Johnny Monsarrat: November 2009 Archives

October 14, 1994. I'm a student at Brown University. It's my birthday. My guard is up, because I know several people want to get revenge on me for pranks I've played. Two friends from the Brown Artificial Intelligence lab, Kostadis Roussos and Tim Brennan, and my then girlfriend Christine Huo want to take me to a nice restaurant for dinner. Christine says, "It's a nice restaurant. Make sure to dress up!"

Kostadis (right) gets his revenge on me

Later in the day, Kostadis urges me, "Make sure to dress up!" Hmm. Seems to be a lot of emphasis on dress, I think. In my paranoid state, this gets me wondering. What if they take me to a restaurant, but it's not a nice one, but I'm all dressed up? I get it!

At least, I think I get it. So I go out and rent a tuxedo so I'm appropriately dressed up. But when Kostadis, Tim, and Christine arrive — they're dressed up too. Whoops. We go driving.

We drive, and drive, and drive. We're talking about what a great restaurant it is. I'm somewhat embarassed to have rented the tux. I was really looking forward to something a little unusual. Bummer.

Tim says "I gotta stop at the cash machine", and we pull up to an ATM. Suddenly, everyone gets out of the car, and pulls off their fancy clothing to reveal shorts & t-shirts.

It's Taco Bell! That's the fancy restaurant.

December 10, 1993. It's Kostadis Roussos' birthday! As a stellar member of the Artificial Intelligence Lab, he deserves a birthday party. We decide to hold one... in the freight elevator of the main computer center at Brown University!

We put up mural paper on the elevator walls and encourage people to draw there. A couple of milk crates serve as a makeshift table. We have candles, but we're afraid to light them. There's plenty of snack food and drinks all around.

Everybody gets into the elevator. It's totally packed. It rides up and down, and when the door opens, whoever is about to get on usually jumps with surprise. Some people dig it and eat the snack food. Other people attempt to ignore us. Fortunately, there are two elevators, so there is an alternative mode of travel.

After 90 minutes or so, enough people have been inconvenienced and we take it all down.

January, 1997. Having spent my entire adolescence waiting for new Star Wars movies, they were finally re-releasing the original Star Wars. At Turbine, a computer games company, pretty much the whole company was planning on going to opening day at the Cheri theater in Boston.

Chewie & Darth storm Turbine

Somehow I was thinking ahead and managed to reserve the Chewbacca and Darth Vader costumes from a local costume shop. Secretly I brought them into Turbine and Tim Brennan and I suited up. We had some fun running around the offices surprising people.

Star Wars only comes around every 20 years or so. So I rented a projection TV and we had a party to watch the original movies. (We also saw the "Star Wars Christmas Special" from 1977, great fun, but a low quality production I'm sure George Lucas is trying to forget.)

On the opening day of Star Wars, I decided to take a chance and wear the Chewbacca costume on the subway. Here the joke was on me, because when you ride the subway, you share an enclosed space with the drunk and the derranged. There were only three or four among the hundreds of people I commuted with, but every one of them wanted to personally hound Chewbacca. One fellow wanted to stroke the beard on the costume. Another wouldn't stop singing.

My advice to you is, don't wear a Chewbacca costume on the subway.

Anyway, I got to the theater and hooked up with Tim, still "Darth Vader". It turned out a number of people had dressed in costume for the event! Most of the costumes were homemade, and very impressive — obviously a lot of work had gone into me. Me, I just rented mine.

But everybody loves Chewie. I gave them a good roar. On the way out of the movie, the crowd eagerly lining up to see the next show gave Chewbacca a big cheer and a round of applause!

January 2, 1998. "The Game" was a Summer 1997 movie starring Michael Douglas. Essentially the movie is one big practical joke... or is it? Anyway, a number of very strange things happen to our hero.

One of my best buddies, Rickland Powell, had the habit of leaving town whenever his birthday came around. Some people go to lengths to escape practical jokes. (Seriously, he usually went out to GenCon which occurs that time of year.)

So that non-denominational holiday gift-giving time, I gave Rickland a single key, marked "CRS". This is an item used in the movie, and is the practical joke analogy of the mafia giving you the black spot of death. I volunteered to take Rickland to dinner sometime. He knew what was coming.

