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Pretty recently I wrote a post about how to do infrared photography, how it works, and why everything looks the way it does. This is another batch of pictures I have taken recently that still include the “outdoor” theme from the first batch. I have gone out and taken pictures of other things, and may post those at a later time. This batch of Infrared Pictures come from Provo Canyon.

This picture below was taken of just a tree with a blue sky. I chose to leave the blue/purple colors that Infrared pictures actually produce, since I have to convert them to a black and white gradient to get the look of the other pictures. I did do some minor editing on this one to bring the dark lines out of the tree a little.

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Devious Office Prank #1: Bookmarks

Most people in an office situation have a very tedious and routine work-flow. Pranks that disrupt this work-flow are, well just plain funny at times. This prank doesn’t require any special software, just spend some time changing some website URL’s in all of their bookmarks. Usually a co-worker has a fairly organized and structured set of bookmarks in their web browser of choice. Hopefully it is Firefox, but we won’t judge them if they use something else.

Accessing their bookmarks, change all of your co-workers URL destinations for each bookmark to remove just one letter of the .com in each URL. Make it a ‘.cm’ or ‘om’, etc. Every time they attempt to follow a bookmarked link, it will come up as “server not found”, or “error in ‘/’ application” or whatever. You can even just add stuff the to URL that shouldn’t be there such as an extra ‘t’ in the ‘http’ part of the URL.

You can take this prank a little further by switching the URL’s in their bookmarks. So that they still get to an actual website with out any errors, just the wrong website.

Machiavellian Office Prank #2: Saran-Wrapped Toilet

The toilet: feared by janitors, abused by men. When it comes to office pranks, this one isn’t just dirty in the sense that it’s a mean prank, it’s dirty as in, it makes a mess. Take a wide strip of Saran-wrap or generic brand cellophane and put a single layer around the bowl of the toilet. Lift the lid and the seat up all the way before wrapping, then put them both down. Nothing gets out, and nothing gets in. Result: An extremely ‘pissed off’ and smelly co-worker.

Aneurysm Creating Office Prank #3: Screen shot of Desktop

Hit ‘Print screen” on your co-workers computer, save the image as the desktop background. After you do this, create a folder and drag every icon on the desktop to this folder, then hide the folder however you choose. This gives the appearance that the desktop looks the exact same as normal, except the icon’s they keep trying to click on are actually just part of the background image. The start menu will keep working, so confusion can be minimal if they are a smart cookie, but choose the office ‘blond’ and hopefully after a few help-desk calls you will have had your giggles.

The Evil Office Prank #4: White on White text/links/background

I had this one pulled on my by one sneaky co-worker. When you look at your computer desktop, your tool bar has a color, background has a color, and the text for everything is contrasted so you can easily read it. If that contrast changes to something like, white on white, it’s impossible to find difference between text, background icons, etc. etc.

The dirtiest part of this prank, is how nearly impossible it might be to reverse the effect. Your coworker will have a completely white screen but it will be filled with icons, folders, and every program you decided to leave running when you did this, so their frustration is going to be really high. My coworker left the ‘display settings’ folder open in the top right hand corner so it would be easy to change back. Well, it was supposed to be easy to change back. I got flustered enough that I just started clicking and dragging and moved everything. Luckily he was smart enough to find a way to change things back, let’s hope you are too.

The OCD Killer OfficePrank #5: Calendar Events

This may not be the most destructive prank in the world, but it has its place in office pranks. Many people live at their desk from 8-5. They might have a scheduling routine or work-flow that they depend on so much, you might consider if they are O.C.D. If they are O.C.D., then making these changes will be even funnier. Change their scheduled calendar events. On either the desktop calendar, wall calender, or Outlook Calendar. Add important meetings with high-ranking people in the company or just add worthless teasing reminders. Go crazy with the reminders, or make just a few so as to make the few they have seem that much more believable.

Throw off their routine just a little with lunch break 20 minutes early, or if you suspect they have odd secrets, call them out on it by posting a calendar event to ‘Pay off pimp at 4th and Main St.’ It is like moving their tediously placed pencils or tilting a picture on the wall. Go through a stack of papers and lightly tear the whole stack in just a corner.

Work Disturbing Office Prank #6: Muscle Memory Retraining and Keyboard Tweaking

The keyboard is something that most people don’t need to look at anymore to type, but they do anyway. How weird would it be to not see “QWERTY” in the top left anymore, but actually have a message from the prank puller; “ZESTY”, “GOATBUM”, or whatever you can think of. Surprisingly most keyboards only require just a little bit of pressure to pop off a few keys. Arrange them however you like. Possibly just switch two commonly used ones like “A” and “E”. Spend a few minutes to think of something that would really get to the keyboard user.

Got a favorite office prank?

Leave a comment with your favorite office prank, or suggestions of a joke you are too chicken to pull yourself.

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In-N-Out is officially suing a Utah fast food restaurant. Some people teased me when I said I was sure In-N-Out knew about the rip-off chain located in American Fork, UT. KSL outlines that apparently some confused In-N-Out loyalists e-mailed In-N-Out Corporate, asking if they had opened up new store under a different name. To settle some of the rumors I have heard, In-N-Out didn’t actually secretly own Chadders, and Steve Martin isn’t Mormon.

