All in all, it hadn’t been a good day. Bad traffic, a malfunctioning computer, incompetent coworkers and a sore back all made me a seething cauldron of rage. But more importantly for this story, it had been over forty-eight hours since I’d last taken a dump. I’d tried to jumpstart the process, beginning my day with a bowl of bowel-cleansing fiber cereal, following it with six cups of coffee at work, and adding a bean-laden lunch at Taco Bell.

As I was returning home from work, my insides let me know with subtle rumbles and the emission of the occasional tiny fart that Big Things would be happening soon. Alas, I had to stop at the mall to go Christmas shopping. I completed this task, and as I was walking past the stores on my way back to the car, I noticed a large sale sign proclaiming, “Everything Must Go!” This was prophetic, for my colon informed me with a sudden violent cramp and a wet, squeaky fart that everything was indeed about to go. I hurried to the mall bathrooms. I surveyed the five stalls, which I have numbered 1 through 5 for your convenience:

1. Occupied.

2. Clean, but Bathroom Protocol forbids its use, as it’s next to the occupied one.

3. Poo on seat.

4. Poo and toilet paper in bowl, unidentifiable liquid splattered on seat.

5. No toilet paper, no stall door, unidentifiable sticky object near base of
toilet.

Clearly, it had to be Stall #2. I trudged back, entered, dropped trousers and
sat down. I’m normally a fairly Shameful Shitter. I wasn’t happy about being
next to the occupied stall, but Big Things were afoot.

I was just getting ready to bear down when all of a sudden the sweet sounds of Beethoven came from next door, followed by a fumbling, and then the sound of a voice answering the ringing phone. As usual for a cell phone conversation, the voice was exactly 8 dB louder than it needed to be. Out of Shameful habit, my sphincter slammed shut.

The inane conversation went on and on. Mr. Shitter was blathering to Mrs. Shitter about the shitty day he had. I sat there, cramping and miserable, waiting for him to finish. As the loud conversation dragged on, I became angrier and angrier, thinking that I, too, had a crappy day, but I was too polite to yak about in public.

My bowels let me know in no uncertain terms that if I didn’t get crapping soon, my day would be getting even crappier.

Finally my anger reached a point that overcame Shamefulness. I no longer cared. I gripped the toilet paper holder with one hand, braced my other hand against the side of the stall, and pushed with all my might. I was rewarded with a fart of colossal magnitude – a cross between the sound of someone ripping a very wet bed sheet in half and of plywood being torn off a wall. The sound gradually transitioned into a heavily modulated low-RPM tone, not unlike someone firing up a Harley. I managed to hit the resonance frequency of the stall, and it shook gently.

Once my ass cheeks stopped flapping in the breeze, three things became apparent:
(1) The next-door conversation had ceased
(2) my colon’s continued seizing indicated that there was more to come
(3) the bathroom was now beset by a horrible, eldritch stench. It was as if a gateway to Hell had been opened. The foul miasma quickly made its way under the stall and began choking my poop-mate. This initial “herald” fart had ended his conversation in mid-sentence.

“Oh my God,” I heard him utter, following it with suppressed sounds of choking, and then, “No, baby, that wasn’t me (cough, gag), you could hear that (gag)??”

Now there was no stopping me. I pushed for all I was worth. I could swear that in the resulting cacophony of rips, squirts, splashes, poots, and blasts, I was actually lifted slightly off the pot. The amount of stuff in me was incredible. It sprayed against the bowl with tremendous force. Later, in surveying the damage, I’d see that liquid poop had actually managed to ricochet out of the bowl and run down the side on to the floor. But for now, all I could do was hang on for the ride.

Next door I could hear him fumbling with the paper dispenser as he desperately tried to finish his task. Little snatches of conversation made themselves heard over my anal symphony: “Gotta go… horrible… throw up…in my mouth… not… make it… tell the kids… love them… oh God…” followed by more sounds of suppressed gagging and retching.

Alas, it is evidently difficult to hold one’s phone and wipe one’s bum at the same time. Just as my high-pressure abuse of the toilet was winding down, I heard a plop and splash from next door, followed by string of swear words and gags. My poop-mate had dropped his phone into the toilet.

There was a lull in my production, and the restroom became deathly quiet. I could envision him standing there, wondering what to do. A final anal announcement came trumpeting from my behind, small chunks plopping noisily into the water. That must have been the last straw. I heard a flush, a fumbling with the lock, and then the stall door was thrown open. I heard him running out of the bathroom, slamming the door behind him.

After a considerable amount of paperwork, I got up and surveyed the damage. I felt bad for the janitor who’d be forced to deal with this, but I knew that flushing was not an option. No toilet in the world could handle that unholy mess. Flushing would only lead to a floor flooded with filth.

As I left, I glanced into the next-door stall. Nothing remained in the bowl. Had he flushed his phone, or had he plucked it out and left the bathroom with nasty unwashed hands? The world will never know.

I exited the bathroom, momentarily proud and Shameless, looking around for a face glaring at me. But I saw no one. I suspect that somehow my supernatural elimination has managed to transfer my Shamefulness to my anonymous poop-mate. I think it’ll be a long time before he can bring himself to poop in public — and I doubt he’ll ever again answer his cell phone in the loo.

