So, I never really called out for other people to help out on the whacky little projects I come up with to keep my brain inside the skull. But this one might be something for you;
At some point it came to my attention that a lot of people get a bit irritated if objects they encounter on a regular basis get moved around and show up in unusual spots. These can be small but it gets much more fun with bigger things.
____________
To give a few examples:
There was this fruit stand every summer in my hometown that was shaped like a giant strawberry: several nights it just "magically" moved from the shopping street to the middle of a crossing on main street.
Potted plants are also interesting to put in front of entrances, doors or inside elevators - obscuring the usual walking paths of busy people.
Mixing toilet brushes into the vegetable and fruit display at your local supermarket (please take the fresh ones from the household section, don't bring your own!) / leave potatoes in the magazine display!
(...)
Next time you see something that can be moved, think of a more confusing place to put it - then just move it around while nobody is looking!
I like fucking with people's heads, but I don't like fucking with people's days. Moving some guy's fruit stand probably just annoyed him in the morning when he came to work and had to move it back. People aren't mindfucked or enlightened by this kind of pointless vandalism; it just makes the employees have to do extra work.
Actually, I used to really enjoy doing this on campus sometimes. We had a campus coffee shop that, because it was student run and inside the building where mail was kept, was never locked. Sometimes at four in the morning if nobody was there still I would go in and rearrange all of the furniture, and move the stage around and everything, and then the next night when everybody was really confused as to how everything moved, I would just play along.
I don't think anybody ever found out I was doing it. That was definitely the best part.
Quote from: Nigel on July 01, 2008, 04:10:39 AM
I like fucking with people's heads, but I don't like fucking with people's days. Moving some guy's fruit stand probably just annoyed him in the morning when he came to work and had to move it back. People aren't mindfucked or enlightened by this kind of pointless vandalism; it just makes the employees have to do extra work.
true dat. it can be done to just fuck with people who are observers (lots of signs that say "sidewalk closed" or "Wet Paint"). I used to like to do a turn-shit-upside-down-GASM.
But don't fuck with a man's fruit stand. And quit moving my chair.
It actually is a mindfuck, imho. A couple weeks ago my roommate couldn't find something she had been holding just a minute earlier... I was *this* close to believing some supernatural force was involved when she found it.
ITT I feel bad for blind people.
I agree that moving a fruit stand is annoying for the person who owns it.
But it could be considered collateral damage if we take into consideration how many people had to drive around a strawberry in the morning.
How do you feel about giant strawberries on the road?
:lol: I think that's a fairly German / eu phenomenon
we don't have the giant strawberry fruit stands around here. I saw them when I was in Germany though, so I think I know what you're talking about.
yeah i agree that the weirdness of having something appear quite outside its natural environment for a lot of people definitely weighs up to whoever has to move it back.
also, if having to move some item back to its original place fucks up your day, you're going to have worse problems in this world than a discordian playing funny.
it's not like you actually destroy anything. but i agree that it is important to think about these things and be a littlebit considerate if necessary.
however, if you know the person who has to move it back is a dickhead. ...
Quote from: Nigel on July 01, 2008, 04:10:39 AM
I like fucking with people's heads, but I don't like fucking with people's days. Moving some guy's fruit stand probably just annoyed him in the morning when he came to work and had to move it back. People aren't mindfucked or enlightened by this kind of pointless vandalism; it just makes the employees have to do extra work.
*This is war sweeth'art, ya betta get used to the causalities*
:lulz:
yep- when the clock fell off the wall in the lab where i work and was deemed a safety hazard and relocated, i printed up a signe that said "MADE YOU LOOK" and hung it where the clock used to be.
I moved a motel room painting which was locked to a wall, I undid the locks turned the painting upside down and re locked it .
edit -for full sentences and punctuation -
Please use complete sentences and some punctuation, man. It's really hard to read your posts.
:argh!: F M E post not so good grammar punctuation bad not good read thank goodness he have spell check
Last good MF that I did was moving Michael Behe's book "Darwin's Black Box" (a book about Intelligent Design) from the Science section to the Religious Fiction section at the local B&N. I never went back to see how long it stayed there.