On the fateful day, I was really too busy to plan anything, but eventually "Carpe Diem" got to me. I put the following prank together in about 6 hours.

I picked up Rickland and Vonnie, and drove him towards a "surprise" restaurant location. We drove in the wrong direction to an ATM, because I had to get money. I hopped out, went over to the ATM, but then suddenly ran around behind some buildings and hid. In the car I'd left a stack of color photo blow-ups of Rickland. It was supposed to make him worry.

Meanwhile, I had previously arranged for a taxi driver to pick them up. The taxi driver was a ham and said mysterious spooky things. "Hey buddy, keep your head down, I think we're being followed!"

The taxi dropped them off at Central Square, with instructions to board the subway inbound.

On the subway, a religious zealot was passing out flyers to everyone and generally being a nuisance. But when she passed Rickland and Vonnie, she said "Have a good day, Mr. Powell", and gave Rickland a religious pamphlet with instructions on where to take the subway. This agents was Lorene Leiter (with her boyfriend Mike Newhall hovering nearby as a spotter).

Rickland and Vonnie then took the subway to Medeival Manor, a dinner theater in Boston. Rickland took the opportunity to dodge between subway cars, in case be was being followed.

That's essentially the end of the prank. It makes more sense if you've seen the movie. ( At the dinner theater, I did bribe the actors to pay "special attention" to Rickland. )

July 30, 1996. When you play a prank, the victim needs to be someone who'll appreciate the joke. Otherwise, it's not fun. However, the best victim is someone who'll appreciate the joke, but doesn't normally believe in pranks. You can catch this person totally unaware.

Such a person was my lawyer and friend, Jeff Stoler.

It was Jeff's birthday, and I'd arranged something special with his legal partner, Jim Bilodeau. Jim fed us the legal procedure for how the county sherriff would arrive and shut down Turbine, if the landlord demanded it.

At a time predetermined to be convenient, I phoned Jeff with a desperate problem. As CEO, I was right person to place this call. "Jeff, help! There's a sherriff here and he's evicting us!"

"What?" Didn't they give you any notice?" he asked.

"Yes, I talked about it with Jim earlier." I said.

Back at the office with Jeff, Jim shrugged and apologized for "forgetting to tell" Jeff earlier.

We put "the sherriff" on the phone, a marvelous acting job by Rickland Powell. He went through all the procedure we'd been briefed on. He literally had Jeff speechless. I was worried about a heart attack situation occurring, so we had to end the prank quickly.

A bunch of Turbine employees gathered around the speakerphone, and I said "Jeff, there's one more thing I need to tell you..."

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!" we all shouted.

October 14, 1995. I'm running a new computer games company, Turbine. We've just moved to an office in Providence, Rhode Island.

Having been up late working, I'm sleeping in. Suddenly I get a phone call from Jeremy Gaffney. "Jon, that interviewee, Dan O., has

They filled the office to the top.

arrived early and is already at the office! Wake up!"

It was my birthday, but I was too groggy to realize it. Hastily I got out of bed and ran downstairs, where Jeremy picked me up and we rushed into the office.

Hoping not to annoy the interviewee, we ran up the stairs, opened the door and... they had filled my office to the ceiling with breakfast cereal!.

I have rarely been so shocked in my life.

Some background explanation is in order. Just before moving to Providence, my Mom allowed us to use her house in Rehoboth, Massachusetts, for the company. A half dozen people were effectively living there. Others were commuting. We'd stay up late working until 4am, and sleep until noon.

Since there was no nearby source of food, often I'd go out and grab spaghetti or hamburgers or something for the whole team. One of the staple foods was "Shaw's Frosted Wheat Puffs", a breakfast cereal. Being mostly air, it was cheap, and we ate gross quantities

Jeremy, Kevin, and Jon. I can

of it. I'd even taken to stacking the cereal boxes in a huge pyramid.

Eventually, everybody got sick of the cereal, but we still had a dozen boxes of it. I wanted to use it up, but nobody had the stomach for it, including me. I even went so far as to jokingly offer stock for anyone who'd finish it off.

