Prank Phone Call

Again, I say the best pranks are done at the spur of the moment. That is what has happened with our first prank phone call. Slayer988, a once regular member of the scene and webmaster of The NES Graveyard, announced a couple weeks prior that he would leave for good. The thing that got me was he didn't say goodbye to me. I was hurt, deeply puzzled, and left with a bed full of Kleenex tissue. How was I going to contact him to say my final farewell? I then realized I had a log way back with his phone number (I will not get into the details on HOW I got it, let's just call it a 'given'). That is when I decided I would make a quick call from my cellphone to his Florida residence.

After attempting twice, waiting till about 10-12 rings, no one had answered and there was no answering machine to leave a quick goodbye, either. Confused, I quickly went on to Yahoo people search and checked to see if the number matched up. It turns out I was a couple numbers off, but had the first three digits as well as the area code, the same.

At that time I was exhausted and after talking to some people decided to call back, the right number, as someone else- to prank call. The cheerful, fake-accented Miss Cleo came to mind immediately and so I found an actual online sound board of Cleo sound clips. I was all set. I then, holding a microphone in one hand, my cellphone in the other, and leaning up against my computer speakers, got ready for the prank.

What I had to pull off was to first press record on my sound recorder software, then dial the number, hold the phone to my ear, and move the cellphone's mic to the computer speakers when I was responding with Cleo. The hard part was switching back and forth from listening to the cell phone and using the Cleo sound board to talk to Slayer.

I fired up my cellphone and after a few rings an older man, which could possibly be Slayer's dad, picked up the receiver. The man definitely had a Spanish accent, Slayer told us before that his father was the one who taught him the foreign language, and spoke very low. Plus to top that off, some of his phrases were completely inaudible. This made switching between Cleo's sound clips harder since I was on the spot and couldn't make out some of what he was saying. Notice how he repeats "You have the wrong number" three separate times. He eventually hangs up in frustration (or is it confusion?).

Nonetheless, I recorded the "coversation" to a .wav file and then converted it to a 32 kps .mp3 (for space reasons). The resident audio guy, Lanny Cox, then took over the work to enhance the recording in order to make the conversation easier to hear. Here's what he did:

Oh.. well, first I converted it from stereo to mono, since both audio channels were the same.. I then cut the mic click sounds, some free space between cleo's sayings, and miscellaneous noise. I then boosted Slayer's dad's voice about 400 to 500%. Finally, I re-encoded it, and voila. The Lanny remix.

For best listening it is still recommended that you hike up your speaker volume or headphones.

All in all, it came out pretty well even if I didn't get to say a real "Adios" to Slayer. You can download the enhanced version that Lanny edited below.

SLAYER1.MP3