The Preparation: Nate and I had been planning our capstone prank for weeks. The prank war between our apartment and 316 has been raging since the primordial soup of this semester and we wanted to end it in style. What started as a simple light bulb heist eventually evolved into stealing everything from apartment 316, and this is how it happened.
One night while we were brainstorming on how to get into their apartment and steal their light bulbs we hit on the fake maintenance worker idea. What if, we speculated, we got someone to dress up as a maintenance worker and go into apartment 316 under the pretense that he was there to fix their blinds, and while he was in there he secretly opened the sliding glass door so that we could get in later while no one was home? It sounded like a plausible scenario, and it would make stealing light bulbs a cinch.
As we thought about how cool this fake maintenance worker idea was, we figured, why stop at light bulbs? We could steal everything from their apartment. Missing light bulbs are a minor inconvenience. Missing apartments are the stuff that legendary pranks are made of.
Psychological Warfare: In order to maximize the odds of our maintenance man being believed to be genuine, we had to lay a little groundwork. Whenever maintenance notifies any apartment that they're coming over, all they do is tape a little piece of paper to everyone's door, telling them the hours that they'll be coming over and hat exactly they're going to check. So we made some of those, and put them on every door on the building. I stayed up till 3:30 to make sure that no one caught me. So far so good.
The Infiltration: I figured the best person to pose as a maintenance worker was Trevor. Nate and I went to the DI and bought a plaid Dickies shirt, a navy blue jacket, and a Utah Jazz hat. Jared had a tool belt that he let us use, and we hid an audio recording device in it so we could see how well he did once he was done.
We met Trevor out in the Sparks parking lot and waited in his car while he did his thing. Once he got back we listened to the recording, and from what we heard it was clear that they at no point suspected him at all. He said the sliding glass window had been unlocked and all we could do was wait and hope that they didn't lock it before they went to bed. Even if they did though, we had still succeeded in getting a complete fake into somebody's house, and we felt pretty awesome about that.
D-Day (Domination Day): Sitting through sacrament meeting on this particular Sunday took every ounce of self control and discipline that I had built up over the years of going to church. I couldn't think about anything spiritual and I could barely breathe. I just kept tapping my foot and crossing and uncrossing my arms while I glanced at the clock. Nate and I counted our FHE sisters who were at church. 4. This was disheartening. We immediately started concocting back up plans, like setting up a home teaching appointment for late Saturday night so we could try again the following Sunday.
Diana wanted us all to come to church because she was doing her own prank. She told us that her and Nate were going to pretend to be engaged and that she wanted us all at church so we could support her prank. We all said we'd come, because we didn't realize that we were being played. But due to a completely random and unplanned chain of events, this ended up saving us in the end. It went like this:
David was sick, so he stayed home from church. As Nate and I were leaving, we debated about locking the door behind us. We ultimately decided that, since David was home, we would leave the door open.
Once Diana found out that we were leaving after sacrament meeting, she left so she could prank us while we were away. David heard someone knocking at the door while he was sitting in the living room in his underwear. After debating about whether or not to get dressed and answer the door or to ignore it, he got up at went to his room to put on some clothes. Once he came back outside, he saw Diana, Mallory, and Becca in our living room putting up posters of Justin Bieber and other celebrities who haven't annoyed me enough yet to the point where I've learned their name. David asked them what they were doing, and they said that they were doing a prank. David told them that he would let them do it if they let us do a prank on apartment 316 (Becca lives in 316 and was home sick, and was helping them with their prank). They agreed. David texted us this so we left after sacrament, confident that our prank was going to succeed.
There were four of us moving the furniture but it still ended up taking almost the full two hours that we had given ourselves. Moving the couches and the tables was the hard part. Halfway through our heist we realized that they had a lot of stuff in their living room, so we started moving some of the smaller stuff like potatoes and pens to the back of the room where our FHE sisters wouldn't see them. We set up a hidden camera on the refrigerator to get their reaction for when they came in and gave another camera to the person dressed as a mannequin so that they could follow the girls to our apartment and get their reaction when they saw that our apartment was identical to theirs.
The Money Shot: I had to wait for about twenty minutes dressed as a mannequin before the girls started to get home. The hardest thing I had to do was to not laugh as I watched their reactions through the sliding glass door. They were floored, and asked me where there stuff was (our mannequin disguise was less than perfect, and they figured out that I was a real person). I told them that it was in their apartment so they went to go get it and I followed with the camera. They opened the door to our apartment and Nate was there with another camera, with David taking pictures. Like we've always said, domination without documentation is worthless, and we have enough footage now to make a compelling video. It's great too, since they can never convincingly admit that they didn't like the prank, since we have a video of them saying that it was awesome. We moved all the stuff back and went down as legends.
