How Geeks have Fun

I was skimming through the first Mission Impossible (with Tom Cruise) and reminded of a time when I was Luther. In the movie, Luther is sitting in a train across the ailse from the Bad Woman Max and her accomplice. They are trying to connect to the Internet via their cell phone but Luther is sending a jamming signal. Max and her partner have no idea what is going on and become increasingly frustrated.

In high school I bought a HP 48G graphing calculator. Among its many features was an infrared port. It was also capable of downloading new programs. This was 1994 when the Internet beginning to take off, but I found a very interesting program, which would turn my calculator into a programmable remote control that could control TVs, VCRs, etc. Hmm...what could I do with that?
Well, in physics class, we often watched videos. As exciting as the shows were, my friends saw potential for the remote control. At a convenient moment, we took the remote control for the classroom VCR and stored the signals for "Play" and "Stop" in the calcultor.

(kids, try this at your own risk)
The time came for our class to watch a video. I had my calculator on my desk, and a few minutes into the show, I casually pressed a button on my calculator and there was static on the TV. Heheheh, I said to myself and my friends held back their laughter.

The poor teacher went to the VCR to troubleshoot. I really thought she would try harder to "fix" the problem, but I remember seeing her mumble to herself and then give up. She turned off the TV/VCR and put it away.

I'm not Ethan Hunt or Jack Bauer, but at the time, I thought I was pretty cool. Bad, but cool.