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Revenge for the Foil Apartment? 181

Posted by Cliff from the what-would-val-kilmer-do dept.
GooseKirk asks: "Just over a year ago, my apartment was completely covered in foil. For some reason, this resulted in global media attention, and ever since, people have been asking me, "what are you doing for revenge?" A few great ideas fell through for various reasons (Ron Jeremy was booked, apparently), and sadly, I currently lack access to an orbital weapons platform, so let me pose this riddle to the great Slashdot collective: if you were going to cook enough popcorn to effectively, and let's say hypothetically, bury a small single-story building, how would you cook it and how would you deliver it, quickly and quietly, say, under cover of darkness? At the least, I think it's an interesting puzzle, and other wacky ideas are certainly welcome... just remember, people, mum's the word, OK?"
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Revenge for the Foil Apartment? More

Revenge for the Foil Apartment?

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  • The only thing that's worse. (Score:3, Funny)

    by falcon203e ( 589344 ) on Monday January 31, 2005 @07:48PM (#11534692)
    Do the only thing worse than covering something with aluminum foil... cover it in saran wrap.

  • phase conjugate mirror (Score:3, Funny)

    by calyxa ( 618266 ) on Monday January 31, 2005 @07:49PM (#11534695) Homepage Journal
    and a big laser... and a real genius....
    • Spoiler alert!
    • Nah, you don't need the big, spinning, circular precision mirror or the B1b Lancer bomber, that was just the for the guidence and tracking system.

      What you need to do scale up the jiffy pop (foil covered, popcorn kernel filled pie pan with a handle). Make it, say 10 feet in diameter.

      Oh, now you need the big laser.
    • I don't know, popcorn seems expensive and hard to implement. If you're *really* looking for simple, easy to deploy and quick think crickets.

      Really, you could easily buy a few thousand, maybe 10K. A senior class at my high school did this to the library over christmas break and though not a large place it took days to clean and there was the errant cricket for *months*.

      Think about it.
      1. Crickets are not static, hence, that much more fun to catch.
      2. They will get everywhere. Everywhere.
      3. The noi
  • Trerice, a 26-year-old known among his friends for his off-the-wall schemes, stayed in the apartment while Kirk was away.
    Well, if you really feel that you need _revenge_, rather than to just one-up your friends, might I suggest first 1) getting new friends, and 2) changing the locks?

    (I'm guessing you don't really want revenge. You just want to do your friends, even better than they got you. And they _did_ get you pretty good ...)

    • From dictionary.com:

      revenge
      2 [...] a retaliatory measure.
      4 An opportunity to retaliate, as by a return sports match after a defeat.


      So, yeah, he wants revenge, not whatever preconcieved notion of it that you have, but the dictionary definition. That's all.

      -9mm-

  • First things first (Score:3, Insightful)

    by standsolid ( 619377 ) <kenny@standsolid ... minus herbivore> on Monday January 31, 2005 @07:52PM (#11534734) Homepage
    the first thing i'dve done was not post to a news source that is read by hundreds of thousands of geeks per day.

    the suprise is the best part of the practical joke.
    • Well, sure, that's why I added "mum's the word" - I mean, if you can't trust hundreds of thousands of geeks to keep a zipped lip, who can you trust?
  • Just be careful. I'd hate to see you on the darwin awards for burning to death from an out of control popcorn fire.

    Look into those large, clear box, popcorn machines theatres use. You can fill a garbage bag in 2-3 batches. It might take a week or two, but if you're really serious you can get your popcorn.

    --Chris
  • if you were going to cook enough popcorn to effectively, and let's say hypothetically, bury a small single-story building, how would you cook it and how would you deliver it, quickly and quietly, say, under cover of darkness?

    The best option seems to be to build a large package (or net of packages) of unpopped kernels and package them such that solar heating does the popping...

    Hmmm, I've spotted a flaw in that scheme...

