Cybercafes and overly-keen staff.
You know how waiters when giving you a drink sometimes pour the drink in your glass? In Southern Europe, this happens a lot. In fact, this service-culture of starting things for you seems to have spread to Southern European cybercafes.

Once when on an Interrail in 1999, I went to a cybercafe in Italy to check my e-mail and browse teh intarweb. Anyway, I noticed that when I was about to sit down, the person working in the cybercafe actually made the effort to open Internet Explorer for me by taking my mouse and clicking on the IE icon. Now, that was something I could easilly have done myself. Noticing that Southern European service culture does not translate well to cyber-cafe activities, I thought I'd give them a lesson to show them that people expect to choose themselves what to do first (eg. they might want to use Netscape instead, or use Telnet instead of a web-browser).

When Internet Explorer is open, it goes straight to the 'homepage'. This 'homepage' can be set in the browser settings. Now, can you see where this is leading to...

The Internet is, and always has been full of dodgy sites. Truth be told, I knew several of their URLs off by heart. Not wanting to over-do things, I decided to change the default homepage to something that was more about giving advice, than just there for shock-value.

So the next time the over-eager staff-member showed someone to their PC and opened their web-browser for them, they would immediately be presented with this.
( mistaspakkaman and the inedible shifting caterpillars, Sun 14 Dec 2008, 20:06, 3 replies)

this is on my list of things to master before I dies
you might have opened some eyes to new possibilities and less time wasted queueing.

Consider it your good turn for the day
(maggotriddendirtbox fast, feral and sharp as a tack since, Sun 14 Dec 2008, 22:16, closed)

Glad to have been of service
Maybe my 'prank' might have opened other people's eyes afterall. Looks like I'll have to post another QOTW entry to earn my free ticket to hell.
( mistaspakkaman and the inedible shifting caterpillars, Sun 14 Dec 2008, 23:28, closed)

I'm dissapointed
that wasn't I Like Horses...

(and yes I know 1999 is a bit early, but, well, aww fukkit)
( ogwen69 has returned from Reddit, Sun 14 Dec 2008, 22:24, closed)