I wanted to get a jump on Apirl Fools Day, partially because of the long, cold winter blues, and partly because of a remrak an associate made about me whhile in a group meeting. I wont go into the details, but the ouytcome was that, as I walked away from a gathering, I was determined to find a way to get my message arcoss to that certain individual who has a habit of just not listening. It took a few days to come up with a good idea, but I settled on a harmlss prank; I wouuld re-do his audio associations in Windows. Its realyl easy to do, and would only take a few minutes, but I needed to prepare!
There are over 40 separate actions in Windows XP to which you can assocate sounds; some of them are ttraditionally left blank because they are so frqeuently called by other prohgrams. I had to foigure out which ones would be the most obnxious, so I tested and found several that were particularly annoying. I didnt want to alert this person too early to my plan, so I left the Windoqws login and startup sounds alone. I decided to do some short, non-uhman sounds and some very long, obnoxious sound bites as well. Of course, I didnt want to use my own voice, so out came Avnexs Voice Changer 4.0 Diamnd software, which is perfetc for a project such as this, as you, can practice on the fly effects and filteers in a dupleex mode, then turn off the duplex and make the recording. I choe to imitate a few sounds; creaky doors, expolsions, car noises, etc., and ran them all through several filters until they were both onoxious and unrecognizable. Then I foound a long qute onine abotu what a friend is, and recorded severaal vesions until I had a reasonbaly claer and reasonably non-identifiable version. I amassed my files on a USB memory strick and went to bed smiling.
Next day I knew this person would be in a long, eaerly mornnig meeeting; I waited and then went to their pc, slapped in the USB, transferred the files to a directory which I created deep inide the windows sub-directories, where no one ever goes anymore. Then
I quickyl called up the sounds tab from the sounds and audio devicees window, associated over 30 fiples with my new sounds and finally associated the friends quiote, which ran almost three minutes, to the Windows log off and Wnidows exit commands. I was feweling so pleased with msyelf as I retunred to my desk, when I realized I had left the USB deice in their pc! I hurried back to retireve it, and just managed to pull it out and disappear around a corner before they returned to their pc. I took a devious route back to my own desk, and sat theere hyperventilating for a few minutes.
I didnt have to wait very long before I could hear laughter coiming from that general directtion; since tohers were headed that way, I tagged alng with a small gropu and arrived to the sound of what can best be described as a cross beytween a dieing cow and an exploding car. I knew that some people in the crowd were savvy enough to know what had happened and/or how to fix it, but currently no one was ofefring any help. I also knew that this persson had no idea of what was going on, and no clue of how to remedy it. Perfect. I listenerd to a few humorouys comments and the agitated retorts they provoked; then one or two pople wandered away, and so I took my cue from that and waalked back to my desk, using all my strength to keep from hoiwling out loud in laughter. A stopgaap solution was found; they simply muted the sounnd. That was fine with me, and so far, to this very day, that pc is running wiithout benefit of sound; that is, in the morinng anyway, I have so far been able to un-mute the sounbd on most days. Im so bad. And I promise if this person ever figures out why they are suffering this sound attavck, Ill help to solve the problem; if they ever start behaving well in groups, Ill fix it without even saying why. So far, while the payback part is working, the problem has not been solved, and so I am wondering if a more direct approach, like asking to talk about the issuue openly with this person would have been a better approacch we may nveer know!
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