    • Packaging kernels? Why do you insensitive clods have to mention Linux every time? Some of us have PHBs who make us use windows, you know!
  • I'd rent an industrial size garbage bin or other large container and fill it with the appropriate amount of kernels and use steel tubes with holes drilled in them to work as a large scale range. Place tubes under container, hook up to propane tank + regulator, ignite. As for delivery there isn't a very good silent way to deliver the popcorn, probably the best idea would be to use a compressed air gun and front end loader to load the hopper.
  • Buy a car, break it down enough to get it into his apartment, and put it back together. That would seriously be awesome, especially if it was his own car

    My Dad and his friends actually did this to a guy in college using a surplus WW2 jeep. Back then (early 50s) you could buy these jeeps still in the crate for like $100. I bet that was a fun weekend

    Of course, today's cars are a lot more difficult. Though I rate the feasibility of this at about the same level as pointing enough DirectTV dishes at a ho

  • Actually a Chinook skycrane should be able to lift the volume of popcorn you'd need. Fabricate a large canvas bag to hold the popcorn and a quick release mechanism. Lift bag over target, release. While not quiest, it is quick enough to make up the difference. You'd probably be looking at around $2000-$5000 to rent the helicopter for an hour.
    • One of my good geek friends was recently working on a release system for helicopters dropping multiple payloads... so surely he has some connections there. It isn't exactly stealthy, but boy, I bet that's what it'd take to be effective...
    • How to cover a neighborhood with popcorn:

      1) Pile large amount of popcorn in central location.
      2) Position a device to deliver the greatest downdraft possible right over it.
      3) ????
      4) Profit!

      The obvious solution is to use caramel corn....

  • Best way to get revenge (Score:3, Funny)

    by antifoidulus ( 807088 ) on Monday January 31, 2005 @07:59PM (#11534812) Homepage Journal
    Is to sell it to one of the tin foil hat people. there is quite a market for it [zapatopi.net], just imagine, if your whole apartment is covered in foil, then you can finally take your cap off while at home.

  • Popcorn pranks are always the greatest! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Arbac ( 775768 ) on Monday January 31, 2005 @08:02PM (#11534838)
    Anything involving popcorn is good. When my house full of crazy geek college students got involved in a prank war with another house full of geek college students, I'd have to say the popcorn prank was the best.

    Our war started simply enough. They were the pirate house, they even flew pirate flag from their roof. So one night under cover of darkness we went over and stole it. The responsed by breaking into our house and waking us all up by turn our CD player on full blast and looping A pirates life for me.

    Now that is annoying to wake up too.

    The hacks on our various websites got pretty boring, as did the WEP cracking, so we decided to step it up a notch.

    One of my housemates worked at a movie theater, so we had him bring home all the stale popcorn at the end of the night.

    We snuck into their house, filled their whole bathroom with popcorn and went home happy.

    We woke up to pictures in our e-mail boxes of the enemy playing NAKED in our wall of popcorn.

    So my words of advice to you, popcorn is funny, but make sure you're prepared from strange naked popcorn prancing pictures.

    Ewwww, the images are still burned into my mind.
  • You'd have to rent a truck. You'd have to buy an off-size amount of popcorn. You'd need to build something to contain it around his house.

    Another idea that is more labor intensive but less expensive might be better. Replace everything in his apartment with a paper replica? Dunno. Maybe you need to get back at him in an entirely different vein.

  • On the cheap (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Thunderstruck ( 210399 ) on Monday January 31, 2005 @08:06PM (#11534892)
    NIPCO makes a liquid (disel) fuel heater that forces air with an electric fan. This can be vented through a metal container, such as a garbage can, containing un-popped popcorn and used like an air-popper. The exhaust, if properly tuned should carry popped kernels (lower density than unpopped) out to a destination. This exhaust, if enough air is applied to prevent jamming, could then be directed through a length of dryer vent tubing (think giant slinky with plastic) to the top of a home.