Friday, April 15, 2011
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
The Heist
Nothing is cooler than organized crime. You want to reactivate some guys in your Elder's Quorum? Put together a bank heist. It beats the crap out of helping someone move. That's why movies about theft are so cool, even if they suck. The actors themselves can't help but get ridiculously excited while they're filming those movies. Just the idea that they're pretending to steal something in a clever way thrills them to death, and we all know it.
The coolness of a heist is directly proportionate to how likely someone is to get caught. Stealing something in the middle of the night while you're heavily armed? I guess that's impressive. That's like asking your girlfriend to prom. Where's the challenge? On the other side of the spectrum there's the guys who basically ask their victim to give them whatever it is they want, and then walking away nonchalantly. That's like a guy pulling up to some girls house in a limousine and telling her to get dressed because he needs a date. The odds of it working are slim, but if it does...well, that's sweet. That's basically what we did last night.
It was a birthday party like any other. There was guests, junk food, and a strobe light. After being there for about an hour Nate came up to me and told me that we were going to steal the Justin Bieber poster that was on the wall right in the middle of where everyone was hanging out. Alright, cool. There were a few problems though. For one, there were some guys perched right in front of the poster eating their cake. We had to figure out a way to force them away so we could covertly steal the poster. Another problem was that there was about 20 to 30 people in the room. Figuring out how to get the poster out of there without getting caught was the next hurdle.
Phase 1: This was easy. One of the guys in front of the poster moved so he could get cake. Nate and I swooped in and made the other guy feel awkward for standing next to people that he didn't know. Soon we had full control over the poster.
Phase 2: While we stood in front of the poster, we took the corners off the wall behind our backs while we socialized. Once Nate got the final corner off the wall the poster fell down. I stood in front of him and made sure to talk to people like crazy so they wouldn't notice the person behind me rolling up a poster and going outside to set it on the balcony.
Phase 3: So far so good. Now we just needed to get it off the balcony. Our roommate Jared, as he was leaving the party, boosted himself up onto the balcony and stole the poster nice and clean. I stayed behind to see if anyone noticed the poster missing (no one did) and then I went home. Mission successful.
We were invited to a birthday party, my roommates and I.
The coolness of a heist is directly proportionate to how likely someone is to get caught. Stealing something in the middle of the night while you're heavily armed? I guess that's impressive. That's like asking your girlfriend to prom. Where's the challenge? On the other side of the spectrum there's the guys who basically ask their victim to give them whatever it is they want, and then walking away nonchalantly. That's like a guy pulling up to some girls house in a limousine and telling her to get dressed because he needs a date. The odds of it working are slim, but if it does...well, that's sweet. That's basically what we did last night.
It was a birthday party like any other. There was guests, junk food, and a strobe light. After being there for about an hour Nate came up to me and told me that we were going to steal the Justin Bieber poster that was on the wall right in the middle of where everyone was hanging out. Alright, cool. There were a few problems though. For one, there were some guys perched right in front of the poster eating their cake. We had to figure out a way to force them away so we could covertly steal the poster. Another problem was that there was about 20 to 30 people in the room. Figuring out how to get the poster out of there without getting caught was the next hurdle.
Phase 1: This was easy. One of the guys in front of the poster moved so he could get cake. Nate and I swooped in and made the other guy feel awkward for standing next to people that he didn't know. Soon we had full control over the poster.
Phase 2: While we stood in front of the poster, we took the corners off the wall behind our backs while we socialized. Once Nate got the final corner off the wall the poster fell down. I stood in front of him and made sure to talk to people like crazy so they wouldn't notice the person behind me rolling up a poster and going outside to set it on the balcony.
Phase 3: So far so good. Now we just needed to get it off the balcony. Our roommate Jared, as he was leaving the party, boosted himself up onto the balcony and stole the poster nice and clean. I stayed behind to see if anyone noticed the poster missing (no one did) and then I went home. Mission successful.
We were invited to a birthday party, my roommates and I.
Saturday, April 2, 2011
I Knew It Was You, Denzel
Since David and I have known each other for 15 years now, we have a fair collection of running jokes and shared memories. One that we've had since we were sixteen is the Denzel joke. Every time we see an unidentifiable black person in a movie, we say that we think it's Denzel Washington. I can't even remember what we were originally making fun of with this quip. Maybe we were pretending to be racist, implying with the joke that we can't tell the difference between a famous black actor and an extra. Maybe we were making fun of people who are always guessing which actors are in a movie, and who are always wrong. The joke has evolved beyond the point of its original meaning and has become a gag reflex. It's a black person? It's Denzel. There used to be some kind of unofficial hierarchy. After one of us guessed Denzel, the other one would correct them and say that it was Eddie Murhpy. And then the other one would reply and say that it was the guy from the All-State commercials. And then Morgan Freeman. And then Samuel L. Jackson. Will Smith was never on the list, as he isn't an actor that inspires confidence. Anyways, that's how the game is played. And in all my years of guessing Denzel, I've never been right. Until today.