And this, my friends, is why you should never talk on your phone in the bathroom.

(Not News): The Best Bathroom Story Ever originally appeared on The Coffee Desk on November 22, 2009.

On Bootup: First Impressions

So fellow editor Anthony sends me this VMware image and asks me to write a review about this OS given our shared fascination about it and his lack of time to write one himself (and I humbly accepted ). I fired it up after writing a .vmx configuration file to go with it, logged in using an anonymous Google account and was immediately greeted by this:

Welcome to Chrome OS.

But wait, let’s rewind a second here: before I reached the “omg your security is at risk – run for your life!” Chrome OS greeting page, I had to log in and remotely authenticate to Google using a Google account. So right away, Google receives my IP and subsequent location information upon computer bootup/login.

(refer to another article here, which criticizes Chrome OS for being too big brother-ish)

Of course, if you wanted to badly enough, you could root the system yourself by mounting it’s disk elsewhere and forcing all networking to go through a proxy system such as Tor for the ultimate privacy, but that would also make the system slow as hell and is too difficult for most users. You win, Google: here’s my location and the typical time of day that I boot up/log in to my computer running Chrome OS.

Chrome OS Settings

Moving past the “holy shit” tabs, I proceeded to open my own and start using the OS:

Well, go on, start being amazed already!

I found the menus to appear kind of Windows 98-ish what with the gray color next to all the shiny chromeyness and all, but whatever, it’s still an alpha testing build and probably can be skinned to hell and back at the OS level too.

Note where that menu is, too: there are three little menu buttons (which are hard to click when the mouse moves way too fast) in the corner that allow a window into the OS settings. They allow you to turn on/off your NICs, view your battery life, and the typical help/about pages etc.

But one thing that it lacks: an off/shutdown button. Once you are booted up, there IS no turning off the computer without holding down the power button or pulling the battery out (both of which are bad for the filesystem). I guess this is considered a “feature” of Chrome OS. How revolutionary!

Incognito Browsing = Porn Time!

In the screenshot above, you may notice the “New Incognito window” button underneath the usual “New tab” and “New window” selections. So what does this do?

It opens up a new chrome browser window, only completely sandboxed from the browser history and cookie storage for an “off-the-map” browsing experience:

Incognito browsing welcome page. Note how specific it is about the smiley thing.

The first thing that came to my mind: “they’re actually catering to porn watchers.” Yes, that’s right: take your netbook running Chrome OS into the bathroom, fire up an incognito window, and when you come out two minutes later (or longer, depending on chrome’s speed) there will be no trace of your activities. Just be sure to close the incognito window, of course!

But in order to accomplish this, one needs plugins installed for Flash or Java to view videos on the Web:

Chrome OS Plugins: Flash and Java

In my tests, the builtin Flash plugin didn’t work due to excessive crashing:

Note the “flash crashed” and Linux path notice under the toolbar, and the incognito icon in the corner ( )

But, it worked fine in YouTube (a Google-owned subsidiary):

Spaghetti beats cheerleaders any day of the month.

So Google got in bed with Adobe for out-of-the-box Flash integration pretty early, it seems. But Java? No. Silverlight? Don’t even joke like that. Stand-alone (.mp4/.mpg/.ogv etc.) videos? Forget it: even Google video removes the downloads for videos in these file formats upon detecting the Chrome OS user agent.

The Chrome OS useragent, by the way, is the same as Chrome’s only with “CrOS” thrown in there to shown that it’s the operating system and not just the browser. Adjust your shitty browser sniffers accordingly.

Where’s the Applications Menu?

I find references to an “applications menu” and “desktop” all over, but can’t find one:

The WHAT?

If I can’t find the applications menu as an experienced user/programmer having looked all over the place, then how can they expect netbook-using housewife users to locate it? Or maybe it just isn’t implemented yet since this is still technically an Alpha release.

And closing all browser tabs, instead of dropping down to a “desktop”, simply turns the screen blue under the cursor for a few seconds before launching a new Chrome window, restoring the last URL you closed.

Builtin Advertisements

Ironically, I discovered this while trying to install the Adsweep plugin for Chrome OS to remove ads from pages since they were slowing down my 300MB RAM virtual machine. The DNS resolution (over NAT) was so slow that the download page timed out and I saw this:

Note the first link: paid-for ad?

They suggest another site for you, based on their top search results for the URL’s terms. And if the top result happens to be ad-funded, then guess what? So even WITH my Adsweep installed, if a page times out due to Chrome/Linux’s apparent shitty DNS resolution, I am suggested a paid link. Great.

Other Miscellaneous tid-bits

Other than these issues, I overall enjoy the OS as a whole, even though I’m no Google fan (too big-brother-ish for me). I have always thought the idea of the web as a platform and a computer that could boot straight into a browser seemed like a great idea with the great proliferation of web apps in recent years, and Google delivered.