    Good luck!
    • I was going to post something about a big mechanical rotating cooker contraption requiring some kind of heating oil and whatnot, but I read this idea and it sounds freaking fantastic. It would likely result in some burned popcorn (ie when a popped kernel could not escape from the unpopped masses) and probalby some pretty pathetic tasting popcorn, but hey -- this stuff is to bury a building, not to eat! The oil left on popcorn cooked in it would not be the best thing for any building that it soiled anyway.

      I
      • But the next poster also brings up a point... what would be the best way to dispose of such a massive volume of popcorn? Haul it to the dump or what?
        • "...what would be the best way to dispose of such a massive volume of popcorn? ..."

          "...small single-story building..." implies house implies yard implies lawn. Compost whatever the birds don't eat and use it for topdressing.

          Of course if it rains heavily right after the building is popcorn entombed it will probably be necessary to move to a motel and contact the EPA Superfund people.

  • I'm sure you can turn one into a large popcorn maker and deliver the popcorn just like cement using those slides. Fill it with the corn, and put a heater in, as it pops the corn floats to the top of the kernels, and out the scoop, so it would make a very nice delivery vehicle if you could get it working.

  • Fake it (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Kris_J ( 10111 ) * on Monday January 31, 2005 @08:10PM (#11534936) Homepage Journal
    Use cardboard to build little boxes 'round the doors and windows so you only have to use a fraction of the amount of popcorn to make it look like you've filled the place.
    • Nah.. has to be real... have you seen the foil gag? Momentary appearance just wouldn't provide enough justice...
      • I don't know... my first reaction to this whole popcorn concept was, not possible (hence, the appeal to /. for ideas). I agree with you in principle, but then again... Kris has given me ideas...
  • A couple of years ago I saw a news report on a German TV station about a bunch of French farmers. These guys decided to display their displeasure about some new regulation or something of that nature. They got them selves a slurry sprayer, filled it up with slurry made from pig manure and then drove the thing around the town hall, spraying away as they went. Apparently they did this on two seperate occasions. A less liquid but no less fragrant variant of this is a common tactic among French fishermen. You g
    • Fish work better if they're fresh, then left in the hubcaps during the early summer. That way if they see you prowling around, they don't see any damage, and about the time they feel safe (in a day or two), the fish start smelling and it'll take them a good while to find them. There's also a good chance the heat will bake the dead fish onto the hubcaps and wheels themselves, so by the time they find them, they'll have quite an interesting cleanup job.
      • Here's a story I was told by a classmate and that supposedly happened to a relative of his. It seems that a new neighbor moved into the suburban community this relative lived in. This guy had a big nasty dog he would let loose in the neighborhood. The whole summer the entire neighborhood tried to get this guy to clean up the shit his dog was leaving all over the place but he just ignored them. Finally winter came around and the dog would poop in the snow which was not visible most of the time so people stop
        • I'm sure you (and everyone else here) has heard of one like that, but I'll mention it anyway.

          Instead of piling on his doorstop, drop some into a paper bag, put it on his porch, set it on fire, then knock loudly and run. Of course, when he sees it, the first thing he'll do is try to stomp out the fire...
  • The best revenge is living well.

  • Ok, if I was going to do that... (Score:4, Informative)

    by crazyphilman ( 609923 ) on Monday January 31, 2005 @08:17PM (#11535015) Journal
    First, get your hands on a hot-air popcorn popper. Maybe several of them.

    Then, modify the popcorn popper so the kernel bin gets refilled via a chute. You can drill a hole in the side of the popper and glue a sheet metal stovepipe in, for example. Then, hook the chute up to a BIG bin of popcorn kernels.

    Now, mount an exit chute to the part of the popper where the popcorn collects. Set up the popper so that as popcorn is made, it naturally falls out the exit chute. You might want to create a wheeled mount for the popper, so that it's higher than the place where it's putting the popcorn. Alternately, you could mount an electrical impeller (like a mix of propeller and submarine screw) to manually push the popcorn out. You might want to rig the thing flamethrower-style, so you're holding the exit chute and throwing a stream of popcorn wherever you point it.

