Tricks

[cabinetman]

Are you a trickster? Yes I am. Like to pull spoofs on the unaware? You bet I do. My sense of humor may be a little warped, but I have fun. The thread about the remote brings to mind a trick I pull every once in a while on my wife, and she gets spoofed. Fun to pull on the kids and grandkids when they visit.

We have satellite TV with the same remotes for each set. So, what I do is sneak the second remote in while we're watching TV and as she is switching channels or trying to get that figure skating program, as soon as she gets the channel, I press another one. You gotta do this with a straight face and act like something is wrong.

My wife being a very intelligent woman, caught on to this and any time there is a problem with the TV or remote she suspects me. So, there is a fix for that. There is one button that turns the screen to static. Use that one at a critical point in a show, but make sure you are outside her reach, or better yet do it from another room and just listen for the swearing.

[reddog552]

tricks

I put a roll of ZIP line above a drop cealing,letting about 6" hang down. Two dars later the Used car salesman who I set up called me to his office says can ufix this. I know he had 500 feet or so on the floor.I cut the string pushed it back inside the cealing. Two days later he had another ball of string. I think theres 2000' on that roll

[cgallery]

I put a roll of ZIP line above a drop cealing,letting about 6" hang down. Two dars later the Used car salesman who I set up called me to his office says can ufix this. I know he had 500 feet or so on the floor.I cut the string pushed it back inside the cealing. Two days later he had another ball of string. I think theres 2000' on that roll

That is outstanding.

[Richard in Smithville]

Back when I worked in the shipping department, I waited until one of our fork lift drivers went home for the night and stretch- wrapped his lift truck. Or the time when the same driver was napping in his lift truck during lunch, I tied rope around the outside so he couldn't open the doors.

[L. D. Jeffries]

Trickster's

One place where I worked our boss was also on-call as a BLM (bureau of land mangement) firefighter. Big fire in northern Idaho and off he went, He was gone for about 3 weeks, and while he was gone we took every bit of paper that came to his desk and stapled it to the ceiling, then took the key to his office door and glued it between two pieces of 1/2" acrylic by heating the key, sealing it that way; then just before he was due back we went out and got some nylon netting and sealed his office just inside the door, then locked his door by turning the little button on the handle. What a giggle when he came back

[crokett]

These are some geek jokes but I had a good buddy in college who didn't like his roomate (with good reason) so once when the roomate was gone for a long weekend we took all the keys off his keyboard and mixed them up. This was after we remapped the keyboard so when you pressed 'a' you got ';' or somesuch.

Another time I convinced my brother that his computer was broken after I took a screenshot of his desktop then set that at his wallpaper, moved the real icons around, took another screenshot, rinse and repeat till he had 5 or 6 copies of each icon and didn't know where the real ones were.

[cabinetman]

These are some geek jokes but I had a good buddy in college who didn't like his roomate (with good reason) so once when the roomate was gone for a long weekend we took all the keys off his keyboard and mixed them up. This was after we remapped the keyboard so when you pressed 'a' you got ';' or somesuch.

Another time I convinced my brother that his computer was broken after I took a screenshot of his desktop then set that at his wallpaper, moved the real icons around, took another screenshot, rinse and repeat till he had 5 or 6 copies of each icon and didn't know where the real ones were.

You're a devious guy there Davey. Wife #1 was devious too. She was a jokester and loved practical jokes. We pulled them on each other all the time. So for some really high points one had to go to unique extremes. We had a bathroom right off the bedroom, and during the night if one of us had to use it we left the light off so as not to disturb the other. So, one night I smeared vaseline all over the seat. The next morning her words were something to the effect that she doesn't get mad, she gets even.

A few days later, enough time for me to forget about the prank, I went into the bathroom at night and soon I realized I'd been topped. She stretched saran wrap over the toilet bowl.

