Dear Canada
Posted: September 28, 2012 Filed under: Foolishness | Tags: Canada, Canada Goose, Celine Dion, comedy, humor, postaweek, practical jokes 44 Comments »
Love ya, mean it. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Dear Canada,
We are friends, you and I, right? Sure, you’re a justifiably proud nation and I am just some guy in the U.S.. You don’t know I exist and I can’t help or hurt you in any way.
I consider us friends. We’re certainly not enemies. We don’t stir things up about each other, we don’t fight. I can sing your anthem. It isn’t a problem that you can’t sing a song about me. There aren’t many of them out there, so I won’t hold it against you.
Remember that time I pretended to be from you? No one could believe I got away with it, especially me. Get away with it, I did, Canada. Getting away with it tells me something, we’re good together. We’re different from one another, but we’re good. So good, that I’m just going to come out and ask you to do something for me.
Look, they’re making more. That’s not funny. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Come get your geese. Yes, the Canada Geese, come get them. Every one of them. Read the rest of this entry »
Deploying The Singing Desk Prank
Posted: June 22, 2012 Filed under: Foolishness | Tags: comedy, humor, office humor, postaweek, practical jokes, pranks 20 Comments »In my last post, I walked you through the first steps of this trick. Now we’re going to move on to the stage where you’ll put your device in place and make your victim’s desk sing.
At the point we left things after the first post, you should have something that looks roughly like this:
You’ve carefully cut your card down, avoiding cutting too close to the sound device. Leaving a long tab from the front of the card gives you a place to connect your rubber bands. The bands will help trigger the card’s sound device every time the drawer opens.
It may be tempting to remove the entire card, leaving just the sound device. I don’t recommend that. The card you leave over the noisy bits helps protect them when you transport it to the office. In addition, the little thing that makes the sound is just a little bundle of wires, batteries and stuff that could, at first glance, look pretty nasty. Leaving some card in place minimizes the nasty.
Practical Joke 101 – Musical Greeting Card Desk
Posted: June 20, 2012 Filed under: Foolishness | Tags: Greeting card, humor, office jokes, postaweek, Practical joke how to, practical jokes, pranks, vlog, you tube 20 Comments »Periodically, I will do something to liven things up around the office. This trick is one of my favorites. I’ve had success with it though the years and I’m going to walk you through it step by step.
We are going to use a musical greeting card to rig up a desk. When it works (and this has always worked for me), opening a desk drawer triggers the card’s sound mechanism. Positioning the card correctly will enable gravity to shut the card off when the drawer closes.
The effect is magnified by the fact that there is very little chance the trick will be detected before it does it job. Everything looks normal…and then the desk starts singing.
The first step is to get a musical greeting card. Look for one that operates with a tab attached to the front of the card, like this one:
Look for a tab like the white one on this card
Cut the card, removing most of the front and back. Doing so makes the card more compact and easy to conceal. Leave a long strip extending from the tab. Be very careful around the sound device in the back of the card. The wires are fine and easy to cut.
When you cut the card, save the scraps and the envelope. You’ll use those later.
When you’ve finished cutting, the card should look like this:
We’re going to focus on the portion at the top.
Make a chain of rubber bands and tape them to the front of the card. The rubber bands will connect to the back of a drawer and the drawer’s motion will activate the card. Using rubber bands provides enough slack to keep the drawer from pulling the card apart or dislodging it once it is in place.
Correctly assembled, your card should now look like this:
When you cut up the card, you’ll have scraps left over. Save them. When you put your device on your victim’s desk, take the card scraps and put them in a trash can next to the desk of someone who is not in on the joke. Your victim will go looking for who is responsible for pranking him. By deflecting attention to someone who had nothing to do with it, you get the benefit of playing a prank on two people at the same time.
Remember, not your trash can. Pick someone and put this in their trash.
Your homework is to go get a musical greeting card. In the next post, I’ll show you how to set your device up on a desk and provide a video of how it works.
Speaking of video, here’s one that I created to explain what we’ve discussed so far:
Me Versus The Singing Guy: The Plan Changes
Posted: June 17, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: humor, life, music, office ettiquette, postaweek2011, practical jokes, singing, the singing guy, work 35 Comments »Over the past few months, I have documented the torment inflicted by, and my battle against The Singing Guy in my office. I come to you this time, my friends, to consult you on my next move. I have a bit of strategy in mind to get your input on.
Let’s Review
Where the tools of psychological warfare are sold (Image via Wikipedia)
Last year I told you about The Singing Guy, a person at my work place whose quirky singing performances leave others in the office feeling awkward. He developed a pattern of stopping near an unsuspecting person’s desk while they were working and singing to them. Not just singing. Singing, with dancing, and finger snapping. His performances were resistant to my tactics of glaring and snarling at him.
Then, a dry cleaning error revealed a weakness I could exploit. The dry cleaner that drops off and picks up at our office returned his laundry with the addition of another person’s garment. This additional garment was such a distraction to The Singing Guy that he could not sing. I realized at that point that I could use The Singing Guy’s need to be on the cutting edge of fashion to manage his behavior.
Corduroy Pants Versus The Singing Guy. Who Will Win?
Posted: January 24, 2011 Filed under: Foolishness | Tags: Corduroy, Dry cleaning, humor, jokes, practical jokes, singing 49 Comments »
A singing guy (who no longer sings), not The Singing Guy. (Image via Wikipedia)
A few months ago I introduced you to someone in my office I call The Singing Guy. The Singing Guy goes beyond the usual and acceptable levels of singing at work. Instead, he puts on awkward performances that leave misery and confusion in their wake.
More recently, I let you in on a plan I developed to torment The Singing Guy into days of silence. I realized through observation one day that an error in his dry cleaning order distracted him so severely that he was unable to sing. I decided to experiment with periodically slipping additional garments into his dry cleaning after the cleaners brought it back to the office.
I went to a Goodwill store and purchased three garments to begin the plan. Today, I come to you with happy news. The first implementation of the plan was a success. Read the rest of this entry »
Tiny Big Corduroy Pants, My Weapon Of Choice
Posted: December 8, 2010 Filed under: Foolishness | Tags: clothing, comedy, Dry cleaning, humor, jokes, life, music, office, office ettiquette, practical jokes, punked, random, shirt, singing, Washing machine 40 Comments »You might recall my struggle to deal with The Singing Guy, a person in my office whose awkward and lengthy singing performances can’t be stopped by normal means. Simple verbal solutions like “please stop singing to me” and “go away” are powerless against his need to spread his dancing, singing strangeness.
I have searched for a new weapon to make sure that the show does not go on. That weapon has arrived, courtesy of a dry cleaner’s mistake. Read the rest of this entry »
…but I’ve never diverted a commercial airliner.
Posted: September 26, 2010 Filed under: bad ideas | Tags: Airliner, bad choices, bad ideas, Boeing 777, Canada, cnn, comedy, current events, duct tape, japanese beetle, japanese beetle trap, Karachi, life, news, Pakistan, Pakistan International Airlines, practical jokes, pranks, Rick James, sweden, thoughts 22 Comments »I have done things…
I love tape. (Image via Wikipedia)
I am willing to admit that I have pulled a practical joke now and again.
I have glued lockers shut.
I have removed tires and left cars on jacks. Sometimes I’ve made cars disappear.
I taped someone into their office. I taped someone out of their car. I made duct tape insoles for someone’s shoes. I taped someone to a wall. I love tape. Read the rest of this entry »
People that have blurted back