And Chrome couldn’t be a better browser to put on top of it all, using Webkit for pristine rendering:

Chrome OS passes the Acid 3 test 100%

Overall I was pleased, and look forward to future builds when the project continues to improve and gets better nearing release. With that said, I leave you with a final screenshot to demonstrate Chrome’s window manager’s appearance:

Chrome OS “About” screen

You can find the image floating around the web, if you wish to try it yourself

Google Chrome OS Review: The Housewife’s OS originally appeared on The Coffee Desk on November 21, 2009.

And it was fucking nasty.

I look at Google Wave as Google’s technological way of repeating the same experiment: take Docs, Orkut, Gmail, Wikipedia, and IM, stick them in a “blender”, and you get Google Wave. What follows are what conclusions I have drawn as a user/developer using Google Wave for the first time.

Article index:
First impressions
Wave Terminology
Issues
My verdict
Screenshots
Screencast

First impressions: What is a Wave?

When Anthony said he scored an invite from Twitter, I couldn’t wait to see what the buzz was about – Google Wave was still relatively unknown and unexplored territory to me at the time.

It still is, but it was before I used it, too.

As stated above, it is basically the retarded child of Gmail, Docs and Orkut with an editing interface that can only be described as somewhere between Wiki-style editing and instant messaging. It’s really hard to explain.

Fuck it, here’s a screenshot:

So do you see where it draws from Gmail and docs in its user interface? Even more Gmail-ish is the assignment of email(?) addresses to @googlewave.com, although I think those are reserved for waves/blips.

I also said it was like Orkut, Wikipedia and IM: everybody can edit any wave (unless there’s some “read-only” checkbox I haven’t seen yet), and like IM, the waves/blips are directed towards one or more people in a social-networking manner, instantaneously.

Here’s the creepy factor: you can see what people are typing before it is officially published. I found that to be a little weird. Goodbye, moments of typing “fuck you I’m not coming to work today and I’m hungover” before hitting backspace a few times and typing “I’m feeling under the weather” in a conversation to my boss. In a wave, this would get me fired.

Here’s where I freely edited the top blip in someone else’s wave:

Wave terminology

From what I’ve seen, nobody really knows what the hell is going on in Google Wave, much less what they call everything. But here are the basics: a wave is a thread of blips. A blip is a multimedia message, that is, a rich textual message containing multimedia (duh).

And, for the creation of these extravagant new evolutions in online collaboration, Google has designed the ultimate clickable GUI component to begin one of these innovative new “Waves”:

(sarcasm fully intended)

Oh, and all the cool wavers/surfers/hipsters/testers use “Google \/\/ave”(backslash-forward slash-backslash-forward slash-a-v-e) to refer to the product. You can see why I don’t.

Issues With Wave

Spam spam spam! I waltzed right up to someone else’s wave/blip and added my own line to it. I could have easily added a link or files as well, and with the handy-dandy Wave API freely available to use, spammers and hacked accounts could tune Wave into the biggest spamfest since Twitter.

And I know we’ve ripped on Google for vague privacy policies before here, but Google Wave’s privacy policy keeps mentioning “offline storage” as a permanent storage of all my retarded waves, including smiling bob up above.

Since could waves also contain emails, files (read: warez) and even untyped/unpublished “nah, I’d better not say that” content, the “stored for life” offline storage clauses within the privacy policy is a little disconcerting to say the least. I don’t like my drunken waves being stored in a nuke-proof underground safe somewhere.

For a Google product in “beta”/preview, it’s very stable. All the JavaScript seems to be bug-free, even in the obscure browsers I rigorously tested Wave in in an effort to find flaws. The keyboard shortcuts are the best I’ve ever seen in a web app: Google’s devs have clearly done their homework for the programming of this app.

My verdict

I almost don’t see the need for any of this besides as a toy that simplifies bouncing between other tools.

On the other hand, everyone thought Twitter was the biggest piece of crap on the web when it first came out, but now everyone uses it. Maybe the same will true for Wave: it could possibly revolutionalize how we collaborate online, and combined with Google’s Chrome OS could be the next generation of computing, placing Google in control of the entire process from the hardware up.

Or, it could become a (to the majority of users) unused tool like Google Docs. Only time will tell, but the invite system seems to indicate popularity like that of Gmail, so it could go big once released.

Random features and screenshots

The editing history timeline is pretty cool

A yes/no/maybe widget. Elementary school love letter deja vu.

Thread blip blip blip blip blip blip blip blip blip blip blip blip etc.

Well that’s all for now, no more ripping on Google Wave until they add more features. I hope I cleared things up for users trying to figure out what it is after reading so many vague and screenshot-less reviews on other sites. I would just like to know how this idea was conceived in the first place, personally.

Oh, and if you want an invite, hit us up on Twitter – we still have 20 as of this writing

Update: Screencast added

Thoughts On Google Wave: A Google Wave Review originally appeared on The Coffee Desk on November 3, 2009.

You might find some of these humorous, you might not, but they’re all true. Again, I apologize to our tech-expert readers, but just ignore this post – there are more to come soon. For those considering getting a kitten or in need of a good laugh, read on…

So I have a new kitten, and here are some things you should keep in mind when getting one yourself:

Declaw ASAP

My leather Lazy-Boy chair, R.I.P. Same with the carpet next to my bedroom (goodbye security deposit) and the same for my foot. Somehow, foot = creature under covers which must be attacked at 4am.