So when the idea for this prank came up, perpretrators Jeremy Gaffney, Kevin Langevin, and Jeff Langevin needed a large amount of some inert substance. Shaw's Frosted Wheat Puffs came to mind.

I shared an office with a huge plate glass window. They had taped together pieces of cardboard into one huge piece of cardboard. That went behind the window, leaving a one-inch gap. It was this gap they filled with wheat puffs, making it appear as if the entire office had been filled. As the gap got filled up, it started to sag, causing a wider space which demanded even more puffs. It took 40 boxes — meaning they had to run out at 2am to purchase more.

As a stood there gaping, it took a few seconds for me to figure out what they must have done. But even then, I was stammering, "But, but what about Dan O.? Is he here? Didn't he arrive early?" This kind of total surprise is what makes a prank worth it.

Frosted Wheat Puffs thus became a running gag at Turbine. (Note: It was a little sticky taking it down. Next time, they'll use unsweetened wheat puffs.)

March 5, 1995. It's Tim Brennan's birthday again. After the ice cream prank last year, I needed something to top it.

Remain inconspicuous!

A bunch of us, including Tim Brennan, Joe Angell, Adam Smith & Lisa, Jason Lango, Tim Miller, David Harif, and my then girlfriend Christine Huo, dressed up as aliens from outer space. Our intention was to "abduct" Tim and take him out to lunch. Just being around all these strangely dressed people would be surprise enough.

One of us arranged to meet with Tim, innocently, for study purposes. We gathered in the main lobby of the computer center and hid. We were dressed as cartoony aliens who didn't know how to blend in with humans. Our garish colors were "normal" dress for humans,

Joe, Tim, and Jon. This human must be their leader!

we were quite sure. Remain inconspicuous!

We waited, and waited. Tim was late. He was sleeping in.

OK, so we'll go storm him in his dorm room! That would work. We brightly colored individuals journeyed up the hill to where Tim was snoring softly.

Suddenly, we saw a car driving towards us, down the hill. It was Tim! Remain inconspicuous! ( Of course, he saw us. )

Running headlong down the hill, eventually we caught up with him. With a plastic "disk" gun, we performed the abduction in the lobby of Brown's main computer center.

Announcing that Tim must be the leader of the humans, we dressed him in a special crown as King, gave him a sceptre, a robe, and a necklace Christine made with Rice Krispies treats.

Tim was very embarrassed. We managed to herd him out to the street and up to a local restaurant. Several passersby stared. One couple walked into the restaurant, took one look at our group, and walked out again. ( Strange people like computer hackers take a perverse pleasure in delivering the unusual to the general public. )

Tim loved the prank, and was a really good sport. Soon he started planning his revenge!

March 5, 1994. It's Tim Brennan's birthday. Tim is a good sport, so I thought he'd appreciate a practical joke. He'd been morose recently about not having a girlfriend, so I had an idea along romantic lines.

When Tim woke up, his roommate Adam Smith handed him a packet of Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream coupons I had purchased. "Here, you'll need this." Adam said without explanation.

Tim didn't know what to think. So he went about his business, getting dressed and ready for class.

Arriving in the classroom, no sooner had he sat down when somebody came up and said "Happy Birthday!". That was nice. But then the somebody just sort of stood there, expectantly.

"Don't I get a free ice cream coupon now?" he asked.

Tim discovered that the previous night, I'd gone to every dorm on campus and put up big posters, with funny pictures of Tim. "It's Tim Brennan's birthday!" they read. "If you tell him Happy Birthday, you get a free ice cream coupon. If you give him a kiss, you get two!"

Suddenly, everyone in the room wanted to wish Tim a happy birthday. He was mobbed the entire day. He went through 250 ice cream coupons in about 6 hours.

Of course, it was cruel to make the prank so public... fortunately Tim has a great sense of humor and really enjoyed the attention. In fact, instead of becoming a hermit he bravely went to the student cafeteria for dinner. A group of us followed. I'd prepared by putting a copy of the poster on every dinner table, and tacking a big one to the cafeteria front door after Tim went in. It said "He's in here, right now!"

