Totally Unspiritual Post of the Week, #8

It's been awhile since I did a totally unspiritual post, so the content has been building up...

First off, I've had several laugh aloud moments taking a look the "Top 100 Facts About Chuck Norris" site. Among my favorites are:

- Chuck Norris' tears cure cancer. Too bad Chuck Norris never cries.
- The chief export of Chuck Norris is pain.
- Someone once tried to tell Chuck Norris that roundhouse kicks aren't the best way to kick someone. This has been recorded by historians as the worst mistake anyone has ever made.
- Superman owns a pair of Chuck Norris pajamas.
- It was once believed that Chuck Norris actually lost a fight to a pirate, but that is a lie, created by Chuck Norris himself to lure more pirates to him. Pirates never were very smart.
- There isn't a chin beneat Chuck Norris' beard. There is only another fist.

More Pranks
Next, we're going to spend some more time on great pranks. Although I'd like to say that I have been the perpetrator in all of these examples, I'll start off in one story where I was the perpetratee, often referred to as a perpee.

This prank was played on me by Michael Houston, a coworker (who you might remember as the perpee in one of my earlier pranks, the "diploma swap.") I came back to my office after a meeting to find a box on my desk. Boxes are always exciting to receive, as they often contain presents, office supplies, or werewolves. Excitement turned to suspicion, however, when I noticed this particular box had some peculiar corners. Specifically, the corners appeared to be burned, and frayed wires were visibly protruding from the packaging.

Now, if you're like me, you check the New York State Police site on suspicious packages every other day, just in case something like this happens. Because I had checked the site, and had posted their very helpful diagram above my desk, I knew that packages with "protruding wires" should be examined by a professional bomb squad. After reading so much about these types of packages I knew exactly what not to do: "don't let anyone touch it, call safety officials immediately, don't attempt to carry it outside," etc.

Instead, we decided it would be safest to shake the package (it felt light inside, although there was definitely something in it), and then take it outside for further examining, just in case it was a bomb. We first threw a baseball at it (which is a technique I saw on the TV series: "Bombsquad Crewz"), and after it didn't explode, decided it was certainly safe to open. Despite the fact I did not think it was a bomb, it was a little disappointing that it didn't explode. Instead, I found a mug inside, and a $50 gift card to Starbucks! Michael fessed up that he had intercepted the package, had been bored, and decided wires and burnt edges would give us a few minutes of entertainment.

(Follow up: Michael has been fired. Please keep his pregnant wife and unborn child in your prayers).

#2: Computer Pranks
I have a new coworker: Chris Collins. Chris has an irrational fea... I mean love of snakes. Whenever he sees a snake, he immediately lets it crawl around inside of his clothes. He wants everyone to e-mail him a picture of the coolest snake they can find on the internet (literal snake, not figurative) to his e-mail address. Anyway, instead of e-mailing him my favorite snake, I just made it his desktop background so he would see it right away.

To thank me, he made a slight modification to my autocorrect feature in Microsoft Outlook. In order to save me time, every time I typed the word "and," Chris set my computer to autocomplete "and by the way I'm brokeback gay." This proved to be extremely convenient, and all those saved keystrokes kept me from getting carpal tunnel syndrome.

In order to thank him back, I decided it was time for a little game called "Remote Havoc." This is a "computer program" of sorts, that you can "install without another user's knowledge" and that "allows you control of their computer." It's a blast. You install it to their computer, and then, from a control panel on yours, you can "say hello."

I started off with a normal sounding information message that read, "Windows has automatically synchronized your computer clock to Greenwich Standard Time (GST)."

I had people planted to watch Chris as these messages started popping up, and after staring at his screen for a few seconds, he just clicked, "ok."

Then, I decided to flash up one of my favorite websites, called "XXXchurch.com". Don't worry- it's not a porn site. It's a great, unconventional ministry. Conveniently, one of the founders is speaking at Pepperdine in just a few weeks, and Chris is in charge of that program - so it seemed normal that maybe he hit a key that would accidentally pop this site up.

Next, I sent Chris a warning from the "Pepperdine Content Filter", which apparently thought XXXchurch.com was a naughty site:


Chris immediately got up from his chair, and walked to the front of the office. We casually strolled out there, and made up some question to ask. He said something to the effect of "Hey, do you guys know anything about a Pepperdine Content Filter?," to which we said "I seem to remember the President mentioning something about that in his address to the Student Government Association...". He said he was going to visit IT Engineering, to find out what was going on. He also accused us of messing with his computer. The fact that I was smiling when I denied it didn't help him to believe me.

He came back, and what do you know, the IT guys were busy. While I was in his office, I was asking him to describe to me what had happened - we even searched for a malicious program that might be running on his computer together. Instead, the same xxxchurch.com site and warning message popped up! (my coworker, Michael Houston, was in my office on the control panel).

I left, and people started congregating in his office, some aware, and some oblivious to the joke. Then, the warning messages started getting a little odd:


Chris bolted into my office, realizing that it must be me. He's a clever one!

You can download Remote Havoc here. Among other favorites on the control panel, you can open and close the cd tray, switch the mouse buttons, minimize windows, run programs, and send any warning message you want.

...and that's all for this week's totally unspiritual post. I'll have some more videos posted in the bathroom that people have been sending me - quality stuff. Peace in!