[Alex Franke]

These are some geek jokes but I had a good buddy in college who didn't like his roomate (with good reason) so once when the roomate was gone for a long weekend we took all the keys off his keyboard and mixed them up. This was after we remapped the keyboard so when you pressed 'a' you got ';' or somesuch.

A similar one was played on me -- but a little more subtle. First they just switched and remapped Z and X. Then a week or so later they switched and remapped - and =. Then later O and I, and then C and V. The changes were just subtle enough that I just unconsciously reprogrammed myself to use the new layout. Finally it was my turn for a new computer, and I was totally messed up. I still have trouble with those letters.

[gad5264]

We used to take 500' rolls of excavating banding that they tie on the end of stakes and tie them up under the bosses truck and set the roll on the frame. You get the picture....bounce, bounce, bounce and then it all unrolls. One day he had 5 of them hanging out from under his truck and got stopped by a state patrolman on the way home......yuck, yuck, yuck

[JTimmons]

These are some geek jokes

Here at work we got rather large shared drives, one of them in particular has 471 GB of Word docs and spreadsheets on it.

I have caught some co-workers leaving their machines unlocked on their way out for lunch. I'll take a few GB worth of docs (100 GB works real good) and add it to their startup folder. Shut their machine down and wait. Pretty funny to sit there and watch them trying to shut everything down.

Same instance of someone leaving their machine unlocked, another fun prank to pull is sending out email to a large distribution list on that person's behalf. Example: If it's a guy I usually send something out like, "I like to wear pretty pink panties in the summer" or "this pink thong I am wearing is causing a rash."

The person doesn't realize it until he or she gets some replies.

[mpc]

I didn't do this one... it's a story told by a former pilot friend of mine...

years ago, pilot training simulators didn't have today's fancy computer generated "out the window" visuals. Instead, crude projection TVs displayed images from small TV cameras that moved through a scale model of an airport... imagine a giant X-Y plotter basically. Well my friend, being an instructor at the time, decided to have some fun with a couple students pilots from one of the airlines based in Mexico. He told one of the simulator maintenance technicians to "put something on the far end of the runway - I don't care what." Inside the simulator, the instructor also acts as the ground and air traffic controllers... so he "radioed" takeoff clearance to the two students. They were about to start the ground run for takeoff and noted something waaayy out there on the end of the runway. They radioed back questioning it (good for them - that's correct) and my friend replied it was something like a truck crossing the far end of the runway and that it'd be gone in a moment... go ahead and take off. The pilots discussed it amongst themselves and then decided to start accelerating (not good - if the runway doesn't appear clear, DO NOT MOVE!). As they built up speed, this whatever-it-was seemed to be getting bigger (as they got closer) but it was NOT moving off the runway. They radioed back to ground control... again my friend said "don't worry, you're cleared for takeoff."

By now, the pilots were quite concerned - that thing was getting darn big and was clearly not moving out of the way. They started screaming at each other in "warp speed Spanish" as my friend called it. Meanwhile, they accelerated past the "go/no-go speed" (takeoff decision speed - if something goes wrong on an airplane before this speed you hit the brakes and stop; once you pass it though you continue the takeoff because you might not have enough runway left to stop)... then they blew past the rotation and then liftoff speeds. Still screaming at each other.

Finally they stood on the brakes, deployed the thrust reversers, etc. and came to a stop. Mind you, they were going waaayy faster than they should have been (still on the ground) and were beyond the "go/no-go" speed. The little TV camera stopped about an inch from the whats-it. What did the tech put there? He pinned a dead moth to the runway! Inside the simulated aircraft cockpit, this moth looked about 40 feet tall! Those two students ran full-speed out the cockpit, screaming in Spanish the whole way. Probably needed new underpants too.

The lesson? If your eyes or instruments don't jive with ground/air traffic control, get a 3rd opinion! They're human too!

I've heard other practical jokes pilots play on each other. Some are almost as bad as fraternity hazing. I'll stick to aircraft design/engineering and making those simulators... don't have to work with such mean pilots!

mpc