Then I went around to every table in the cafeteria announcing his location in the room.

Needless to say, a long line formed! Tim got a lot of kisses that day. Some people substituted a little dance or singing to get the two coupons. My brother got three coupons just by threatening to kiss Tim.

An expensive prank, but definitely worth it.

Fall 1994. I was a PhD student in computer science at Brown University, and the pressure is getting to me. Time for some stress relief! Download the balloons movie: balloons.mpg (1.1Mb)

Filling the balloons

I've always wanted to fill a room with balloons, after experiencing how difficult that was back in 1985. I'd been an MIT student and foolishly thought blowing up a few hundred balloons manually would do the job. It turned out to be not enough balloons and too hard on my lungs.

This time we'd do it the professional way. My thesis advisor, Tom Dean, had innocently given me a key to his office. Now I would put it to good use.

I rented tanks of compressed air and a bunch of balloons. We sent word around to all the students and suddenly there was a group

I'd chosen nitrogen instead of compressed air. Nitrogen is actually less expensive because it's a by-product of making compressed oxygen. Nitrogen wouldn't float the balloons like helium, but nitrogen is probably the most inert gas. 75% of the atmosphere is nitrogen. We still had to keep an eye out for

Christine ties off a balloon

ventillation.

The balloons were pretty cheap too... although they wouldn't have been if I'd bought the fancy self-closing ends. Instead, we tied them by hand. A little hard on the fingers, but do-able.

It took six hours with four tanks of air. Actually, three tanks of us filling the balloons and tying the ends. would have done it, but two of them leaked so it was good we had all four. We used 2,200 normal 9" balloons to fill up a medium sized professor's office.

We started out with the tanks in the room. One person would fill the balloon, using a special adapter nozzle on the tank. Another person would tie off the balloon, and then throw it into the far corner. When the corner filled up, we backed out to the middle of the room. When that filled up, we backed out to the corridor and stuck the balloons through the doorway one by one. Occasionally someone would wade in and sweep the balloons further in.

We ran out of balloons a couple of feet below ceiling height. Good enough.

500 down, 1700 more to go

Since my advisor was an early riser, the idea was that after he saw the balloons, we'd pop them before anybody else arrived for the day. Unfortunately, one of the secretaries was getting interviewed on videotape, and wanted to get the balloons. By the time they were done, there were too many people around for such a loud noise.

But Tom wanted to work in his office. So we cleared out a little area around the desk by pushing some of the balloons into the corridor. There was quite a rubber smell, and he couldn't open the windows because the balloons would leak out. But it was OK.

Walking through balloons is strange. You have to kind of wade through them, because if you step you might burst one, or even lose your balance. Most people loved the prank, but the balloons in the corridor were an annoyance. I was told to get rid of them.

How do you dispose of several hundred balloons? Well, we had to marshall them down the fire stairwell, four stories down to the first floor. Of course, there they created a fire hazard, so we did finally pop them... but nobody worked near the ground floor stairwell so it wasn't disturbingly loud, except for us. We wore earplugs.

Sometimes these pranks can go awry. For example, the faculty at the computer science department were interviewing a prospective new faculty member, Maurice Herlihy. Tom Dean was to interview him! Maurice met up with Tom in his office — where all the balloons meant there wasn't enough room for both of them. Fortunately, Maurice was a good sport, and he did eventually end up joining the department. Phew! Nobody suggested the balloons would spoil the interview, but this is just the sort of thing a careful prankster is supposed to watch out for.

After the day was over, we did finally pop the balloons in Tom's office. It took over a half hour, and then we had to clean up all the little pieces of balloon. Fortunately, the rubbery smell in the air disappeared entirely — it did not get into the carpet the way cigarette smoke would.

This was a prank I was expecting to get into a little trouble for, but it turned out everyone loved it. I even got a writeup in the department newsletter.

May, 1993. It's final exam time, and everybody (including me) is a little too stressed out. Not only are the computer programmers jamming the computer lab working on their final projects... the campus computer center at Brown University is also filled with humanities majors writing term papers.

