and shook my friend
|
|
furiously. As he groggily woke up, I yelled,
|
|
"Quick, put on your mask, we're falling fast!"
|
|
|
|
The look on his face was pretty classic!
|
|
Interestingly enough, he didn't fall back asleep on the plane.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
This is a simple, harmless, and hilarious practical joke, that has claimed me
|
|
as a victim. The setting is a pool hall, bar, or anyplace else with a pool
|
|
(billiards) table. Place any ball at one end of the table and give your victim
|
|
the cue ball. Challenge the victim to focus on the cue ball while walking
|
|
around the pool table three times. At the end of the third time, the victim
|
|
is to place the cue ball on the table, take a cue stick and hit the cue ball so
|
|
that it stikes the ball at the other end of the table. This is very difficult
|
|
to do; not because of a loss of coordination from walking and staring at the
|
|
ball, but because while the victim is concentrating on the ball, you lick your
|
|
finger and wipe chalk off the end of the cue stick. The victim will miscue
|
|
almost every time. It gets funnier, because if the victim is like me, he/she
|
|
will be determined and try it again.
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
Speaking of fun practical jokes with a car, I have a couple of
|
|
interesting ones.
|
|
|
|
1) Give the victims car an oil change, to 70 wieght oil. This should
|
|
work very well in places where it gets cold because when it is cold
|
|
enough, the oil should more resemble a brick the oil, and the car should
|
|
be unable to crank. I wonder how long it would take even a good
|
|
mechanic to figure out what has been done.
|
|
|
|
2) A Classic. Stones in the hubcaps. If done correctly, the driver
|
|
will hear something rattling in the hupcaps and check to see if it is
|
|
the wheel nuts, finding nothing, they will continue , only to hear the
|
|
sound again.
|
|
|
|
3) When expressway driving becomes boring. This trick is been done with
|
|
a radar detector and a very fast (looking) car. While driving on the
|
|
expressway, look for a fast car that looks like it may not have a radar
|
|
detector. Accelerate hard to about 70 and see if the other car follows.
|
|
If it does, bring your car up as fast as you feel safe and pretend to be
|
|
racing him. This should get the other car's driver to start going very
|
|
fast. Continue this "race" until you come on a turn or hill. After
|
|
going through the turn, hit your brakes hard and bring the car to
|
|
exactly 55.00 mph. The effect is to make every one on the road start
|
|
doing 55.00 because they assume that if you are going that fast, youmust
|
|
have a radar detector, and it must have just gone off. (I hope I don't
|
|
need to mention the illigalities with this joke, and the need for a
|
|
radar detector.)
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
When my girlfriend and I were in our early teens (the age is important) we used
|
|
to go to the local department store clock department. We would set all the
|
|
clocks that had alarms to go off within minutes of each other a few minutes
|
|
later. From a vantage point behind a rack of clothing we always got a chuckle
|
|
when the alarms started going off and the poor sales clerk was trying to find
|
|
out which ones were going off! (now, having been a sales clerk for a brief
|
|
period during my college days, I don't think that would have been particularly
|
|
funny!)
|
|
|
|
*********
|
|
|
|
While in grad school, I was an "assistant" in a lab which contained two
|
|
pdp-11/23's running UNIX System 3. Much of my education came from
|
|
jokes played on me by my more knowledgeable friends. I'm sure I
|
|
deserved them; I was into writing multi-player games, and I got a
|
|
kick out of writing special caveats that only I knew about; these
|
|
caveats could give other players invisible handicaps. (Don't ask me
|
|
for the games; they're very terminal dependent and I don't even
|
|
know where they are anymore.) We once wrote a multi-player version
|
|
of Walter Bright's empire from scratch. I added H-bombs (like fighters,
|
|
but when they hit a city it goes neutral, and when they hit a neutral
|
|
city it goes away, etc) Only, the program was rigged so that when
|
|
a certain friend completed an H-bomb, he got this dialogue that ended
|
|
with the H-bomb developers testing the bomb in his own city! It was
|
|
VERY funny.
|
|
|
|
[1]
|
|
The lab contained two kinds of terminals; Zenith-something-or-other for
|
|
one pdp and TVI-something-or-other for the other. The console for each
|
|
pdp was some other type (e.g., vt100 or somesuch). I normally logged
|
|
in on a Zenith in a particular spot. One day my first attempt to login
|
|
failed and my second succeeded. I thought nothing of it, and continued.
|
|
Later, I happened to be on the console when I did a ps and noticed a
|
|
program running in the background belonging to one of my friends, B.
|
|
Although it was not uncommon for real work to be done this way (and the
|
|
program had an innocent sounding name), I poked around in B's directory
|
|
to see if I could figure out what it was doing (I was root; what a feeling
|
|
of power!). An ls revealed a very strange directory name; under that
|
|
directory lived some interesting looking programs and files.
|
|
|
|
It turned out that B had written one of those password-catching programs,
|
|
and had run it on my favorite terminal, apparently hoping that I'd login
|
|
as root there. The directory name was an escape sequence that caused
|
|
an "up-cursor, carriage-return", so an ls on a Zenith would overwrite
|
|
the funny directory name with the next file/directory. I had done the
|
|
ls on the console (different escape sequences) by pure luck.
|
|
|
|
I figured out the file in which B was writing the login name and password,
|
|
and replaced my login and password (yes, his program worked!) with:
|
|
"B is a bad boy". Eventually he came in. I casually asked him about
|
|
the background process, and he had a simple explanation ready. I then
|
|
left him to the "Zenith" room, and went to the adjoining "console" room
|
|
and waited. His reaction was quite rewarding.
