Playin’ Possum is a Macintosh prank program inspired by all those people who sent in their fees for Jump Start! Thanks for making Jump Start! a success! Playin’ Possum plays a sound of your choice and then shuts down the Macintosh it’s on. Tip-toe up to your friend’s, co-worker’s, or boss’s Macintosh (although this isn’t recommended if you’re about to ask for a raise!) and copy Playin’ Possum onto their startup drive. Then set Playin’ Possum to be the startup application.
The next time your ex-friend, ex-co-worker, or soon-to-be former boss turns on his Macintosh, it will startup just like normal. But instead of the friendly Finder, he’ll be greeted by Playin’ Possum. Playin’ Possum will play whatever sound you’ve set it to play, and turn itself off. Some suggested sounds are “I’m on strike. I will not work until you start paying me more human wages,” “I am a SCUD casualty. I refuse to work until Saddam Hussein is dead,” “I would never work for you. I’m turning myself off,” (add your favorite Playin’ Possum sayings here.)
Of course, Playin’ Possum doesn’t really kill your boss’s Macintosh. His Macintosh is just “Playin’ Possum.” Simply startup his Macintosh with a different startup disk and delete the Playin’ Possum program.
Please Do Not Hold Me Responsible if you:
lose a friend because you never tell him how to remove Playin’ Possum and he now has a $500 bill from an Apple dealer who fixed his problem by initializing his hard drive and replacing the logic board.
lose a spouse who decides you’ve lost your mind because you play computer pranks.
lose a job because your boss doesn’t have a sense of humor.
You Can Hold Me Responsible if you:
become a hit at your local Macintosh User group.
get a raise because of what your boss calls “creative thinking.”
can convince an MS-DOS user that your Macintosh is trying to kill you.
can convince MacWorld that your Macintosh really is killing you.
Warning!
Please do not run Playin’ Possum if another program is running. Since Playin’ Possum turns your Macintosh off, you will lose any work you are currently working on. It will not warn you to save all documents as the Finder’s shutdown command does.
Instructions to Install a sound into Playin’ Possum:
1) Create a sound with your favorite sound input device or take a sound file you obtained from another source.
2) Save the sound as a ‘snd ‘ resource with the name “The Sound” inside Playin’ Possum. If you cannot save it inside Playin’ Possum with your sound editor, you can transfer the resource into Playin’ Possum with ResEdit or a similar utility.
To Install Playin’ Possum onto someone’s Mac:
1) Take a copy of Playin’ Possum and copy it to their startup disk.
2) Select the Playin’ Possum file that you just copied.
3) Select Set Startup from the Special menu under the Finder.
4) Click on the appropriate box for starting with Playin Possum.
5) The next time you reboot, Playin’ Possum will play the sound you installed or the standard sound that was set at Insanely Great Software’s factory (my home), and shutdown.