    Open up the window into which you're going to be inserting the popcorn. Arrange the popcorn delivery device so that the exit chute points in the window, and get ready to shoot the prepared popcorn into the interior. Ensure there's a large supply of unpopped popcorn in the ammo bin.

    And plug in the extension cord.

    Hopefully, hilarity ensues. Remember to collect your gear and close the window!

  • The worlds largest popcorn popper (as seen on Big!)
    BIG! Episodes [discovery.com]
    Follow the link and click on "Popper"

  • I filled a friend's car with popcorn once.... (Score:5, Informative)

    by SoCalChris ( 573049 ) on Monday January 31, 2005 @08:31PM (#11535164) Journal
    And it took a CRAPLOAD of popcorn to do it. We borrowed several popcorn poppers and had them running every minute we were awake for about a week leading up to the prank.

    We air popped the popcorn so that it wouldn't get grease everywhere, but we still got bits of corn all over. A few years after the prank, my friend's CD player quit working. He sent it in for repair, and they sent it back to him saying the problem was that a corn kernal had become lodged in the player somewhere.

    IIRC, it takes about 120 pounds of popcorn to fill the passenger compartment of a 1964 Falcon, covering a building would take a heck of a lot more.

    Good luck, if you can pull it off, the expression on his face when he sees it will be priceless!

  • Distributed processing (Score:3, Interesting)

    by YrWrstNtmr ( 564987 ) on Monday January 31, 2005 @08:33PM (#11535191)
    Enlist 10 (or 100) of your closest friends. Start cooking a week or so before hand. Each pops craploads, and stores it in their house/apt. On the appointed night, they put the bags in their car, and bring it over to the victims abode.

    Your only costs are the corn, and bags for each participant. No delivery truck, no fancy heaters, etc.

  • Safety would be the absolute top priority. I'd recommend hot air as a popping medium! Not only would hot air be safest, but there would be no lasting mess - only dry popcorn.

    You can pick up a hot air popper [google.com] or two (or more...) for less than $15. Might as well get a fairly cheap kind since you're only going to abuse 'em...

    Set up a few of them, perhaps mounted to a wood plank so they are more portable, and start popping. I'd do it in stages so you get a steady stream of popcorn. Looking around it seems 120

  • Well, if I understand correctly... (Score:4, Informative)

    by Vertigo01 ( 243919 ) <{nhume} {at} {myrealbox.com}> on Monday January 31, 2005 @09:13PM (#11535531)
    ...You're talking about burying the EXTERIOR of the building, not filling the interior volume.

    A bit of basic math to calculate the volume required (keep in mind I'm a poli-sci major, not a math geek):

    The minimum dimensions you'll be dealing with for a "a small single-story building" would be about 60' x 60' x 15' which gives you an exterior WALL AREA of 54 000 square feet. This is NOT including the roof. Just the exterior WALLS of the building, I'll get to the roof in a second.

    For the sake of simplicity, and my own poor math skills, we'll assume your friend has a FLAT roof. That's another 3 600 square feet.

    You're now dealing with 57 600 square feet of exterior area to cover with popcorn. Assuming that you want to be able to provide at least 6" of popcorn on top of the whole house and assuming you will have a way to KEEP the popcorn IN PLACE (i.e. not just pile it up) you're looking at 57 600' x 0.5' for a total of 28 800 CUBIC FEET of popcorn.

    If you are EXTREMELY liberal in your calculations you can assume that about two bags of microwave popcorn will create one cubic foot of the stuff. Thus, 57 600 bags of microwave popcorn. I'm not quite sure how to calculate how much bulk popcorn you'd need, so I've put it in microwave bag terms to give you a rough idea.

    If you actually need to PILE the popcorn up around the walls I suspect it would be reasonable to double this number for an approximate volume requirement. 57 600 CUBIC feet, or 115 200 BAGS of of popcorn is a FUCKING LOT of popcorn...

    ---------

    Now, if you were talking about FILLING his house with popcorn...