Declaw your cat/kitten. There’s a set amount of time before this can be done, but as soon as the time passes it is in your best interest to do so. Learn from me and my shredded armchair.

Anything Not Bolted Down Is A Cat Toy

I have had my keys carted away about three times within the past few days, causing me to be late to work one day. Same goes for a few things around the house, such as a salt-shaker in my kitchen.

If you don’t hide it, put it up (WAY up) and wind up “losing” something, check underneath almost every surface around the house that the object can fit under – it’s probably there. You may even find some places you never even knew existed.

Store-Made Toys Are Useless

I bought one of those little kitty-hell things I’ve always seen in Wal-Mart from time to time for kitty to play with instead of, say, my keys or checkbook. What happened, you say?

Kitty stared at for about five minutes before attacking my watch.

So its pretty much useless to actually pay for stuff. A crumpled up tin foil ball provides more fun than a scratch tree, at least until it joins the ranks of the other tin foil balls collecting under your couch.

Clean Laundry = Cat Bed

My nice, washed any dryed clothes are now covered in a thin layer of white cat hair. Put your clothes away ASAP after washing/drying them – otherwise they will become a habitat for fur. Trust me.

Spay/Neuter

And the list is as follows (for my male kitten):

• A stain on my armchair from piss
• A Cracker Jack-style “special surprise inside” of the back of my closet (A.K.A. turd)
• A puddle RIGHT NEXT to the litter box (almost isn’t the same as making it)
• A fresh coat of piss in the corner of my kitchen before work one day
• And finally, a second piss stain on my armchair.

It’s like there’s a vendetta against my favorite chair or something, if you notice.

Kitty Hungry?

Then you’re either going to feed it now, or else face the consequences (lost sleep early in the morning, destruction, being attacked in your sleep, destruction…)

It usually happens around 5am – I wake woke up at 6:30-7 for getting ready for work. First, the stare you can just feel in your sleep. Then, the soft meows. Then the loud meows. Then getting walked on several times.

Anything after that usually includes the sudden disappearance of said cat, only for you to later discover an act of destruction that took place somewhere during that time frame (usually in the form of piss or hidden necessities)

Heed My Words

They are so cute, what with their little eyes and such. But don’t be fooled – that little prick will cause destruction on a scale the likes of which you’ve never seen. The kitten itself was free, but the total amount of damage and food/litter costs are terribly expensive.

I mean, come on. It’s insane.

So take my advice if you are getting a kitten/cat as a pet. Otherwise, you will join me in the pain I have already experienced. And it isn’t fun or cheap, either. Enjoy your demon kitten.

Tips For New Cat Or Kitten Owners originally appeared on The Coffee Desk on September 10, 2009.

The whole thing is actually kind of funny, and don’t be surprised if it happens again as a result of this article: you know who to blame in that case. But we can all enjoy a good laugh at a few script kiddies, right?

Phase 1: The Comments

In the article in question that sent up a red flag at the imageboard, the 4channers (whom call themselves “/b/tards” – no joke) first decided to leave vulgar comments on the article at the bottom, after discussing the publicity amongst themselves.

Thankfully, the comments here are moderated, so we weeded out the hundreds of comments that were too explicit to post. Others, as you can see, were posted anyways, even if they were wrong or obviously a 4chan inside joke.

The comments were mostly 4chan “memes”, or inside jokes native to the imageboard. Such jokes include blaming the attack on a rival website “Ebaumsworld”, the phrase “I’m 12 and what is this?” and other “we are legion” type phrases.

Phase 2: The Flooding

After the discussion of our article escalated within the 4chan community, they then decided to start flooding the site with comments both vulgar and designed to slow the page down. So we disabled comments on the article, leaving a last note to users that we did so.

The disabling of the comments allowed the moderation queue to remain clean.

Phase 3: DDoS

When the comments were disabled and there was no longer any fun in leaving them, the 4chan script kiddies then decided to whip out little Windows programs designed to flood a server or IP with large and crafted TCP packets.

In other words, a DDoS attack.

So we were DDoS attacked by a bunch of script kiddies at 4chan using prewritten Windows programs that you can just point and click to initialize.

When school started today, the attack notably disappeared. Even the big and bad 4chan “hackers” can’t escape school, presumably the sixth grade.

So that’s why we were down. DDoS attacks are nothing sophisticated, I mean even the dullards at 4chan can pull them off using “click click click” programs. But if we go down again, you know what happened.

Later, I’ll post screenshots here taken directly from the 4chan imageboard depicting such DDoS programs in action – they get off on posting their “hacker screenshots” on the board, not knowing that they are both being logged extensively (most of them are not capable of hiding behind Tor for attacks), and that an editor of ours was present on the board during the discussion thanks to Apache HTTP referrer logging fields.

That is all, keep reading The Coffee Desk! (now officially 4chan-proof!)

Why We Were Offline: The Coffee Desk 4chan DDoS originally appeared on The Coffee Desk on August 25, 2009.

