Comments on: Boyish Prankery

By: John

John — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 18:14:52 +0000

Froog: Good old reCaptcha — knows just who the human (vs. spammish) visitors are, as it should… yet it also eventually knows one human visitor from another!

Which doesn’t explain why I’ve been dealt United Gamay, however. Isn’t that a consortium of vintners?

By: Froog

Froog — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 05:36:29 +0000

I just checked in to see if there were any new comments while I have a cup of tea and a sandwich, and what do I find but…. the Recaptcha Monmouth throughout?! Spooky.

By: John

John — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 11:18:12 +0000

Jules: You may not have any such stories — at least, of the first-hand sort — but maybe it’s not coincidental that you have so many more friends, too!

I don’t know if I’ll ever have the courage to relate the really really good practical joke story I’ve got. The joke in question was well-planned and -executed… that is, well-executed except in its provisions to protect the, um, target. With only tiny exceptions — more like kidding than practical joking — I’ve since dropped out of the habit, thanks to the results of that one experience.

By: Jules

Jules — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 13:45:55 +0000

Well now, that’s just fun. I don’t have any truly great practical joke stories. I don’t think?

I need to fix that.

By: John

John — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 10:56:34 +0000

marta: One side-effect of looking back on all this now: I’m embarrassed by how amateurish-looking the forged letter was. (I’ll call it a forgery even though we’d forged a letter from a nonexistent author — sort of a meta-forgery.) Nowadways it wouldn’t have fooled even the most credulous addressee.

Granted, we’d only typed the letter (computers, again, not being an option at the time), signed it, and then simply photocopied it before mailing — on cheap photocopiers. The penmanship of the signature was particularly bogus, though — I print everything except my own signature, and have ever since 9th grade, so when I try to write in cursive script it comes out as the handwriting of a nervous 14-year-old.

Which, figuratively speaking, pretty much describes my mindset at the time I signed it.

cynth: Listen to you. I don’t recall any sniffingly moralistic protests from “your” quarter at the time. I think all the noises from “you” were simpering, acquiescent ones. Heh.

The one reunion I did attend wasn’t exactly crowded, even allowing for the size of the class (smallish, as such things go). If you went to one of The Other Sister’s reunions you’d probably find it interesting but by now, more likely, just depressing!

By: cynth

cynth — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 01:08:57 +0000

Well, I cannot answer for Tom of course, whomever he is, but you really were an asshole, to do this–except I recall laughing pretty hard about the letter to “Jim”.

I have yet to attend a reunion of any kind as our high school has NEVER had one. But I’m so tempted to go to one of yours when sister gets the next invite to one.

By: Froog

Froog — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 16:12:54 +0000

My father, not usually the sort of chap to indulge in such japery, told me a story about his days in the army (in Palestine, in the turbulent years just after WWII and just before the creation of the state of Israel). He and a friend created a phoney advertising campaign, both formal and informal (posters and graffiti around their camp; and, I think, also a few jingles on the local Forces’ radio, and maybe even a brief film ad at the Saturday evening cinema show). It kills me that I can’t now remember the brand name of their invented product, but it was something corny (and American!) like Spiffo or Flub. They only had two pictures to use, but this produced a brilliant juxtaposition that suggested their slogan. One was a portrait of the young Frank Sinatra, just becoming known to British audiences (I imagine, through contact with all the American servicemen stationed in Britain during the war). The other was of a mushroom cloud from a recent A-bomb test. “Frank Sinatra says…. it’s atomic!”

The genius of this jape was that there was never any other copy at all in these ads, no suggestion of what the product might be — but, apparently, after a couple of weeks or so, scores of people were demanding to know when it would appear in the camp store. Whatever it was.

The power of advertising. I learned an important lesson from this story.

By: marta

marta — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 05:54:38 +0000

Now I have another reason not to respond to reunion invitations!

ha.