practical joke - The Art of the Prank

October 6, 2025

Albania Government Replaces the Ouija Board with a Computer

It may not be as environmentally friendly or accurate, but it might be a step up from current fiscal decision making.

“Albania’s mischievous AI stunt,” by Editorial Board, Washington Post, September 21, 2025.

The tiny country’s prime minister announces a chatbot as minister.

Move over, DOGE. President Donald Trump famously created a White House agency that uses technology to streamline government. Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama has one-upped Trump by appointing an artificial-intelligence bot to his cabinet.

Rama announced this month that “Diella” — Albanian for “Sun” — would join his government as a minister. Diella already pops up to greet visitors on the government website e-Albania. Her new charge: to oversee public procurement.

She won’t need to be that incorruptible to outperform the current system.

Read the whole article here.

February 3, 2024February 3, 2024

Officer, They Just Keep Popping Up!

It’s a bird, it’s a drone, it’s a… excuse me?

Drones dropping colorful sex toys on Oklahoma City suburb rooftops, traffic lights, by KOKH Staff, January 11, 2024

MOORE, Okla. (KOKH) — A strange prank has taken over a suburb of Oklahoma City.

The Moore Police Department informed FOX 25 that it has been made aware of several adult toys being placed on buildings, businesses, and intersections near SW 19th St and S Telephone Rd. Crews had taken the objects down by midafternoon on Thursday.

The sex toys are being placed in high areas with drones, according to reports from residents. According to the police department, sightings from residents started surfacing on Wednesday.

Read and see more…

September 27, 2023December 15, 2023

The Steak was Real but the Restaurant was Fake

The only item on the “To Go” menu was the restaurant itself.

How NYC’s fine-dining elite got pranked by Gen Zer’s fake steakhouse — complete with milk servers, ‘celebs,’ and wedding proposal by Hannah Frishberg, September 25, 2023

This Manhattan restaurant is a tough reservation to book — because it doesn’t exist.

The foodie gentry who gathered for their dinner at Mehran’s Steakhouse this weekend believed they’d at last gotten off the years-long waitlist for a highly exclusive, 100-year-old chop house, which finally had an available table at its Lower East Side location.

In reality, what some 140 diners experienced this Saturday evening was an elaborate prank pulled off by a 21-year-old AI startup founder — and some 65 of his friends.

The practical joke of a white tablecloth institution was born during the pandemic, in 2021, when Mehran Jalali’s 16 housemates decided to commemorate the biweekly steak dinners he’d cook them by marking their Upper East Side home as a chop house on Google Maps.

The mostly teenage roomies all left glowing reviews for the newfound institution, leading to intrigued strangers showing up at their door seeking steak.

Mehran then made a website for their solidly booked, “revolutionary steak experience” and, by the end of 2022, had accrued a 2,600-person waitlist. Read the whole article here.