I was in one of my two Spanish labs (since I was dumb at the beginning of the semester and didn't go to one every week like a normal person, so now I have to go to two to make up for it) and we were playing a game where someone would list describe a famous person, and the rest of us had to guess who it was. You can already see where this is going. Yes, I guessed Denzel and I was right. But what I want to point out is the lack of clues I had. The guy got up in front of the class, and started describing good ol' Denzel. He said (in Spanish of course, I'm just translating for you) "This guy is an actor, and his skin is black." Immediately I yelled out "Denzel Washington!" and I nailed it. My team got a point because I was faithful to my inside joke, even though David wasn't there to hear it. That's the take home message for today. Somehow, someday, and in someway, the little things you do will pay off if you're committed to them. Go big, or go home. That's what Denzel would want.
I was in one of my two Spanish labs (since I was dumb at the beginning of the semester and didn't go to one every week like a normal person, so now I have to go to two to make up for it) and we were playing a game where someone would list describe a famous person, and the rest of us had to guess who it was. You can already see where this is going. Yes, I guessed Denzel and I was right. But what I want to point out is the lack of clues I had. The guy got up in front of the class, and started describing good ol' Denzel. He said (in Spanish of course, I'm just translating for you) "This guy is an actor, and his skin is black." Immediately I yelled out "Denzel Washington!" and I nailed it. My team got a point because I was faithful to my inside joke, even though David wasn't there to hear it. That's the take home message for today. Somehow, someday, and in someway, the little things you do will pay off if you're committed to them. Go big, or go home. That's what Denzel would want.
Floss
I like nice teeth. When I see a girl with nice teeth, I appreciate her. Even if she isn't beautiful otherwise the teeth show me a lot about her. I can know that she likes to take care of herself and has enough work ethic to complete a 30 second to one minute task.
This might seem trivial, but have you ever seen a person with really yellow teeth with plaque crusted all over each tooth like moss growing on a tree? It's tragic because their lack of dental hygiene doesn't affect the world as much as it does them. All day long they have to taste saliva that's like a sauce of gingivitis and cankers, and I bet it changes the way their food tastes. All because they're too lazy to brush and floss. You don't want to meet people like this, ever.
Like I said, I appreciate people with nice teeth. You can tell right away if you're dealing with a functioning member of society or some odious character that probably sniffs their socks right after they take them off before they go to bed each night. So when I say that today I was shopping for floss, I want you to know that it was and always will be a big deal. Even though I'm not an image conscientious guy I like people to get the right impression of me.
When I got to the store I galloped right to the floss. I wasn't messing around. Even outside of the realm of floss, picking a toiletry is a major decision. If you make the wrong choice, suddenly something as inherently enjoyable as standing under a stream of hot water naked becomes dreaded. Some crappy bar of soap that leaves a weird film all over your body that takes forever to wash off, or shampoo that's so thin and impossible to get into your hair that you have to use a handful. Floss is in that same category.
So I was given a choice once I found the floss. On the one hand there was Glide. Really smooth and tinged with mint, so when you're done flossing you can ball it up and suck on it till all the flavor is gone, like a ghetto mint. On the other hand there was this generic brand floss that feels like you're shoving pieces of hay in between your teeth. It always starts to fray while you floss, and then some stupid piece gets stuck way up in the gums and you have to pull out a fresh piece of floss just to fish it out. And there's no mint flavor. You try and suck on it and you feel like you just sucked on a soggy piece of yarn. The Glide was a dollar more than the hay floss, and there was 54 yards of Glide as opposed to 100 yards of hay floss (which to me is a downside, since that means I'm stuck with the hay floss for twice as long). So I bought the Glide.
I don't want to seem like I'm a spendy brat, because I'm not. Consider this: if you were given the choice to have a lavish marriage ceremony to a beautiful girl that you loved, or to elope with some dude for free, what's the better choice? Sure, the life that I'll spend with Glide will be half as short as the life I could have spent with hay floss, but I feel like I made the right choice.
This might seem trivial, but have you ever seen a person with really yellow teeth with plaque crusted all over each tooth like moss growing on a tree? It's tragic because their lack of dental hygiene doesn't affect the world as much as it does them. All day long they have to taste saliva that's like a sauce of gingivitis and cankers, and I bet it changes the way their food tastes. All because they're too lazy to brush and floss. You don't want to meet people like this, ever.