The computer center, called the CIT, is a large tiered structure with a huge cement patio. The patio is entirely empty and is '', '', '', 'left') )

Hot Tub seen from the 5th floor

just begging to have something placed there.

So I called to rent a hot tub. Apparently there are companies out there which deliver and set up such things. They arrived on a Friday evening after the CIT employees had gone home. A nearby

garden spigot provided the water, which was heated and pumped into the hot tub itself.

Everybody liked the hot tub! Suddenly, the place was swamped with people in their swim suits. The tub is supposed to hold 16 people, but we discovered that it actually fits 20, but only if they're all standing up.

The campus police of course, noticed this. Although there was some concern about vagrants being attracted, since the CIT was open and there was already a guard there, they decided to let it stand. What good sports! I ended up staying up all weekend guarding the hot tub.

Taking a cue from the popularity of the tub, I brought down some huge potted plants from upstairs, a few tables, and a computer monitor so we geeks wouldn't be too far from our email. I set up the monitor to display an ASCII graphics slideshow.

The next step was videoconferencing. Brown University, thanks to their computer graphics group, has a dedicated link

Come on in, the water

It

to a few other schools, including Cornell and the University of North Carolina. I ran a video cable out the 4th floor window and down to a camera at ground level.

Unfortunately, the heater and pump for the hot tub took a lot of electricity. Where I'd plugged it into the CIT, it overloaded the system and brought down the power in the consultant's office. It was only a fuse box, so it was easily fixed. But then it happened again. Fortunately, we learned that the plug closest to the doorway was on a different circuit and could bear the load. The consultants were good sports.

The hot tub ran all night Friday, and all day Saturday. On Saturday afternoon, the computer science department chairman caught me. "Very funny, Jon," he said, "but I think you should take the hot tub down now. It's getting late." He was probably thinking about how an accident might occur late at night. In the worst case, it could hurt the department if someone got injured. Then I said, "But it was OK last night." I received a pained expression of disbelief. Fortunately, since it was OK with the campus police, it was OK with the department. The hot tub continued.

Saturday evening I held a wild dance party on the 4th floor of the CIT, the area normally inhabited by sedate graduate students. The hot tub served as an advertisement for the party, and the party served as an advertisement for the hot tub. It was a major event. We had 250 people packed into the atrium when the party began at midnight. I had bought free pizza and t-shirts to pass out, printed "Carpe Noctem". This is a play on the phrase "Carpe Diem", which means "Seize the Day" in latin. Basically, it encourages you to live life to the fullest. Carpe Noctem would be the analogous phrase for computer hackers who like to stay up late.

Fortunately, we had adequate "guard" volunteers keeping the party confined to the atrium. Nothing got stolen or broken. Unfortunately, the party left quite a mess, which I had to clean up the next day. If I ever do this again, I'll be more careful about that. However, the hot tub event was a wild success, at least with the students. I narrowly escaped getting in trouble for this one... I think I'd just gotten some people worried.

In fact, apparently the event got printed up in the Brown Alumni Monthly. Some alumni must have liked the prank, because the next year, the Computer Science Department actually wanted me to have a hot tub for finals week!

So, in 1994, we did it again. I hunted around for an alternative to a hot tub, like a ferris wheel (which was too expensive) or a moonbounce, but eventually settled on the hot tub concept again. Unfortunately, the heater didn't work Friday evening, and inadequate advertising led to less popularity. Besides, having real permission meant I had to get "event insurance", against disease and people slipping on the concrete. This insurance cost me more than the hot tub rental.

Eventually, I decided the hot tub was too much work and not original enough for a 3rd time. But the first time was super!

Halloween 1995. I'm dressed as Super Mario, from the video game.

Halloween 1996. Dan O'Brien shaves off his beard and dresses up in a suit. This is so different from his normal attire and appearance that he looks quite different. Then we introduce him to our CEO as a "new interviewee named Brien". Our CEO shakes his hand and starts to begin the interview with an apparent stranger, when Dan says "that's DAN-O Brien!".

February 1997. Mike gets the idea to cover Chris Dyl's desk with wrapping paper. Another appreciative prank from the team for Chris' hard work.