    ---------

    We'll assume a basic 1-bedroom single-story residence with kitchen, bathroom, living room, dining room, hallways, NOT including closets, and NOT including garage.

    The layout of the house could DRASTICALLY affect the overall volume, so these are excessively rough estimates.

    Bedroom: 20' x 20'
    Kitchen: 20' x 20'
    Living Room: 20' x 20'
    Dining Room: 20' x 20'
    Bathroom: 15' x 10'
    Hallways: 35' x 5'

    All Ceilings at 9'

    (4)3600 + 1350 + 1575 = 17 325 cubic feet inside the house. Refer to my previous calculations regarding microwave bags / volume and you'll come to about 35 650 BAGS of microwave popcorn to accomplish this.

    After all this, I seriously doubt you'll be able to do this on the kind of budget that I'd imagine you're on. Perhaps going for just your friend's bedroom / car / home-office would be a more reasonable thing to try?

    --Nic
    • Your math is insane. How many 5' hallways do you have in your home?

      Also, if he were to take the volume of his home, and displace it by 1 foot all around, he could easily encompass a home (well maybe not easily) with popped popcorn.

      Let's say you took a box that was 1,000 square feet as 50x10. Let's also say that the home is 10' tall (to make our math easy).

      Step 1: 50x10x10=5000

      Next, lets build a wood frame around the house with a 1 foot boundary between the frame and the home itself. We are now lookin
      • Oops, some of my basic math was off in that post; but the principle remains intact.

      • Covering the outside by sticking the popcorn to sheets of something and covering the house is probably not too hard-- termite extermination companies routinely completely cover rather large houses with tarps in less than a day (for 2-3 guys) so they can hold the gas in.

        The amount of popcorn is formidable, but plausible--my ~1600 ft^2 roof can get pretty much completely covered with leaves a couple times in a month from the oak trees above it. The trees never seem to be missing any leaves, but there sure a

    • that is a prodigious amount of corn. I wonder, I wonder... how about this? to reduce the amount of popcorn substantially, why not just cover the whole house with some sort of adhesive material and stick the popcorn on? Then when your friend comes home, he'll discover what looks like a popcorn sculpture that roughly resembles his house...

      there are a few problems, though. The first is that you'd have to find a substance that is sticky but completely water-soluble (and of course biodegradable). Some possibili

    • A bit of basic math to calculate the volume required (keep in mind I'm a poli-sci major, not a math geek):

      Good thing :) Because even this philosophy major can see a significant problem with your analysis. (Though, to be fair, I was formerly engineering and I'm double majoring in CS :))

      The minimum dimensions you'll be dealing with for a "a small single-story building" would be about 60' x 60' x 15' which gives you an exterior WALL AREA of 54 000 square feet. This is NOT including the roof. Just the e

      • most houses (even ones in an upper-middle class neighborhood) sit on an acre plot.

        Do you live in Montana or something? You might get 1/3 acre around here.
        • Do you live in Montana or something? You might get 1/3 acre around here.

          I live in the Midwest, and can never remember whether the standard plot is an acre or a half acre. Having never had someone point to a plot of land and say, "Hey, that's an acre," it's hard for me to visualize exactly how big or small one is :)

          Jeremy
    • Hmmm... or they could feed an entire nation with the corn.

    • Plus, if he does the exterior, he's got the whole angle of repose problem. That'll be one big pile of popcorn.

      (I wonder... what *is* the angle of repose of popcorn? Google provides this [ohio-state.edu] interesting but irrelevant gem, but that's all. I guess he'll just have to measure it himself.)

      Now, popcorn balls, that's another matter. Maybe he could re-side the fella's house in gooey popcorn balls, colored like red brick. Might have a bit of a rodent and ant problem later, of course...
  • to distribute it evenly..get out through a fire escape
  • In the mid 80's I was a teenager and my younger brother was a child actor working on a TV show in LA. On the same lot, a couple sound stages down they were filming a movie called "Real Genius". I remember getting to tour that sound stage and seeing what looked like a small house built entirely within the sound stage (It seemed off-scale to me - perhaps it was 3/4 scale...). There were also two gigantic machines that to me looked like oversized washing machines that had ductwork coming out of them. Now,
  • This is definitely the place to post something that you want to keep "quiet".