Twitter's Population in pie chart form

(now that we’re right-side-up again…)

I’ve complained about Twitter’s spam-to-human ratio many times before but it seems that since those posts, Twitter spam has only continued to spiral out of control.

Bot Spam

Not having a profile picture (or one appearing a little too revealing), and only one or two tweets consisting of “Come view my pics! (you have to register)” is a clear sign that the new follower is a spammer.

That, and spammy tweets originating from “API” (application programmer’s interface) rather than the web, txt (text messaging) or a well-known client is also a sign.

But do we block them? No, of course not. Unlike email spam, having a spammer follow you on Twitter is still a follower, so we rarely block them in favor of a higher follower number.

Promoters and Marketers

These guys bug me.

Before you say I’m being hypocritical, our Twitter account is used both personally as well as to inform followers of new posts. The marketers/promoters I’m talking about are trying to make money off Twitter by tweeting links to sites that I assume pay them or something.

They act like humans and look like humans, but in reality they are copy-paste human robots that rarely interact with those that follow them back (they follow random people in these hopes).

RSS to Twitter

We all have run across them – all’s quiet for a long time, then BAM! 100 incoming tweets from an RSS tool filling up your client at once.

It’s annoying as all get out. And they’re all links to a crappy blog or something, too.

Humans

The few, the proud, the outnumbered. These days, if you want to be taken for a human without any question, you’d better lock your account and make followers request to view your updates first.

This has several advantages – keeps down on stalkers (they’re out there), prevents a raunchy tweet (or two) from reaching employers’ eyes, and also lets you know who knows what you’re doing.

That and non-spammy tweets are a refreshing sight on Twitter these days, where humans are outnumbered by the legions of spammers and other unsolicited accounts.

Final Notes

It’s not that I don’t appreciate the art of marketing, but when it starts to invade social media like it has done to Twitter (with rape being a more appropriate term), then I have a problem with it.

And I’m sure I can’t be the only one who feels this way, either – let me know your opinion on the growing Twitter spam/promoter problem.

Twitter’s Population originally appeared on The Coffee Desk on August 19, 2009.

Here is a comparison of a few types of email, and what they say about you right off the bat. You know you’re guilty of the same thing – just imagine that you’ve read these off a resume or don’t know the person behind the address ahead of time.

Now, I realize that some of these summaries are not for everybody, but are for humorous purposes.

Everybody is guilty of drawing an immediate conclusion about someone they’ve contacted before upon seeing their email address. Don’t sit there and tell me you haven’t done this also – we all have, although we’re so used to seeing stuff like this that we try to downplay it a little more.

But you still have to admit that these are true most of the time, and I’ll be the first to admit to what I’ve thought in response to seeing an email address of a person I don’t know.

Thanks for reading.

What Your Email Address Says About You originally appeared on The Coffee Desk on August 8, 2009.

So it all starts with the first one to make it to the inbox, which happened to be one of your typical “You’ve won a random Email lottery drawing” scams. The email addresses of the spammers have been (snip)’d out to protect the “innocent” (so I don’t get sued or anything).

Spelling/grammar mistakes on my part are intentional, whereas those of the spammers are probably accidental. Just so you know.

The Sum Of £500,000 Pounds has been won by your EMAIL Address in our UK Online Promo.
Send your info:

Name
Sex
Occupation
Country

To: (snip)
Date: Tue, Jul 21, 2009 at 10:05 AM
Subject: Re: Winner
Mailed-by gmail.com

Really? Gee wilikers, I’ve never won nothing like this in my whole life! Here’s that info you want:

Name: Ben Dover
Sex: Yes please!
Occupation: Mortician
Country: America

From: (snip)
To: The Coffee Desk <thecoffeedesk@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Jul 21, 2009 at 7:35 PM
Subject: TO: Ben Dover ”CONTACT THE COURIER COMPANY FOR DISBURSEMENT”
Signed-by: btinternet.com

THE BRITISH ONLINE GAME 2009
UK National Lottery,
P O Box 1010 Liverpool
L70 1NL UNITED KINGDOM

Attention: Ben Dover,

We have received your mail and we hereby use this medium to explain to you how your e-mail address emerge winner in the just concluded UK Online Lottery Promo, It was a random selection of E-mail addresses ranging over twenty one thousand (21, 000) E-mail addresses and the selection was carried out by the E-mail Selective System (ESS) and your email address was selected as one of the lucky winners in the category ”D” of our last draw this means that you and as well as the other winners in your batch have been approved for a cash prize of Five Hundred Thousand British Pounds Sterling’s (500, 000: 00GBP), given below is your winning parameters and you are advised to keep them safe to avoid third party, do read the bellow information so as to enhance a successful disbursement of your winning fund to you.

(snip about 5 more paragraphs of the same rubbish, “send us this info” etc.)

Yours Sincerely,
Mrs. Helen (snip)
Online Co-ordinator
UK ONLINE LOTTERY PROMOTION’S

From: The Coffee Desk <thecoffeedesk@gmail.com>
To: HELEN (snip)
Date: Tue, Jul 21, 2009 at 8:16 PM
Subject: Re: TO: Ben Dover ”CONTACT THE COURIER COMPANY FOR DISBURSEMENT”
Mailed-by: gmail.com

‘ello, Helen!