February 21, 1997. It's Jeremy's birthday again! This means it's revenge time.

Since the Star Wars movies are being re-released, I get the idea of pulling a prank when the Turbine employees go to the opening day of Return of the Jedi. I'd like some way to get the audience to wish Jeremy a happy birthday. Hmm... about a variant on the ice cream prank?

I purchased a box of old star wars cards, and with a fee got the movie theater to allow me to make a presentation to the audience. I used the theater's microphone just before the movie started. "It's Jeremy's birthday! If you wish Jeremy a happy birthday, get a free Star Wars card!" I handed Jeremy the box.

This prank went only so-so because by the end of the movie, most people (even these opening-day fanatics) had forgotten about the cards. Also, I think Jeremy really wanted to keep them!

October 1996. Rickland Powell, Jeremy, Will, Tim and many other employees play a birthday prank for October birthday boys Jon, Dan, and Bil. They get the Microsoft rep to call up Dan. They want a big demo right away, that might impact our deal. We rush around like crazy people preparing our presentations.

The morning of the event, we run over the the restaurant. The receptionist tells us that Microsoft will be late arriving from the airport, but they will seat us. Dan looks in the reservation book and sure enough, Microsoft is penciled in. Microsoft has even ordered us an appetizer.

We sit down to eat the appetizer... and it's Shaws Frosted Wheat Puffs! Click here for the original Wheat Puffs incident.

The best prank is when the victims are so surprised that they can't accept the new reality. "But, but, is Microsoft still coming?" I ask? No, silly! Happy birthday.

October 23, 1996. I sponsored a company luncheon for everyone at Turbine in honor of Chris Dyl, arguably the company's most prolific programmer and hardest worker.

While everyone was at lunch, some artists and I ran out to Paperama and my credit card gave them carte blanche to buy scary stuff. We ran back to Turbine and decorate Chris's desk and the hallways.

Chris is a stoic, but even he had to burst out laughing at this one!

Summer 1996. I don't drink the stuff myself, but the programmers at Turbine seem to thrive on 2-liter bottles of Mountain Dew. They affectionately refer to it as 'The Dew'. All-night hacking sessions go so much better with caffeine! (When we were choosing a company name, Jeremy joked that we should be "Sleepless Geeks Incorporated", but unfortunately SGI was already taken.)

We were saving the bottles for recycling, and eventually accumulated quite a few. But then the programmers got an idea. Let's build a raft! Moutain Dew bottles float. We'd build a huge raft and float across the Charles River. Maybe we'd get put into a Mountain Dew commercial or something. They called the expanding pile "The Storage Facility and Containment Center", as a joke referring to nuclear waste centers. Mountain Dew really packs a punch!

This fuzzy picture is the only one I have This stack is 9 feet tall and two bottles deep.

We accumulated so many bottles we really couldn't store them. I think there were several hundred. Once we used them to fill up somebody's cubicle as a birthday prank. Eventually, the containment center was doomed. Some of the bottles hadn't been washed well, and attracted flies. After a valiant attempt to use Dan O's truck as a storage facility, he dumped 'em. The raft was never built... at least, not yet!

Summer 1996. Dan goes on a business trip, and while he's away, somebody gets the idea to cover his office with pink message slips. Tim hands out a bunch to everyone, and we each fill out 10-30 of them. This isn't nearly enough, so we use a bunch of blank ones too.

We took 6-foot-long strips of tape and attached the memos to them, and then hung the long strips on the wall. This was more protective of the paint on the wall.

When Dan returned from his trip, we told him he'd gotten a few phone messages. Joe cleverly hid a camera in the office so we got his reaction on video. The messages stayed in the office for weeks.

February 21, 1996. It's Jeremy's birthday!

We've been too busy at Turbine to plan something extravagant, unfortunately. But after the Wall of Wheat Puffs incident, I felt we had to do something. We had a company dinner to celebrate, and I snuck out of the party and got the chefs to prepare a special dinner. Chicken parmegian, with pasta. But underneath the pasta... Shaw's Frosted Wheat Puffs!

Fortunately, they'd cooked a 2nd meal so Jeremy could enjoy his dinner.