I agree that there are ways to do this that would be funny, I just think about that poor fruit stand guy. It's not like that's a mindfuck; it's COMPLETELY OBVIOUS that some punk moved it to be funny, making it automatically not funny. Things are only a mindfuck if there is an element of surprise or confusion or something that makes you think.
Extremely subtle, confusing changes; funny. Extremely large, confusing changes; possibly funny, if done with a high level of forethought. I like to plant products in people's houses, and do shit like replace their half-used jug of milk with a half-used jug of different milk, or put a handful of mayonnaise packets in their butter compartment, just because it's subtle enough to make them question their own realities. Adding magazines to their bedside table or stuffing a pair of socks under the blanket at the foot of the bed, or adding a pair of shoes in their size to their closet, are also good. You can choose things which really DO fuck with people's MINDS, making it a MINDfuck and not just an irritating obvious prank.
:lulz:
I love those, Nigel!
I like the little things Amelie did when she entered "the jerk produce stand guy's" apartment and mixed up door knobs and shoes and the time on the clocks and such (^_^)
(http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm319/Hipashtree1323/amelie-poulain04.jpg)
Interesting point Nigel.
Back to the supermarket example: Instead of just relocating things in the supermarket I should start and focus on trying to switch things in the consumer's carts and baskets; or at least add some odd items which will pop up when they go pay. Higher riskfactor but more bang for the buck. ;)
Switching items 'they' have previously selected and put in a certain spot will do more than just reassemble their environment. However, I still think that environmental switchGASM achieves something: even though it might not be a classic MF it will certainly break up some robotic patterns, if only for a few seconds.
My environmental ideas are like what I did in the lower level of our courthouse where the attorney general's custody and child support cases are held. I put a wet paint sign on ALL the benches outside the courtroom. I went down that day and found about 50 people all standing up while the old stained wood benches were completely empty.
BTW, I almost got caught doing that by the county judge.
Having spent 13 years of my life as a begrudging retail wage slave, it is important to me, personally, not to do stuff that makes their workdays significantly harder for them.
However, things that fuck with people a'la The Midget are A-OK and :lulz:, IMO. Like Wet Paint signs where there is no paint.
Some people in our dorm were going to go around and put 'Out of Order' signs on random things like trash cans and benches on April 1st. Except only one other person did it with me.
Mine went on a statue of Mary.
I miss logging people. I've had a serious craving to log somebody, but there's nobody around whose really good to log.
Heh placing out of order signs in those places is a pretty good one, ill steal that idea.
What do you mean with logging Badger? is it:
(http://www.core77.com/blog/images/image025.jpg)
As a kid i used to entertain myself by unlocking and moving bikes with these type of locks
(http://www.uitweg.be/nummer-37/beelden/S_uitweg37_0806.jpg)
about 10-15 metres and locking them again. I haven't seen any of those locks in ages...
Its kinda hard to come up with ideas for things to switch or move that cause people to think without being vandalism or bloody expensive.
hmmm make your own patterns with rocks or bottlecaps, make stacks of bottlecaps on a sidewalk at a regular interval or something like that.
Badger, you seem as if you would be a good larding partner, because you enjoy that sort of thing. I haven't been larding for a long time!
Nigel, I grabbed your awesome comments (above) and posted them to the PD blog.
http://www.principiadiscordia.com/blog/cramulus/nigel-on-the-switching-prank/
Offtopic: let me know if you want the comments in your 23ae post moderated.
Hey, thank you! :D
As for the comments, I can't make sense of them... might as well leave them alone. Emmanuel Teijeiro is insane, I take it? At first I thought he was being pineal, but on further reading he appears to be completely off his rocker.
he literally spams every single post with this mike chapman where's my money garbage.
That's an interesting schtick. I wonder what his reasoning is for that? I'm sure it's terrible reasoning, but I'm curious anyway.
Quote from: Nigel on July 18, 2008, 07:05:01 PM
Badger, you seem as if you would be a good larding partner, because you enjoy that sort of thing. I haven't been larding for a long time!
