april fools, fools

It's a joke on your face!
For the first month in the history of pharaohweb.com, I have a new top page. Up until now, my lame old Question Mark & the Mysterians page has been #1 in the server stats. As of March though, my Pac Man pages took the long-held crown. Winning by just under 1000 hits, Pac Man chomped up the competition. I wondered why I was getting so many e-mails about it, seems its made its move. Wonder how long it can stay on top? Jeez, who cares right? Sorry guys? I get proud of nerdy things like web stats? it’s just in my blood. I blame my dad for buying me that electronics kit from Radio Shack back in the 5th grade. When you’re 11 and spending weekends inside learning about current through coiled wire from a talking cartoon capacitor? you’re pretty much destined for geekdom.

In the spirit of April Fool’s Day, Kristi and I spent some time crafting up a joke to play on Sharaun and her man Erik.

The background: Kristi’s job, and mine, find us frequently away from home on business travel. Lately, it seems like we’re both away on business around the same time – sometimes day for day. Last time I came home from Washington, she was also getting in within the hour – so we were both picked up together from the airport. This unplanned travel coordination has led Sharaun and Erik to give Kristi and I a hard time about really not being away on business, but having a secret affair. So we have this running joke between the four of us about Kristi and I going away for “business” to continue our affair.

The setup: Accidentally “out” the affair to Sharaun and Erik. We concocted a joke where we would use photos taken on our respective business trips, and manipulate them to seemingly show us together on the trips. For added reality, we setup a meeting at Kristi’s apartment to take some pictures of us together which I would then Photoshop into the shots from our actually business trips. So, Tuesday night Anthony I and dropped by Kristi’s place with camera in hand. Kristi and I had each combed through our respective trip photos and chosen the best candidates to be Photoshopped into. In going through my pictures, I found a (really crappy looking) picture that I took in my hotel room one morning on my last trip to Taipei. Noticing that there was an unmade bed in the image, I got the idea of adding a still-sleeping Kristi to it. We took some standard “tourists in love” shots, and one of Kristi in bed (fully clothed y’allz… no need to get that authentic) for the hotel shot.

The delivery: I went home and worked some magic with the pictures. And yes, I used the totally awesome (and completely free) GIMP for Windows to do all the Photoshopping. Yeah, I still call it “Photoshopping,” it’s a verb to me now. Anyway I took the doctored photos and added them to a very simple webpage. Then Kristi and I each pretended to “accidentally” send an e-mail to our significant other – when it was really meant for each other. Kristi’s mail to Erik went like this. She immediately followed it up with this. Yeah, I know – that last image (dubbed “the bed one” by Kristi and I) turned out awesome. If you want to see the magic happen, check here.

The payoff: I’m happy (and still married) to say that both Erik and Sharaun got a kick out of our little joke. Although I am a little nervous about paybacks next year.

Dave out.


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