Let me explain: the menu screen for Never Been Kissed appears momentarily when the disc is loaded, then reverts to the standard Fight Club menu. It’s actually a brilliantly hilarious gag perpetrated by director David Fincher for the release. Not only are the two movies polar opposites of one another, but Never Been Kissed outgrossed Fight Club when both movies were released in 1999. To her credit, Drew has a good sense of humour about the whole thing. As a producer on the film, she gave the go-ahead for the prank. [AV Club via Yahoo Movies]

I brought an ancient and non-functioning Mac to the Apple Store in the Meatpacking District in NYC, and this is what happened.

Overall, they were surprisingly unfazed by my request for repairs. They were impressed that I had it, and seemed genuinely interested in helping me get it fixed. They couldn’t do anything for me, since Apple only keeps equipment from the last five years on hand, but they pointed me towards Tekserve, another Apple-centric store in NYC.

Thanks to Blakeley from Gawker.tv for shooting the hidden camera footage!

Famed internet pranksters Improv Everywhere just posted their latest “mission”, a musical about the joys of lunch sung inside the atrium of Trump Tower. But this time, they got to record it using a boatload of NBC’s high-tech gear.

Because the Today Show (US morning news program) was doing a piece on pranks and wanted Ann Curry to be involved, they got involved and pulled out all the stops. They set up a huge tech control room in a storage area, with seven guys working seven joysticks connected to seven robotic HD cameras. The cameras were hidden throughout the atrium behind tinted glass and in plants.

It’s gotta be hard to go back to using cameras hidden in duffel bags after this.

[Improv Everywhere]

Today, we spoke with a Denver-area student who claims to have worked with Falcon’s father, Richard Heene, on a reality show proposal for ABC.

The student wants to sell the information and says the National Enquirer is considering buying it for between $US5000 and $US8000.

The student claims to have been hired by Heene, and says the two worked together from March until May 2009 to prepare “business plans and proposals” to pitch to ABC.

Here’s what the seller says the documents prove:

“The show surrounds scientific experiments and controversial pranks, and one of the pranks within it—actually several of the things within this document—talks about very similar information to what is being debated on the air.”

The seller adds:

“When Mr. Heene is denying having any involvement with this being for a show—when the little kid, Falcon, says ‘Dad, you said to go hide in the attic, we’re doing this for the show’—and then he’s adamantly denying that, that’s when I started cracking up because I have proof that that’s not true.”

The student says Heene never paid for the work, which took more than 15 hours. The student emailed him/herself the proposal as a record and doesn’t believe Heene knows the seller has the information.

“I never would have thought it would become valuable, but at this time, this is kind of the evidence that they’re looking for,” the seller says.

“I’m a student, you know, so if I can get my rent paid from this it’d be awesome.”

Sorry, would-be pranksters: freezing Mentos in ice cubes and then putting them in soda doesn’t cause the soda to fizz up. But why doesn’t it work?

It’s because when you get the Mentos wet, their surface starts to dissolve. And without a surface that’s covered with thousands of little pits, there’s nowhere for the carbon dioxide to go. Instead, you just have a gross soda. Too bad! Pretty amazing that it took this long for someone to actually try this prank, eh? [Steve Spangler Science]

Sure, it would have only made sense as water soluble bathing trunks for everyone but Jesus, who is European and therefore wears a bikini, but still, the idea holds up. You give them to your unsuspecting friends who then go in the water. Within three minutes, they disintegrate, leaving your friend humiliated and terrified. Heeee-larious! [RevengeShop]

John Hargrave tracked down Verizon CEO’s private address and mobile phone number. Then he went to his home—megaphone in hand—to ask him to stop Verizon’s lousy privacy policies. The video is quite funny and his message is clear:

When we don’t have privacy, then freaks with bullhorns start showing up. Keep our phone numbers unlisted. Keep our mobile phone records private. Keep us safe in your loving arms, Ivan.

So damn right. To give you an idea about how easy it was to get this information, the only thing that John did was sign up for one of those “free cell phone records” listings and scan it for the cells and home addresses of the CEOs from the big three: Randall Stephenson of AT&T, Dan Hesse of Sprint Nextel, and Ivan Seidenberg of Verizon. There were a lot of Stephensons and Hesses, but only one Ivan Seidenberg. He confirmed the information and off he went in his car, ready to deliver his message about how important privacy is by showing it exactly how these awful information keeping could affect us.

Mr. John Hargrave, we love you. [Zug.com]

Here’s the email people who placed “pre-orders” received:

Hello. We love that you liked the i.Saw enough to pre-order.

Truth is, you already own a chainsaw. Your keyboard.

Help save more trees by cutting down on unnecessary printing. Download PaperCut, a free application that plays the sound of a chainsaw each time you press Ctrl-P.

Available for Mac and PC.

Thanks for the support. Help spread the buzz, if you will :)

PaperCut Team
(formerly known as i.Saw Team)

This is my kind of prank: it was clever, harmless and didn’t disrupt anyone trying to do their jobs or harass anyone. Instead, it gave us a fun diversion with the goal of having us pause and thing about an issue with real merit. Good on you, PaperCut. Those douches at PETA could learn a thing or two from you. [PaperCut]