I am truly am thankful for having won something for once in my life! You see, I’ve never won anything before in my life, and upon reading your email I was so thrilled I almost spilled my Acai berry juice!

Actually, I almost forgot – I did once win a stuffed animal from the circus once when I was a little boy, so while this isn’t the first thing I’ve ever won, it should certainly end better than my past experience.

The bear I won was made in China, if I recall correctly. Unfortunately, the prized bear (whom I named “snuggles”, after the laundry commercials) was left out in the lawn by accident one day after one of our many tea parties together and was mauled by my father’s lawnmower shortly thereafter.

But, having won 500,000 British pounds, I will be sure not to leave them laying in the lawn after tea parties as I did to poor snuggles. A lesson learned, I suppose, for both the loss of Snuggles and the belt lashings my father gave me for littering the lawn with snuggles’s cottony guts.

Unfortunately, dear Helen, I cannot claim this prize. You seem like a person I can trust with this information, so here goes – I happen to be a spy for the Chinese government, MI7. It is a top secret organization nobody is supposed to know about, with ninjas and such at their disposal should anybody learn of their presence.

And by the way, ninjas would beat pirates any day of the year. I’m sorry if you are a pirate fan, but I clearly admire ninjas more so than pirates when it comes to the pirates vs. ninjas debate, and I’m sure I’m not alone.

But anyways, yes – I am a spy, and therefore cannot provide you with the information you have requested of my at this time. Later, if I am not mauled by a lawnmower or ninjas (or a combination of the two, although I don’t see how even somebody as awesome and sneaky as a ninja could sneak up on me with a lawnmower), I might be able to provide you with my real name and other information.

I’ll at least provide you with my real name for now: Mike Hunt.

Again, I am truly sorry for all this. Especially if you are a pirate fan, but don’t worry – I was very depressed upon finding snuggles in 500 shreds amongst a pile of freshly cut grass, so I too have experienced true depression.

At the tender age of sixteen, when I found snuggles dead in shreds next to our tea party table, I took out my depression by holding my breath until I turned blue and passed out onto the patio. I was then sunburnt having been left out in the sun for so long, but the pain from that distracted me from the emotional loss of snuggles.

But anyways, lease let me know if we can work out some other arrangement as far as delivering the 500,000 pounds. Imagine how many more snuggles that could buy, or even a ninja outfit! Or if you wish to share with me a depressing childhood story not unlike my experience with snuggles.

I thank you for both the contest, and for your quick response to my drawing.

Sincerely,
Justin Time

Helen never did respond to my lengthy response, but I might have an idea as to why. All in all, I gave her about three blatantly-fake names, and I’m sure that (along with the snuggles story) might have tipped her off as to the validity of my excitement for winning a fake UK lottery.

But dear Helen (if that was her real name) wasn’t the first to be responded to, although she had the most interaction of any of the spammers I messed with. You see, shortly after the Helen exchange, I was the lucky winner of yet ANOTHER UK lottery:

So Wikipedia has always seemed like a goldmine for getting funny reactions from people via trolling, and they sure didn’t let me down in my own attempt. This isn’t a regular techie piece, but rather a humorous parody of Wikipedia editors via stereotypes and a very successful trolling attempt.

First off, before we piss any of our dedicated readers off, I know this doesn’t apply to everybody. There are Wikipedia editors (from here on referred to as “Wikipedians”) whom have lives, don’t worship Jimmy Wales, aren’t obese etc. This is just a parody of those whom do, and that spend every waking moment improving Wikipedia.

Hey, even I use Wikipedia constantly to look stuff up, but some people obsess over it too much, and that’s the point I’m making. Now, with all that out of the way…

Step 1: Create a Wikipedia account

Well, for my vandalistic constructive edits to be accredited to The Coffee Desk, I had to register an account. The user ‘Fat Slob‘ already existed, so I just went with the non-creative name of TheCoffeeDesk (now defunct/blocked – see below).

Step 2: Create a “real”-looking user page

With a valid user account, I was ready to make edits. After making a valid-looking user page, that is:

(please note that the “new messages” link above looks just like a real alert, only linked to the Penis article. The “typical wikipedian” link went here: typical wikipedian)

The text on my user page reads:

Hi, my name is Mark and I’m from The Coffee Desk. My goal for Wikipedia is to get as many Barn Stars as possible, as it has been my lifelong dream since childbirth (or since Wikipedia’s inception, at least). Having a small image and a few lines of text placed on my talk page is a huge accomplishment for me, and is well worth the days spent editing in exchange (as opposed to having a girlfriend, working, or anything “normal” like that).

Hey, some might even consider me a “Wikipedia nazi” of sorts for all of the constructive edits I will be making, so prepare yourselves – I take no prisoners when it comes to improving the Internet Encyclopedia!

Ta-ta!

Step 3: Contribute!

So, with a valid-looking user page and all, I was ready to make edits. I started minor, merely placing quotation marks around the word “outspoken” in the second paragraph of the article about Helen Keller (see here).

