Penn & Teller mentioned in strange story...

[skeptic555]

Only tangentally related to 'magic', but a fun story with a key penn and teller mention. It seems a guy wrapped his friends apartment completely in aluminum foil, with the exception of one book...Penn & Teller's Cruel Tricks for Dead Friends.

Link to story

http://www.theolympian.com/home/news/20 ... 8191.shtml

Steve Neruda

[Rob Signs]

What a great prank!

[Ray Banks]

Too cool!

[Ian Kendall]

Very woo.

That reminded me of an event at University umpteen years ago...

It was someone's birthday (we'll call him Bob, as it's easy to type and I've forgotten his real name). Bob lived in Pollock Halls of Residence, which are like college dorms for the YooEss readers. These are large rabbit warren/hutches where undergrads slept, and maybe did some work if exams were near. A group of Bob's friends and aquaintances hatched a wee plan over lunch.

Step one was to gain access to his room. Friend One called the payphone on the house floor (this was _way_ before cellphones) and asked to speak to Bob. The person who answered the phone went to get Birthday Bob from his room and, as was the norm, Bob went to answer without locking the door. As soon as he was out of sight, the Mole slipped into the room and hid in the largish wardrobe. Meanwhile, Friend One invited Bob out for a Birthday drink in the local tavern, to which Bob, being a Student in the Eighties, readily agreed. Bob went back to his room, picked up his things and left, locking the door behind him.

Once Bob had been seen to leave the Halls and meet with Friend One, the Mole came out of the closet, as it were, and opened the door to let in four or five upstanding members of the community, who proceeded to turn the room upside down. Literally.

First, all the books and folders were turned and replaced upside down. The bed was turned upside down and all Bob's tapes were adjusted by taking out the inserts, folding them outside in and then stacked the wrong way up. All Bob's clothes, from T shirts to socks were turned inside out and as a crowning end (and unplanned afterthought) all the carpet tiles were lifted and replaced upside down.

Upon his return, slightly oiled, Bob's reaction was not one of sweetness and light. He was more peeved at how they had got access to the room in the first place. It took a couple of hours to put everything back...

Not that I had anything to do with it.

Take care, Ian

[Pete Biro]

We had an EXTREMELY NEAT co-worker in the Art Studio... when he was gone on vacation we moved all his furniture just a few inches off kilter and just before he came back stuck a dead fish under a cabinet in his office.

Another prank I did (which BACKFIRED BIG TIME) was I sprayed flamable liquid on the tile floor of the mens room and tossed a match in and the stuff leaked down the elevator shaft and the grease on the elevator shaft caught fire.

Luckily no one figured what happened or who did anything figuring it was a wiring short.

Fire department responded quickly and got all uncer control with little or no damage.


Oh well...

[Rich Cowley]

Two gags come to mind when I read this thread:

- A friend of mine worked in a cubicle farm, where one of his co-workers had the steadfast habit of breaking for lunch at 12:00 sharp, eating his (brown bag) lunch in about 10 minutes, then put his feet up on the desk to nap for the rest of the hour. His internal alarm clock always woke him at 12:55, whereupon he'd wake, stretch, and get on with the afternoon. -- One day, just after this guy fell asleep, my buddy quietly walked around the office and *changed every clock* (desk clock, wall clock, even the one on the guy's PC) to read 4:15, and just waited for the guy to wake up. As the story goes, the office was deadly quiet - until a shriek erupted from a certain cube! (The worst part of the gag was, my buddy had to go around and re-set all the clocks back.)

- Another (CEO) buddy of mine tells the story of one of his VPs going to vacation in Bermuda for two weeks. As soon as the plane took off, my buddy brought in a construction crew, who sealed off the VP's office, to the point where they built a new drywall over the door, painted it to look like the existing hallway, even mounted an electrical outlet, potted plant and wall clock onto the dummy wall. The (relaxed/refreshed) VP returned, only to walk up and down the hall where (he could have *sworn*) his office once was! (Once again, the worst part of the gag was the cleanup...)

:)

[Pete Biro]

Covering an auto race in a small town, we all got back to the motel, tired, dusty, dirty from an all day session out in a desert area.

At dinner time we started to round up our crew and the editor of a magazine that was travelling with us had left his door ajar and was sound asleep in all his clothing on top of his bed.

We rushed in and I shook him and said, "Gus... you've slept in your clothes all night... C'mon we got to get back out to the track the first practice starts soon."

We tore down a hallway (the great thing was there were no windows) and into the coffee shop.

We were looking at the BREAKFAST MENU... finally after some time Gus looked over and asked "Wonder why the folks at the next table are eating steaks for breakfast?"

He finally got it.

[Elwood]

Walking home from the pub one night with my friend Hank, we noticed a big oven (I mean industrial sized, six ring big!) outside the house of someone not particularly well liked in town.

So we moved it right outside his garage door, so he couldn't get his car out. It took us ages, it was that heavy, and trying to do it quietly, well...

Next night, it's back at the top of the driveway again, so we moved it back in front of the door.

Next night, it's back at the top of the driveway again.

Later that night, armed with a few old pots and pans, some sand and cement and some araldite, we put it back in front of the doors, glued the pots and pans down to the cooker, filled them with sand and cement, and went home, chuckling to ourselves.

The cooker didn't move for two days!

Three days later when I walked past (on the way to the pub!) at the top of the driveway stood a big pile of scrap metal...the guy had taken an angle grinder to the cooker and chopped it into little pieces.

I guess he didn't like walking to work! :D

[Bill Palmer]

Originally posted by Steve Neruda:
Only tangentally related to 'magic', but a fun story with a key penn and teller mention. It seems a guy wrapped his friends apartment completely in aluminum foil, with the exception of one book...Penn & Teller's Cruel Tricks for Dead Friends.

Link to story

http://www.theolympian.com/home/news/20 ... 8191.shtml

Steve Neruda

UH, Steve, I'm not sure how to tell you this, but the name of the book is Cruel Tricks for Dear Friends, not "Dead" friends.

[skeptic555]

Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!
Indeed it is. Although given P&Ts penchant for the slightly off-color, I suppose I can take pride in the malapropism...

SN