Two Slashes

For everyone else, there are prank calls.

Alright, so maybe I don’t have the cleanest record when it comes to telephony.  I’ve been the silent listener in a few prank calls (though I’ve never placed one myself, and if you’ve ever met me you can probably figure out why), and I’ve done a bit of manual wardialing.  Technically, that doesn’t make me a troublemaker, at least no more than most of the people I’ve met.  And at no point did I overstep past slight annoyance into genuine mischief.

On the other hand, there are always people willing to cross that boundary without any thought at all.  Usually it’s for a laugh, but there will always be times where there seems to be some further motive driving these people, a reason you know they’re going through the trouble to mess with your head.

If you thought that I was giving you just such an example, you won’t be disappointed.

Last Saturday, I got a phone call around 2 A.M. from one of my friends.  Such late phone calls themselves aren’t unusual or even unexpected, but when the first words you hear are inquiring about whether you’re contemplating suicide, you know something is up.

After I reassured my friend that I was not dangling from the ceiling, he proceeded to tell me that someone had called his home only a few minutes before, and that one of his parents had answered.  This unknown caller (who I have no way of identifying) proceeded to tell my friend’s parents that it was me calling them, and hinted that I was in a depressed state and considering suicide, or at least something around those lines.  Naturally, as soon as they hung up, they did what any responsible parent would do:  flipped out.

My friend was out and returned home minutes after the phone call, at which point he immediately called me to verify that the story was, as he believed, false.

Between the two of us, we took what little information we could put together and realized that someone (we don’t know who) was trying to screw with both of us, and that it had to be someone with the resources and enough brains to use fake caller ID information (or use this…*ahem*).  After all, who else would think to spoof their phone number as 212-666-1337?  (For the uninitiated, 212 is an area code in New York, 666 should be instantly recognizable, and 1337 is a “hacker” designation for someone with “elite” or “advanced” (a truly skilled person wouldn’t brag) skills.)

I’m not writing this because I have a guilty conscience for my past actions and thought a story would be a fun way to clear them, or even because the events that transpired over the weekend are weighing on my mind.  This post is, like so many others, a reminder that there are people willing to screw with your thoughts, willing to overstep social boundaries simply because they’re bored one Saturday night.

Sure, there are times where we want to break from the mold, times we want to be just the slightest bit darker than we usually are.  While indulging these desires isn’t a problem, just make sure you do it in a manner that doesn’t hurt other people.  There are constructive ways to channel that energy; I suggest you find one.  Especially if you’re the mystery caller.

If it’s easy to pull the wool over your eyes, Wednesday was probably not your day.  If you’re Kathleen Danielson, for example, you avoided any links lest they end up Rickrolls.  I feel that April Fool’s Day is a pretty amusing (and dangerous) time to be an Internet…well, addict, I guess, and it’s a day I particularly enjoy.  (The danger is only compounded if you were spending your day in the fetal position worrying about Conficker, but I’ll get to that in a second.)

Compared to recent years, I think that this year’s bag of tricks was relatively tame.  DeviantArt (at least, as far as I know) wasn’t propogating 4chan memes (mudkips, anyone?) and the most YouTube did was flip videos upside-down.  Sure, ThinkGeek had bacon paste (but who doesn’t love bacon), and it sounds just believable enough that it might end up like their 8-bit tie from April Fools’ past.

I thought this picture only added credibility to my April Fool's joke, even though it was only by coincidence that Rose happened to tag me right after my status change. Apparently I was the only one to think so.

I myself decided to participate, though I didn’t really come up with my pranks until five minutes before midnight.  For starters, I was uncreative enough to be one of the dozens of people changing their relationship status on Facebook.  And, in a stroke of luck, a friend soon tagged me in a photo that made my status change almost believable.  Alas, I didn’t hear anything from my friends when I changed my status to claim that I was in a relationship, but a few friends started an uproar on the return trip.

The other trick started off on a new site of mine.  At the recommendation of Rachelskirts, I purchased the domain ShouldIUseComicSans.com to match a similar offering (thanks, @EricVictorino) only a few hours before, then decided that it changing what it said would be an excellent joke (but for one day only).  People fell for it, too.

I’m trying to come up with even better pranks for next year, though I’m coming up short.  I suppose it doesn’t really matter, as I have 363 more days to dwell on it.  (Suggestions are most welcome, though it might do better to e-mail them so there isn’t a public record to ruin the surprise.)

The corporate giants with the practical jokes weren’t the only people headlining on April 1, though.  Conficker, the latest worldwide scare, managed to slip through the day with very little fanfare.  Of course, there were isolated incidents, like my college campus blaming an outage on the worm, but on the whole I didn’t see too many news articles regarding the blasted thing.  Some people seem to think that this is exactly how it should be, though (and I agree).  However, you can’t deny that the Internet is still wholly intact.  (After all, you’re able to read this post, right?)

And, on a completely unrelated note, I decided to mess around with my dust-collecting Tumblr account.  There’s more information about that posted on the blasted thing, though, so I’ll let you visit if you’re interested in the matter.  (Hey, it could use the traffic anyway.)

Oh, and one more thing:  I’m in a relationship…alright, I don’t think you believed that for a second.  I don’t blame you, though.