Then, I slowly stepped it up. I edited the Boingboing article to include a word about the phrase’s historical usage in sexual behaviour (seen here), before getting much worse.

I made the article about famous stuttering jazz musician Scatman John stutter, before replacing the entire Enzyte article with an image of a buttplug.

Then, I did my worst:

Jimbo Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, is practically the Internet Jesus to these nerds. His page is protected by an army of geeky teens, so I had to go a little more low-key by instead making a movie about him.

I’m referring, of course, to the edit I made to Bruno, where Jimbo Wales becomes a gay austrian.

Blocked, etc.

That did it. Those little geeks were so pissed about me messing with their god that they blocked the account indefinitely after that. They also threatened to remove all links to our site from Wikipedia, concluding that we must have put them there since we’re such bullies (and therefore spammers).

No, we didn’t put them there, but couldn’t give a care about whether or not they’re removed – I came and got what I wanted. The reactions I got from these guys was priceless (and lost with the banishing of the account, with no screenshots ): ).

My block appeal (declined):

I never meant any harm, just wanted to improve Wikipedia and earn a barnstar, as has been my lifelong dream. Other users, such as those above, have guided my edits to be even more constructive, and I deserve that this should be taken into consideration in the process of unblocking me so I can make constructive edits here on this wonderful web encyclopedia.

You see, since childhood I’ve wanted nothing more than a page on a widescale encyclopedia so I could improve the universe, making wonderful contributions (such as speling correction) to said encyclopedia, and to get a golden star for my efforts. When I found out about the Wikipedia project, I was thrilled and made a vow to do everything I could to get a barnstar.

Now, it appears I shall never have the opportunity to win said barnstar, and this saddens me to a great point. I just wish there was some way to go back, or perhaps win a second chance, to earn a barnstar by making only constructive edits now that I’ve been shown the true way, as this would bring great happiness to my life.

Such a feat would allow me to draw a line through “Win a barnstar” on my bucket list, so that I can move on to the next item on the list (bungee jumping using a morbidly obese person as an anchor). Such things make me happy, and would allow me to reflect on my life with great happiness, feeling I’ve left a great mark on this world, hence my name.

So I would appreciate any consideration in this matter, O great Wikipedian Administrators. I could really improve this encyclopedia, given a chance with the guidance I have been receiving. I thank you all for your time and patience in this matter, and ask that you give this some consideration for both my and Wikipedia’s benefit.

In Jimbo Wales,
TheCoffeeDesk

Priceless. I realize that this seems like a pretty lowlife attempt to troll, but Wikipedians have had it coming for such a long time, and this wasn’t the first attempt by far (nor the last).

So we’re blocked, and I pissed off a bunch of Wikipedians. But I got the reactions I desired for all along, as well as a pretty funny post. Worth it? Oh yeah, absolutely.

(And Anthony has a story in a similar vein coming up, where he responds to spammers/scammers via Email with some pretty hilarious material – stay tuned!)

Messing With Wikipedians originally appeared on The Coffee Desk on July 23, 2009.

There are a good number of them here, so just because one sounds stupid doesn’t mean the next one won’t make you laugh.

The Rules

The whole point of this guide is to simply gouge a funny reaction from the targeted person or group. Getting them to laugh, wonder, or somewhat disturbed is the goal, but ANYTHING beyond that (e.g. they’re about to call 911) is a sign to knock it off and come clean with them.

These are simply subtle and ambiguous gestures to prompt a funny response from the other party, and aren’t meant to harm anybody, cause damage or make somebody start spreading gossip that might make it back to your boss.

But, that said and out of the way, let’s get down to the actual details…

Stores

Walk up to anybody whom doesn’t work at a particular store, such as a fellow customer in Lowe’s or Wal-Mart, and start asking them where an item can be found, etc.

Act very surprised when they say “I don’t work here”, and optionally take it further from there, asking for their supervisor and such. Be careful doing this – I’ve gotten kicked out of stores before with police threats for “disturbing the customers”.

The Foreigner

This is a classic: go into McDonald’s or Burger King, and start speaking in a made-up language as convincing as you can. When they bring a manager from the back to possibly translate or turn you away, just say “But all I wanted was a number one with a cup of coffee” in very plain English.

This also works very well in drive-thrus.

The Blind Guy

Wear black sunglasses, grab a cane, and go knocking it around as you walk into a fast food place until someone whom works there escorts you to the front to make an order. Make the order, keeping up the blind act, then once the food comes tuck the cane under your arm and act like you can see.

Go directly for the food tray, look them dead in the eyes (through the sunglasses) and thank them, then walk out of the place directly towards the door with food in hand. Ignore profuse cursing from behind you.

The Needy Customer

You know those little “push for help” buttons in Lowe’s or Home Depot? Yeah, push them repeatedly in one particular aisle, and constantly hit the button behind to “deactivate” the call for help so you can do it faster. When the person comes to help you, look at them blankly, then look up at the aisle name, then say “oh, this isn’t the right aisle” and walk off.

The Manager

Put on a suit and tie, then go to an upscale restaurant. After your food comes, get about halfway through eating it.