Sure enough, In-N-Out apparently knew about it and has been building a case which has finally been served to the owners of Chadders. As too close of a rip off, Chadders has a “Trademark Infringement” lawsuit to fight now. I am not going to lie; they really did look a lot like In-N-Out, and the food was pretty close. When I asked for an Animal Style Hamburger, the employee told me to ask for a Stubby Style or something, but when my friend asked for it, the other teeny-bopper-bubble-gummer employee merely said, ’sure’.

Though the owner assured many people that he had done his homework with his lawyers before opening to the public, apparently even they might have missed something, or at least weren’t counting on In-N-Out corporate to be so aggressive. Personally I wish they could keep it open, and I hope the lawsuit doesn’t shut them down. It’s nice having a In-N-Out trademark-brand-ripping hamburger joint so close.

This lawsuit could take anywhere from 2 months to 2 years. Legally Chadder’s can operate that entire time until the ruling is given, with the possible ‘cease and desist’ which would have an accompanying date. So during that time, maybe we can eat there just a little more often until our desires overpower us enough to drive to St. George.

In-N-Out has not made anything official, but they are possibly going to make the smart move to build a commissary in Las Vegas. They won’t build an In-N-Out restaurant 500 miles away from a commissary apparently, so putting one in Vegas opens up quite a few more possible In-N-Out locations. That would at least open up Utah and Arizona to the restaurant chain (non-franchised chain that is). Which seems to be an obvious move if they want to push towards the east. I have no doubt that they would do extremely well in Utah, not just in St. George, but also in Provo, Draper, and West Jordan.

Here is the official address for Chaders Restaurant.
Chadders:
599 West Pacific Drive
American Fork, UT 84003
801-763-0770

Other Links for this Story:

Fox News

Salt Lake Tribune

YouTube Video

Chadders Update: Post Lawsuit:

On 6-27-07, I went to lunch with a few of my co-workers to Chadders. They seem to want to work with In-N-Out and have made some changes around the restaurant. No more red strip on the tables, no more red boards around the windows (blue), all employee aprons are blue, and they have replaced the menu design both inside the store and in the drive through. It really does a good job of helping the store not appear as much as an In-N-Out. As you can see by some of the comments that have been made since the original post, there is a strong following of people wanting Chadders to remain open, and it’s pretty clear a lot of people are pretty confused about what the lawsuit is really about. Hopefully most rumors will be settled soon enough.

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Shepizzle is a new internet source for learning about new or recently discovered Indie musicians. Here you will have an online music review site to find out who’s who and what’s what. As an Indie Music Review Website, SHEPIZZLE provides you with a variety of authors/reviewers with a diverse range of different musical preferences, like any good Indie-music review website should. Be serious, people don’t want a single emo-pain-inflicting-fast-food-worker to be a trusting source for a variety of underground music, a variety works. Even the emo kids get sick of and tired of My Chemical Romance an feel the urge to stop cutting themselves and possibly even move their black hair to see out of both eyes for a little while, let’s just hope they don’t turn to Jack Johnson in the emo off-season.

Shepizzle is turning to multiple people who actually have different musical preferences from one another, and who each look for new Indie music in different places. Result? You get exposure to a wider range of music and you get an increase in the chances of finding something you like and had never heard of before. New bands and musicians are being spotlighted and reviewed all the time, and your suggestions of musicians that Shepizzle should review are more than welcome. Even you can take part in sharing new Indie Music around the internet. Oh yeah, don’t do drugs.

Website location: http://shepizzle.com

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Infrared Photography is something my friend Sam introduced me to for the first time around a year ago. It involves blocking the standard spectrum of visible light when a photograph is taken, and only allowing IR light to be captured (near-infrared to be specific instead of far-infrared). Most digital camera’s have IR blockers in them in one way or another, so the camera I used was modified by two friends of mine. The IR blocker was removed, and a few layers of exposed and developed camera film were inserted in place of the IR blocker. (exposed film won’t let visible light pass through.) What makes Infrared photography so unique and attractive has partly to do with the fact that plants absorb and reflect Infrared light in a very different way than they do with visible light.

Broken down just a little more with an example; when light from the sun (or a light bulb) hits my blue t-shirt, all light in the visible spectrum is absorbed by the shirt except blue. The blue part of the light spectrum is reflected, and is the color we end up seeing. Black shirts absorb all colors in the spectrum, and white shirts will reflect all of them (like snow will also do). We can’t see Infrared light, but it still has materials and objects that will reflect or absorb it in a variety of different ways. Foliage (tree leaves and grass) reflect IR light when generally they absorb all light colors but green. A clear blue sky with nothing to absorb or reflect IR light will appear black or very dark, unless it has clouds which don’t absorb IR.

For more information on Infrared Photography and it’s amazing uses, history, and a much more technical explanation of how it all works, Wikipedia has an excellent Infrared Photography article.

Here a few shots from the first batch of IR pictures I took on my lunch break this recent friday.

These Infrared shots were taken at the Scera Park in Orem, UT on June 8th, 2007. The sky was clear blue, the tree’s were green and full, and the grass was just recently cut.

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