    Unless ...

    Aha! I get it - you intentionally want your roommates to think you're up to something, when in fact you aren't!

    They "get word" that you're cooking up something major, and they get on the defensive.

    The joke is on them, however, because they're constantly on the defensive waiting for something to happen - that never will!

    Much like a prision escapee, they live in fear 24-7 just waiting for their crimes to catch up with
    • After getting "known" for truly bad April Fools day jokes on a particular cow-orker, I did the no trick trick last year. Talk it up good and keep 'em on their toes. Build up the suspense, and you will "win".

      Note that getting ahead is oftern better than getting even :)

  • DONT DO IT. (Score:3, Informative)

    by X0563511 ( 793323 ) on Monday January 31, 2005 @09:43PM (#11535762) Homepage Journal
    The heat generated by a pile of popcorn this big (ever hear of sawdust fires? how about haybails incinerating themselves?) will be large. All it would take is his heating equipment, a hot day, or something left on and you just burned down the guys house.

    • Re:DONT DO IT. (Score:3, Informative)

      by kannibal_klown ( 531544 )
      I was under the impression sawdust fires had to do with the particulate matter in the air and not the air's temperatures.

      For an experiment, start your stove. Take some powder (cocoa mix or sawdust), and lightly sprinkle it over the flame. The fire will flare up to almost your fingers.

      If done in a small contained space, it will result in an explosion. And it only takes a small flame or spark to ignite this. Our middle-school teacher supposedly put a hole in the ceiling one year (at another school) demo

      • You are correct, sir.

        I used to work for an ESD protection company. About 30% of our personnell grounding equipment, mainly wrist straps and heel straps, were sold to companies who had high-dust environments. Grain silos and particle board operations were at the top of that list.

        In high enough concentration, it takes a small spark or flame to yield explosive results

        • You will NOT get enough dust in the air to be explosive. Dust has to be so thick that you can't see more than a meter or so through it to be explosive. Go google dust collection systems and static discharge and grouding PVC pipes (check out rec.woodworking archive in Google in particular). This topic has been beat to death there (repeatedly) and no one has yet to show proof of a dust explosion in something like a home woodshop environment which can be plenty dusty.

          Yes - popped popcorn is flamable. So i

          • Re:DONT DO IT. (Score:3, Interesting)

            by eric2hill ( 33085 )
            I'm no explosives expert, but I've done grain elevator PLC work in the past, and while dusty, they weren't NEAR as dusty as you say. This happened [cnn.com] a few years ago to a grain elevator not unlike the ones I was in.

          • Hmm... Where did you get "You need these for your garage" out of the original post?

            I originally said:

            About 30% of our personnell grounding equipment, mainly wrist straps and heel straps, were sold to companies who had high-dust environments.

            We're dealing with companies, typically they have a bit larger of an environment and higher power tools than those delt with in your typical rec.* newsgroups.

          • Yes - popped popcorn is flamable. So is the newspaper laying there and the cardboard box containing all your treasures. There there are the wood studs and paper faced drywall in your home. Yup that's all flamable too. You don't worry about those catching fire that much do you?
            No, but stud walls and cardboard boxes aren't small and light enough to blow around the house and possibly find their way into the pilot light on the gas stove or water heater. This could be a very costly prank if he burns his bud

    • Re:DONT DO IT. (Score:3, Interesting)

      by redsilo ( 684634 )
      I think you are talking about two separate kinds of disasters both with very little relation to the poster's situation. Sawdust fires/explosions are the result of igniting minute particles. I doubt that popcorn would produce enough concentration to be flamable. Hay bales self igniting is caused by fermentation of wet densely packed material. Popped popcorn is not densely packed nor wet and unpopped kernals are at an optimum 13 percent moisture. They will keep indefinatly at that moisture level and they