|
|
|
|
[2]
|
|
B waited almost a year to try again, and this time he was nasty. I was
|
|
working on a huge program, a dbms, for my Master's thesis. I was having
|
|
some trouble debugging, and looking at the prospect of spending yet
|
|
another semester finishing it. During a particularly frustrating session,
|
|
another friend stopped in to mention that B had done something to my
|
|
..profile; I thanked him and checked it out.
|
|
|
|
It was a very subtle change; I don't remember how I happened to notice it.
|
|
My PATH was set with /usr/bin in front of /bin (default on our system was
|
|
/bin in front of /usr/bin). I looked at /usr/bin, and found an executable
|
|
cc, owned by B. Further exploration revealed that B had written new
|
|
read() and write() primitives; his cc arranged that the resulting a.out
|
|
would get the bogus primitives. These primitives read or wrote garbage
|
|
about 1/6 of the time. Can you imagine debugging a dbms with this handicap?
|
|
|
|
So, how to get back at him? I figured the first step was to pretend I
|
|
hadn't discovered his little trick, so I modified my makefile to run
|
|
/bin/cc directly. After a day or so, B stopped in to ask how I was doing,
|
|
and I told him everything was going well. He happened to notice my /bin/cc
|
|
lines, and asked why I did that. I told him I had some simple shell
|
|
scripts named "cc" scattered about, and didn't want to accidentally pick
|
|
one up (this was before aliases). He swallowed it.
|
|
|
|
The next day, /usr/bin had an executable make to go with the cc. B's make
|
|
made a backup copy of the makefile, changed all the /bin/cc's to /usr/bin/cc's,
|
|
and ran the real make; when the make finished, it moved the original makefile
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back. I was amazed at the trouble he had gone to -- and got a good lesson
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in shell programming as well!
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*********
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Joke 1
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It all started with a girlfriend's birthday party. Her
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boyfriend, who I had known since elementary school, wanted
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to give her a suprize party. So he asked me what should we do.
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I came up with a plan to kidnap her during dinner. But this
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wasn't any kidnapping. What we did was to get three people that
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she didn't know to arrive while we where having dinner. Of course
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|
all of these people were speaking a foreign language that she
|
|
didn't understand. She was bound, gagged and blindfolded. Then
|
|
while everyone drove to the resturant, she was driven around in
|
|
a car with three people speaking a foreign language. BTW-she
|
|
new something was up and wasn't scared, because she knew something
|
|
was up.
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|
Anyway, they bring her into this very nice resturant. We're all
|
|
waiting at the table, about 15 of us, and we proceed to start
|
|
dinner. Her food was in front of her, but she was still bound
|
|
gagged, and blindfolded. After a few moments we untied her, she was
|
|
really embarrassed, because everyone in the place was staring at
|
|
our table, which was in the middle of the room.
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|
She vowed revenge.
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|
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|
Joke 2
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|
She wanted revenge. So I came up with the idea of getting a baby picture
|
|
of my friend, her boyfriend, from his mother, and printing up posters
|
|
of it and putting it up all over campus. Out side of his classes, labs,
|
|
and work. His mother gave me the most adorable picture of him when he
|
|
was a baby with his teddy bear. His features hadn't changed that much
|
|
and the way the picture was set up he looked as though he was in a
|
|
police line up. So we made it into a "Most Wanted" poster, with a
|
|
concise discription, and his name across the top in 40 point type. I
|
|
printed up about 150 posters which we put up all over campus. The next
|
|
day every where he looked and turned there was a poster, even in some
|
|
of the men's rooms around campus. It took him weeks to find all of
|
|
the posters.
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|
|
|
Joke 3
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|
|
|
If you are wondering what all of this is building up to. Here is the
|
|
ultimate joke that was pulled. After several more *practical* jokes
|
|
which I was the ring leader on. My friends realized that at the hub
|
|
of each of the jokes I was the organizer and brains behind the
|
|
opperation. So it was my turn.
|
|
|
|
I really liked this one upper division Economics class that I was taking
|
|
that quarter. I was the VP of one of the Econ clubs on campus and everyone
|
|
knew who I was including the professor. Well, one Friday afternoon while
|
|
this class was meeting. One of those warm afternoons where everyone in
|
|
the class is dozing, including the professor. All of a sudden three
|
|
people enter the class in surgical grab, masks, protective gloves, boots,
|
|
green suits, the works and a wheelchair.(I learned later that they had
|
|
*borrowed* all of these items from the medical school.) Anyway, the looked
|
|
like the real thing. They went up to the professor and told him that they
|
|
were looking for me because I had contracted a infectious disease, and
|
|
needed to be removed from class immediately. They handed him a very official
|
|
looking document and started for me with the wheel chair. You could have
|
|
seen the people around me move, them my *friends* wheeled me across the
|
|
length of the campus screaming "out of the way infectious person."
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|
|
|
When I went back to class the next week, the professor looked at me oddly
|
|
and asked if I was OK to be out. He really believed the whole thing.
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|
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**********
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|
and that's it. hope you enjoyed it...
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--
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|
David <"I really was just a Theater Arts major, honest!"> Vangerov
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Disclaimer: These are my opinions, all mine!!! Not SCO's, got that?
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Sysmom of the night: keeping the system safe for the everyday user.
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E-mail: davidv@sco.COM || ...!uunet!sco!davidv || ...!attctc!sco!davidv
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