At some point, when nobody is looking, get up and circle around the place to a remote table and start working your way back to your own table with this. Just go up to a random table, and with a smile on your face and your hands tucked behind you, act like a manager and ask the party if everything was to satisfaction and to call you if they need anything.

Once you’ve made your way back to your own table without getting caught by the staff, simply sit down and finish eating as you should have been doing all along. Hopefully, the other guests will notice, realize the hoax, and totally not report you to the staff before you can pay and get out.

A classic, indeed.

The Screamer

Go to any drive-thru, and yell your order as loud as you can into the little speaker thing. Get something cheap, because they more than likely will hawk a loogie or three into it before its delivered, and you don’t want to eat it.

When you pull up to get your order, thank them in a normal tone and drive off slowly. They will be baffled.

The Profane Customer

Same as the above, only using as much profanity as possible. Also applicable indoors, just be ready to make a quick getaway in case they pick up the phone.

The Angry Customer

Go into a store of sorts (I’ve done it in a drug store) and start yelling at the first unoccupied behind-the-counter worker you spot for some incident they supposedly were the cause of earlier. Ignore all claims of “I think you have the wrong person” or “But I wasn’t working here earlier”.

After getting it all out of your system, act like you’ve realized your mistake and walk off with a quaint apology. Only do this in a store you don’t mind not visiting for a while, preferrably out of state, etc.

The Mobster

Get a friend for this one: both of you are going to dress up in overcoats, sunglasses and matching hats. You will carry a briefcase, and walk up to some random person asking them “The sun is green today, no?” in a thick Russian accent. When they react, try the question again once more before apologizing to them and walking to your earshot-distanced matching friend.

Ask them the same question, have them give a response like “But only in New Jersey”, then discreetly give them the
briefcase (hopefully while the other person is watching) and walking off in opposite directions, leaving the other person in amazement.

The Dog Walker

Get a new dog leash, and just walk around in public places with it in hand, wearing a huge smile all along. Preferably for this to get the desired reaction, try it on a subway or similar crowded area. The key is to get someone to ask you about your “pet”.

As soon as someone inquires about the leash, tell them “My dog died about two years ago, but I still walk his spirit every day”, all the time wearing a huge and ignorant smile. Get angry if they try to tell you otherwise.

An alternative is to look down at the empty collar, scream, and go running back where you came screaming “Fluffy, where are you!” along the way.

The Failure Magician

Dress up in magician attire, and be sure to grab some stereotypical magician accessory (top-hat, rings, baton etc.). There are two ways to do this:

Walk up to someone, convince them to watch your free magic show for a second (e.g. “I’m an art major practicing for my show”), but make it seem like the magic trick didn’t work, before busting out in tears as if really depressed as a result.

The other, is to get a stuffed rabbit, put it in the top hat, then look surprised when it doesn’t “pop out”. Look down at the hat as if confused, then slowly pull the rabbit out before covering your mouth, sobbing, and walking away. The goal is to get the person to think the rabbit died in the hat, to your amazement. Try sprucing it up with “Third one this week!”, etc.

The Baby

Get a real-looking baby doll, put it in a real baby stroller or carrying basket, and as publicly as possible drop it out of the accessory onto the road before getting into your car and driving off, escaping the vigilantes.

This is an old trick the Jackass crew perfected, but still great to do in real life.

Jehovah’s Witnesses

Here, you have a group of people hardened against common rudeness and other strange dealings with the public, and so that combined with their persistent nature make them a great target for laughs.

I don’t hate anybody or any religion, but I do love to mess with people, Jehovah’s Witnesses included.

So next time one or a couple knock at your door or you see them going around the neighborhood ahead of time, go ahead and start putting together a show. Here’s a couple of classics I know of for when you answer them at the door:

• Take your shirt off, frizzle/wet your hair, smear ketchup or another odd substance on your chest/face, optionally wear war paint, and greet them at the door with a smile or grimace on your face and a pickaxe or hammer in hand
• Open the door, let them get about half a sentence out, then look at or behind them with an extremely terrified look followed by screaming and running further back into your house as fast as you can
• Grab a book (preferably of another religion) and preach it to them, as if you want them to join it
• Ask them for a password after they knock or ring the doorbell
• Just stare at them blankly, without saying a word or moving a muscle until they either walk off or you get tired. Slowly shut the door without stopping your staring
• Silently listen to what they have to say, then start slowly pointing a TV remote at them and press different buttons with a look of curiosity on your face

The possibilities are endless, but those are just a few of the best ones I’ve either done myself or thought of on the spot. Seriously, they’re great people, but I for one just can’t pass up the opportunity to mess with them, like others on this list.

Conclusion

Remember, just don’t get thrown in jail or otherwise in serious doo-doo for any of these gimmicks. Not my fault if you do.

It is best to perform these out-of-state or during road trips so you don’t run across anyone you know (or whom knows you) while performing the acts. I can’t tell you how many random people I must have freaked out doing these when I was younger, along with other mean tricks I won’t even list here.

So have fun, and if you enjoy these then feel free to retweet on Twitter or Digg up.

How To Mess With People: Step-By-Step originally appeared on The Coffee Desk on June 28, 2009.