  • 3 that movie (Score:2, Insightful)

    by biryokumaru ( 822262 ) *
    disregarding the immense volume of popcorn necessary...

    i suggest removing the magnetron from a microwave (or purchasing a magnetron, whatever's easier) to pop the kernals. most efficient (i think) would be to put the kernals in his apartment and pop them there. it would take a long time (depending on how you decide to power the magnetron, personal experience advises against batteries) but it would be pretty easy. you can likely get popcorn fairly cheap at costco or whatnot, and google yeilds 50 lbs for $2 [popcornpopper.com]

  • It shouldn't be hard to produce sufficient popcorn, I could devise several different hot-air popper machines, it doesn't have to be particularly elaborate since the popcorn doesn't have to be edible. But delivery is a little trickier.

    Go to a rental shop and rent a truck or machinery used for installing blow-in insulation. These are usually mounted on the back of a truck, it has a big hopper where you pour in the insulation (which is usually a sort of crumbled up paper fibers). That's hooked up to a motor-d
    • ive used one of these machines.
      if memory serves, it takes 2 people ~ 2hours to blow 11" of fiber into an atic. thats about 16 hours to get to the first floor roof line, and unless you live way up north, you will run out of darkness. also the machine was quite loud. neighbors will notice the noise.

      i think the best method is to pop your quantity of popcorn, and then rent a helicopter to air drop it on the house.
  • Gas-powered industrial popcorn popper, about $2000: http://www.concessionstands.com/items.asp?CartId=9 021705K-EVEREST-BOLO449&Cc=36GASPED&tpc= [concessionstands.com]
  • some images [oregonstate.edu] of something that happened to a friend of a friend. FYI, air poppers prob won't help out much as they are (obviously) much too slow. - cceddie
  • Fill the house with those little plastic packing beads. Not the ones that look like little bowties, the tiny spherical ones about 5mm across. You could do it by sealing the entire place up and blowing them in through the top of a window, chimney, ceiling manhole, etc.

    Bear in mind that they'll really get into *everything*, however, so if you're able, you should probably seal up any of the more expensive pieces of equipment in the building - TVs, stereos, ovens, etc - so your friends' have merely an exaspe

  • Assuming:
    100g of popcorn fills 1/4 cubic foot
    Popcorn makes a pile at 20 degrees from vertical
    House is about 800 square feet
    House is a rectangle

    Then I get 13.5 METRIC TONS of popcorn! That amount will almost cover the house; leaving the upper corners and roof exposed.

    You will have to move the popcorn unpopped, probably by one of those 18-wheelers (although I do not know if they are big enough).

    You will have to pop on site. I suggest modifying a gas dryer (removing thermostat, and

  • Fill every toilet in the house with said fetid mixture.

    Much better than popcorn.

  • Turn everything in the house upside down. Put it exactly like it would have been before but inverted. Note that you may need some cinder blocks or something to invert desks with computers on them. For added effect, you could stick the keyboards and such to the desk with some form of tape. The hardest part of this would involve appliances. After all, you don't want the stove kicking on while the burners are on the floor.

    Another suggestion would involve creating a web of twine in the house. Start at o

  • Super Glue all of his furniture etc to the ceiling....

  • Baloons (Score:3, Funny)

    by Bios_Hakr ( 68586 ) <xptical@g3.14mail.com minus pi> on Tuesday February 01, 2005 @03:40AM (#11537907)
    While the popcorn idea sounds like fun, logistically speaking, baloons give a bigger bang for your buck.

    1. Get an air compressor or 3 from your local equipment rental store.

    2. Get a cylinder of helium.

    3. Get a funnel.

    4. Get some glitter.

    5. Get some confetti (I prefer cross-shreded paper).

    6. Get some shaving cream.

    7. Get shit-tons of cardboard.

    The basic theory is to use the air compressors to fill the majority of the baloons. A survey of the house and some simple math will give you a volume. A few test baloons will let you know how many you'll eventually need. Use the cardboard to block off the doors to the various rooms so you can fill them to the top.

