Auction: "I will send maddening postcards from Poland to the person of your choosing"

Marilyn sez, "Brian Sack offers to drive a person of your choice crazy with mysterious postcards from Poland while he is vacationing there. The postcards will be laced with odd personal details about this person, supplied by you, and signed with an indecipherable signature. So far, Sack reports, some 73,000 people have bid on this since yesterday."

To add to the sheer confusion and genuine discomfort, one missive will be on an original promotional postcard announcing the 1995 television premiere of Central Park West on CBS.
Another will be a postcard celebrating Atlanta's disastrous hosting of the 1996 summer Olympic games.
Your mark will be at a complete loss, desperate for answers, debating contacting people he or she hasn't talked to in years.

Link (Thanks, Marilyn!)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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Dav

A friend of mine has, for over a decade now, sent weird, creepy and sometimes threatening letters to a poor schmuck who annoyed her once. She learned a particular different handwriting style to use and she writes the missives on hotel stationery her friends collect for her as they travel around the world. Her friends also post the letters from various places around the world too. It is, imho, the best art project I’ve ever known.
Crash

Gosh, anonymous harassment for pay truly is hilarious.
ill lich

I tried a similar thing years ago– put stamped/addressed postcards in sales orders going to random accounts, hoping that someone on the other end would get the joke and fill out the left-hand side of the postcards with pointless blather, and then drop them in a mailbox. Of course the intended victim was an old friend from college that I had lost touch with, so I don’t know if they ever got any of the postcards.
elver

I will happily do the same from Estonia. Contact me: elver.loho@gmail.com :)
Beastmouth

It won’t be a surprise if the target reads boingboing, tho.
NovySan

And the meme has started. Here’s the first imitator.

http://tinyurl.com/2q7g6k
woid

73,000 bids?

As of a minute ago, the eBay page had a slightly different number.

38.

I’d call the 73,000 a ballpark figure, but they don’t build ballparks that big anymore.
Madeley

It’s a misquote. Brian Sack notes the auction has had 73,000 page hits, not bids.
ms lynch

I did a version of this to a friend a few yrs ago. At grad school, I handed out pre-addressed and stamped postcards to my classmates, who originated from several states and three countries, and asked them to personalize them and drop them in a mailbox when next they were home. My friend called me perplexed, spinning theories over the origin of the cards. Eventually, I felt bad and had to come clean. Good fun, though, while it lasted!
themindfantastic

Sounds like an awesome Discordian Jake…
charliekkendo

This reminds me of the time I sent a card from San Fran to my dad that said simply, “Come away from there, Jake. It’s just Chinatown.” Unsigned. So he starts calling a buddy of his, blurting quotes from the movie, and hanging up. Buddy is freaking out but finally connects that it’s my dad pranking him and straightens my dad out that it was not him who sent the card. So my dad thinks, Hunh, if it’s not my buddy who sent this? Wait, the handwriting…

Prank calls his brother, my uncle! Hahaha! Finally connects it to me. Well-played!

We are Polish, too, so I would love to pull this on my pops…
thordora

man…I’d have trouble picking ONE person to torment with this….
doubleagame

The wondrous world of pranks made possible by the internet.
NeonCat

Aside from the Olympic Park bombing that killed one person, what was disastrous about the Atlanta Olympic Games?
sparkdale

Wasn’t the Atlanta games the one nortorious for athletes missing their events because of transit issues?
Landowner

I was in Atlanta just before and just after the games. I think the games did fine. But like most cities that host the Olympics it never turns out as well for the city as it does for the Olympics.
JohnnyWeird

I have a conspiracy-buff friend this would drive up the wall! If only I could spare more cash.
houha

A similar type of thing happened to my friend: while she was working in South Africa, she got a postcard sent to her from Jordan that said “Life without wife is like 15 without 5, signed by someone named Amer, with his number.” I had been working in Petra, Jordan earlier in the summer, but I don’t know any ‘Amer,’ and I have no idea how he got my friend’s address. Very strange. Here’s the postcard: http://www.flickr.com/photos/29994554@N00/2125188700/
Syd

I lived in Warsaw for a few months, having actually used the Polish Post Office the joke is on the sender.
rdkeir

I saw this, and started singing “Another postcard, of chimpanzees…”. Then I showed it to my partner, who said “Oh, chimpanzees!”

Doesn’t anyone else listen to the Barenaked Ladies?
Pyros

Brilliant.
Vanwall

Brian Sack has a nifty history of finely engineered discord and ebay fun. His leather pants sale sometime back was a riot.