Like I said, I appreciate people with nice teeth. You can tell right away if you're dealing with a functioning member of society or some odious character that probably sniffs their socks right after they take them off before they go to bed each night. So when I say that today I was shopping for floss, I want you to know that it was and always will be a big deal. Even though I'm not an image conscientious guy I like people to get the right impression of me.
When I got to the store I galloped right to the floss. I wasn't messing around. Even outside of the realm of floss, picking a toiletry is a major decision. If you make the wrong choice, suddenly something as inherently enjoyable as standing under a stream of hot water naked becomes dreaded. Some crappy bar of soap that leaves a weird film all over your body that takes forever to wash off, or shampoo that's so thin and impossible to get into your hair that you have to use a handful. Floss is in that same category.
So I was given a choice once I found the floss. On the one hand there was Glide. Really smooth and tinged with mint, so when you're done flossing you can ball it up and suck on it till all the flavor is gone, like a ghetto mint. On the other hand there was this generic brand floss that feels like you're shoving pieces of hay in between your teeth. It always starts to fray while you floss, and then some stupid piece gets stuck way up in the gums and you have to pull out a fresh piece of floss just to fish it out. And there's no mint flavor. You try and suck on it and you feel like you just sucked on a soggy piece of yarn. The Glide was a dollar more than the hay floss, and there was 54 yards of Glide as opposed to 100 yards of hay floss (which to me is a downside, since that means I'm stuck with the hay floss for twice as long). So I bought the Glide.
I don't want to seem like I'm a spendy brat, because I'm not. Consider this: if you were given the choice to have a lavish marriage ceremony to a beautiful girl that you loved, or to elope with some dude for free, what's the better choice? Sure, the life that I'll spend with Glide will be half as short as the life I could have spent with hay floss, but I feel like I made the right choice.
Your Blog is Nasty
I saw a blog today written by a pregnant mother. Pregnancy is not the most original topic in the world, but I guess for family members it can be interesting to read or something. This blogger did something a little different then what I've normally seen with baby blogs (though it's not like I'm an expert in baby bloggery). Each post is written as if it's a letter to their unborn baby. That's new, I thought to myself. Maybe they can make a weird gimmicky way of writing actually readable. As soon as I read the first "Dear Baby," though, I knew it wasn't going to work.
Weird format aside, if I was their baby, I would never want to read these letters/blog posts. They're chock full of stuff you never want to hear your parents talk about, such as "Your daddy likes to tickle my stomach, and pretend like he's tickling you," and the icing on the cake, "Sometimes your dad will kiss you goodnight, but he ends up just blowing raspberries on my stomach and leaving slobber behind for mommy to clean up."
There should be a bar exam that you have to pass before you're allowed to have a blog. These are real things, written on a real blog; I'm proud to say that I could never make something like this up. She might as well have written something like "Ever since I've been pregnant with you my periods have stopped, and I've saved lots of money on tampons. Thanks baby!" What kid would ever want to read that? What kind of parents would ever be proud of writing something like that? A few days ago I saw a store in the mall called Motherhood that used sex appeal in one of its advertisements, and up until I had read that blog post it was the tackiest thing I'd ever seen.
There's filters for things like pornography, violence, and foul language. I think that these filters are off to a good start, but they could be doing so much more. The next filter they should work on is "Tacky." If you're the kind of person who loves reading blogs about other people's babies, don't worry, you would be able to turn off the filter if you wanted. The filter would be there to protect people like me from reading something tacky and then getting mental images of a pregnant woman with spit on her stomach.
Weird format aside, if I was their baby, I would never want to read these letters/blog posts. They're chock full of stuff you never want to hear your parents talk about, such as "Your daddy likes to tickle my stomach, and pretend like he's tickling you," and the icing on the cake, "Sometimes your dad will kiss you goodnight, but he ends up just blowing raspberries on my stomach and leaving slobber behind for mommy to clean up."
There should be a bar exam that you have to pass before you're allowed to have a blog. These are real things, written on a real blog; I'm proud to say that I could never make something like this up. She might as well have written something like "Ever since I've been pregnant with you my periods have stopped, and I've saved lots of money on tampons. Thanks baby!" What kid would ever want to read that? What kind of parents would ever be proud of writing something like that? A few days ago I saw a store in the mall called Motherhood that used sex appeal in one of its advertisements, and up until I had read that blog post it was the tackiest thing I'd ever seen.
There's filters for things like pornography, violence, and foul language. I think that these filters are off to a good start, but they could be doing so much more. The next filter they should work on is "Tacky." If you're the kind of person who loves reading blogs about other people's babies, don't worry, you would be able to turn off the filter if you wanted. The filter would be there to protect people like me from reading something tacky and then getting mental images of a pregnant woman with spit on her stomach.
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