    The helium makes annoying baloons that are hard to get at.

    The glitter and confetti make a fucking mess.

    The shaving cream is for real revenge.

    The big trick is to only fill a few with the goodies. Make every "pop" a real surprise.

    BTW, to make the process more effecient, come up with a better way to seal vice tying. Most party stores have plugs you can use, but it might get expensive.
  • ...covering the entire floorspace of the victim's dwelling.
  • I see a big deadly fire, and a google news page saying 'house burns down killing 3 in prank'.

    DiscLa1mer! nice idea, not original, but read the disclaimer... oh you did...

    I say don't do anything conspicuous from the outside, but perhaps ONE styrofoam piece on the porch... inside, empty... open a door........argh!

    how to do it? What you will need are:

    Large supply of styrofoam pieces from a company that makes them (a packaging company who wants free advertising?)

    Some trucks with tail-gates or open top tr

  • No problem (Score:2, Interesting)

    by oli_freyr ( 105995 )
    First of all you roll up your sleeves, because you are determined to succede or die trying.

    You would best:
    1. Plan to make the popcorn at the house
    2. Fill the house interior
    3. Use 2-3 days to get the job done.
    4. Get an insider to cooperate.

    The logistics of transporting several tens of thousand cubic feet of popped corn is too expensive. Transporting the corn unpopped is much less conspicuous. Same reason for filling the interior. He probably has neighbors who would call the cops, so you need to do this ins

  • Sic 'em (Score:3, Funny)

    by sysadmn ( 29788 ) <sysadmn AT gmail DOT com> on Tuesday February 01, 2005 @11:49AM (#11540535) Homepage
    If you're actually a genius, you'd get someone else to do the work for you :-)
    Dear Adam and Jaime,

    I heard that it was impossible to completely fill an apartment with popcorn. I figured it anyone could do it, it would be the MythBusters. I even have an apartment you can use!
    PS - Had a friend who had this problem. They had an annoying coworker who played stupid pranks on everyone. Finally, the friend took up a collection, and anonymously ordered a truckload of pea gravel for delivery on the friend's driveway. The friend said it was the best $90 he'd ever spent - the victim spent weeks trying to get rid of the gravel (where are you going to put a pile of gravel six feet across and five feet tall? Plus about the only way to move it is to push it aside, or lift it one shovelful at a time). The mark finally had to hire a landscaping crew to take it away so he could use his driveway again.
  • Some numbers to play around with....

    Corn is about 56lbs/bushel (popcorn might be a bit denser, but I couldn't find any good numbers)

    A bushel is 1.24 cubic feet

    56 lbs = 896 oz.

    Now if you look at concessionstands.com they have 48 oz poppers that will pop 48oz of popcorn in about 3 minutes.

    The volume ratio of popped corn to un-popped corn is pretty variable - but google provides thishttp://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:6MLAWvN-M asJ:dspace.library.cornell.edu/bitstream/1813/118/ 4/Popcorn.PDF&hl=e [64.233.161.104]

  • When I was in college, a group of guys saved newspapers for the entire semester. At the end of the semester, they carefully took the newspapers sheet by sheet, crumpled it in a ball and threw it in a room. As far as I can remember, it took less that 8 hrs to fill a room the size of the inside of an 18 wheeler's trailer. The best part was afterwards. The victim just shoved the newspaper out the door into the hall. Just like outhouses, the shiat flows down, even when you are on the 3rd floor of a dorm.
  • From reading the comments so far a few questions come to mind:
    • Inside or outside the house? your post indicates outside; much harder.
    • While your friend is at home or away for a period of time? If away, what is a reasonable time?
    • You mention 'friend' so I will assume this is to be a harmless fun prank like the 'foiled' incident was. You want it funny and still have a friend in the end...right?
    • Quality or Quantity? The foil was definitely quality for the length of time he had. Popcorn on the outside of th

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