I've never really larded somebody. Is it the same idea as logging, I guess, but with.. what, a bag of lard?
And yeah, I really enjoy that sort of thing. The resulting confusion is pure lulz.
Yes, a brick of lard usually, and sometimes a notecard expressing appreciation. Maybe flowers or other gifts, and lots of sidewalk chalk for writing "PRAISE THE LARD" on the sidewalk.
GODBERRY!! - KING OF THE JUICE
sorry.
This is such a great idea. I've done this a few times, changed poster places in university, or hang them upside down (sometimes leaving small notes behind the poster). But it was more for fun than anything else. After reading this thread I realized the great chances in mindfuck others but also train yourself in changing your environment.
I know a place here where they have this big poster (a2) at the entrance to the cantina. The center sports a stencil of a half-pealed banana and it tells the reader that you should eat a power-banana cause they're good/healthy/something.
Imagine having a copy of said poster but exchange the banana with some cherries, or a rawberry for that matter. It will still have the same text, hang in the same place it's been hanging for years, the picture will just be a bit "rong".
Switch just before lunch and watch people plunge into confusion.
And before lunch is over you can even switch back for double mindfuckery.
I'll try to find the photo of said poster for better illustration.
When I first read the topic title I thought it was a variant on the xkcd non-useful switch labels...
I like the idea of moving stuff around in subtle ways. This probably will not work on the shoppers in a supermarket, and will simply piss off the employees -- supermarkets typically change their layout on a schedule so that as soon as shoppers begin to get used to the layout, they have to adapt to a new layout (causing lots of walking around looking for where their cereal was moved, which sometimes makes people more likely to buy more stuff or something). However, somewhere like a cafe may be good. For instance, put the salt and pepper shakers next to the sink in the bathroom and put the bathroom soap in the basket on the table perhaps.
Any time I eat at a shitty chain restaurant (which is a lot), I take the inserts from their menus, and replace them with the inserts from the last restaurant I ate at. Rinse and repeat. Same with the little cardboard advertisements on the table as well. I've probably swapped almost a hundred restaurant things in the last few years.
That doesn't seem complete though. I need to think of something more, something that shouldn't be in a menu. Like a cable TV channel lineup card, or the card from the hotel that says "leave your towels on the floor if you want them washed," or maybe I should just print and laminate my own inserts.
HiX, I like that.
You could also scan and alter the inserts, then put the "new" version back into the restaurant.
An idea I had last night:
Switch the color of your friend's milk: Be unobserved near the fridge, add chocolate drink powder to their open milk carton, shake properly, resume normal activities. :evilmad:
It might ruin their first cup of coffee / bowl of cereal in the morning. But the moment brown milk comes out of that carton they will just be "WTF?".
Or you could just put a couple of drops of food coloring in. Then you'd be less likely to ruin their morning, because it would taste the same, just be startling as hell.
The obvious point that you're missing is that you're wasting your time. By the way, where IS Mike Chapman? He owes me money.
(http://static.toondoo.com/public/w/e/t/wetfartgospel/toons/cool-cartoon-896175.png)
(http://static.toondoo.com/public/w/e/t/wetfartgospel/toons/cool-cartoon-899380.png)
(http://static.toondoo.com/public/w/e/t/wetfartgospel/toons/cool-cartoon-899373.png)
(http://static.toondoo.com/public/w/e/t/wetfartgospel/toons/cool-cartoon-891937.png)
(http://static.toondoo.com/public/w/e/t/wetfartgospel/toons/cool-cartoon-891912.png)
(http://static.toondoo.com/public/w/e/t/wetfartgospel/toons/cool-cartoon-890234.png)
(http://static.toondoo.com/public/w/e/t/wetfartgospel/toons/cool-cartoon-890220.png)
:facepalm:
Quote from: The Lord and Lady Omnibus Fuck on April 30, 2009, 01:55:59 PM
Or you could just put a couple of drops of food coloring in. Then you'd be less likely to ruin their morning, because it would taste the same, just be startling as hell.
plus its more concentrated so its easier to hide.
plus plus it comes in all kinds of colors.