Last week kicked off our Fuck Off Fridays, where we post internet time wasters for your Friday needs.

Today’s is about secrets.

First off, if you haven’t heard of Post Secret, gather several of your friends together to help you move out from under that giant rock. Offer them pizza and beer to lift the couch. Or bake them cookies.

Mmmmm… cookies….

Post Secret is an art project where people send in postcards with secrets on them, and the “secret currator” selects the best ones and puts them on the internet. Like the above secret.

Does that sound like too much work? Secret Tweet might be a better option for you… you post a secret on their website… HEY! Looks like they’ve been down since December. Huh. Guess some people are a little too lazy.

That’s okay- I’ve found some alternatives. Secret Talk looks like it wants to be a secrets website, but about half of it is spammy stuff or… well, kinda like an anonymous message board. But there are some good ones in there, so it might be worth a look.

Another alternative is Six Billion Secrets. It has a voting system so you can upvote your favorite secrets. It’s like an anonymous popularity contest.

Too hipster for secrets? Try Post Rejects, a satire site of Post Secret. It’s no longer updated, but what they have there is pretty clever, and we like clever.

So there you go. Plenty of ways for you to fuck off this Friday!

I’m a big fan of April Fool’s pranks. Usually I’ll just do something harmless like pretend to quit my job or come out of the closet to my parents but I’ve never really done anything big. I tried once. When Jena and I were first dating we orchestrated a big fight in public and then broke up on facebook (and myspace. It was a long time ago). When we revealed it was an April Fool’s prank our friends either didn’t care or were really pissed off at us. Since that one backfired on us I haven’t really a grand April Fool’s prank. I’ll just never be able to pull one off. Not like Ben.



My friend Ben executed the greatest AF prank I’ve ever seen.



I can’t remember if it was junior or senior year but Ben and I were in the backstage of the auditorium for after school rehearsal of the school play. There were these narrow metal stairs that went up about 20 feet to reach the catwalk. High enough that I’d only climbed to the top once due to my fear of heights.



Ben committed suicide by hanging himself off the catwalk backstage.



Not really. It looked like it, though. See, Ben had bought this book of magic tricks and one of them was a trick noose. It looked just like a regular noose but you put two more ropes in the slipknot that looped under your armpits and supported them so none of your body weight was hanging under the neck loop. You wouldn’t even notice the additional ropes if you were looking from straight ahead or far enough away.



Ben told a couple of us friends to help him set up the whole gag and he did it. He had somebody help him into the harness/noose and gently lower him from the catwalk platform, I made sure nobody wandered back into the area during rehearsal and when it was all ready, Steve ran out to tell everybody.



This was the most important task. He had to come out and pretend that he just found his classmate’s dead body. This type of acting is a little above the high school level but he did it. Sobbing and shaking, he ran out on stage and just said “You guy’s! Ben is… backstage… Oh, God!” and fell to his knees, pointing towards the backstage area with the catwalk stairs. There were a couple dozen kids at rehearsal and we all went back to see what was going on and there he was.



Dangling from the catwalk. Neck to the side, body limp. He was even swinging on the rope ever so slightly like you see when people hang themselves in movies. Kids started freaking out. People screamed and collapsed. Girls were weeping uncontrollably. It was complete pandemonium backstage at the Tartan High School auditorium and then Ben opened his eyes, smiled, waved at everybody and said “April Fools!”



Now when he told me about the prank I didn’t give the aftermath much thought. I just figured when it was revealed that he was, in fact, alive that everybody would have a good laugh but that was not how that played out at all. Girls were still crying. People were pale and visibly shaken. One kid was dry heaving off into a corner. Looking back I now realize that these were all kids. Drama kids, no less and for a moment they all thought that they had just seen their first dead body and it was their friend.



It was the first time I had ever realize a prank could go overboard and to this day was the best prank I had ever seen.

So here we are… the Tuesday after Easter. There are candy wrappers and leftover ham, half eaten chocolate bunnies, random bits of Easter grass, and only the ugly Easter eggs are left. Easter is done. Just a little clean up left.”

There’s a bit more to clean up if you live in Norway. Their Easter holiday starts the Wednesday before Maundy Thursday and ends this morning. Almost a full week of Jesus!

And what do they do during that time? They solve crime.

What? Jesus is missing? I’ll solve this!!

Norway has a lovely little tradition of publishing “Påskekrimmen,” or Easter Crimes. Little mysteries/thrillers pop up all over, from books to packaging. If you can print on it, there’s a crime to solve.

Their public radio station has been broadcasting Easter Crimes since 1980. I happened to stumble across a series they’s been known to reprise often called “Dickie Dick Dickens” – a parody of American crime clichés produced by Germans in the 1960’s.

From the translated Wikipedia page:

Dickie Dick Dickens was the most dangerous man on the American continent, and the king of Chicago’s underworld. He began as a pickpocket and ended as gangster boss.
When Dickie Dick Dickens of somehow threatened or in a dangerous situation, he was always the problem in an elegant, clever and often humorous way. He was a great admirer of his beloved fiancée, Effie Marconi.

It’s also happens to feature a “lawyer Hillbilly.” I want to know how the Germans view Hillbillies. Like, I can’t even wrap my brain around that one.

Still, it can’t be nearly as amusing as actual Easter crimes. For instance, a San Diego cop pulled over the Easter Bunny on a motorcylcle.

The bunny, on his way to a charity event, didn’t have a helmet and was cited for obstructed vision through the bunny head. The officer gave him a warning, but the person under the costume had to take of the bunny head for the rest of the bike ride.

Click to the article… there’s video.

But that’s nothing compared to the fight at an Easter egg hunt.

Not the kids. The mothers.

Two kids were headed for an egg. The mother of one of them pushed the other child out of the way. THAT child’s mother got pissed, and the two of them got into fisticuffs. They had to be separated three or four times.

And that’s why we don’t do Easter egg hunts at Walmart.

YoungNotions is instating a new weekly theme… Fuck Off Fridays.

We used to have desk jobs. We know what Friday is like. You hit about 3pm or so and no other work is getting done for the rest of the day. You spend the last couple hours looking up the same LolCats or maybe the best in Harlem Shake.

Which isn’t much. Our readers deserve better ways to piss away a Friday afternoon of work. And so we lazy slackers bring you the best in non-confrontational ways to stick it to the man.

And we’re starting with Oregon Trail.

Going back to 1985…

I’m not going to describe the game to you. Either you know Oregon Trail or… huh. I can’t think of a single instance where you wouldn’t know Oregon Trail. Not even one.

Now, I’m old. So when I think Oregon Trail, I think of the Apple IIe version where the guy didn’t move. You just had to hit the spacebar when the deer was about a third of the way through the screen. Virtual Apple is an online emulator that has a good selection of old school games, but most of them are the later versions. This one is a little after my time. Because I’m old.

Now, it does require you to install things, which I remember from way back is not a thing all companies let you do. But don’t worry corporate drone. I have a game for you. Unless your employer has outlawed flash. In which case, have fun with your cat pictures.

It’s called Organ Trail, and it’s exactly like Oregon Trail except zombies.

You shot 1900 pounds of meat, but could only bring back BRAAAAAIIINSSSS!!!!!

So there’s your Fuck Off Friday for the week. Have fun slacking, slackers!

Once again let’s take a look at one of the many, many resolutions I made on January 1st and see how I’m doing.



One of the resolutions I made was to “Actually meet all my writing deadlines for this website and my sketch comedy stuff.”



..this counts.



RESOLUTION KEPT.