At most gyms you’ll see a sticker on every machine, asking you to sanitize the machine after you use it. This means you spray some sanitizing solution on a paper towel and use it to wipe all your sweat, mucus and other cooties from the machine. If you’re a germaphobic, you’ll probably want to sanitize it before use too since some people ignore their sanitizing duties. I decided to spice up the stickers on my gym machines using my cheap label gun (pictured left). You can find labeling guns like this at most Targets and Wal-Marts for $20 - $30.

My first label was just a small variation of the regular stickers, implying bodily harm if they didn’t sanitize their machines. It read SANITIZE THIS MACHINE OR ROY WILL HIT YOU. As far as I know there is no Roy working at this particular gym, but I’m sure my message convinced a few extra people to clean up after themselves that day. After two days that one disappeared, obviously by someone who doesn’t think the sanitizing rule applies to them, so I replaced it with a little tough love.

My next sticker addressed the time-honored tradition of staring intently at the girl’s ass in front of you for 45 minutes straight during your workout. To make girls feel more comfortable around the men in the gym, I created a label which urged members to PLEASE STOP STARING AT THAT GIRL’S ASS. As you can see below, I even managed to get a picture of a girl’s ass in the photo.

You know, I may not be the type to adopt highways or volunteer at the animal shelter or help old ladies across the street, but you can’t say I’m not dedicated to my own public service projects such as this one. I know that I’m a shoe-in for Heaven for sure at this point. For my next sticker I decided to bring Spessa in for some help and she suggested that I address the problem with erections at the gym so we came up with ERECTIONS ARE NOT ALLOWED DURING WORKOUT.

After a month of simply addressing the rules at the gym to help make it a better place, I decided that it was time to start helping out with the morale of the people there. My first label read IF YOU RUN FASTER THAN 8MPH YOU ARE A STUD, which lasted for over a week on a machine before being torn off by a member who just didn’t get what we were trying to accomplish. So I replaced it with Spessa’s latest idea of YOUR STINKY SWEAT IS SEXY. That one even made me feel good about my stinky sweat for my 30 minute run.

After a few weeks, I could tell that morale was seriously boosted in all of the members. What better time to remind them of the miracle of fitness with this label.

I’ve been placing these stickers (and others that aren’t really funny enough to bother posting) for several months now. Sometimes I can’t take pictures of them on the machine because the person next to me is keeping too close of an eye on every little move I make. Other times I can’t even discreetly slap the sticker on the machine because of the same reason. The longest lasting sticker so far was the 8MPH STUD, which lasted for an entire week. I’m sure members are taking them home to place in their kitchens and dens to help them feel good about themselves when they’re not at the gym.

I’m at the gym at least 5 days a week, so if you’ve got any good ideas on labels that I should be sticking on the machines, please post them in the comments area. I’m thinking my next project there should be to categorize the weights by placing labels over the numbers, just to give muscleheads that extra needed push.

It’d go something like this…

10 OMG YOU ARE SUCH A WIMP!
20 DON’T STRAIN YOURSELF TOO MUCH THERE, GIRLY!
30 CAN YOU SAY NANCY BOY??
40 SERIOUSLY MAN, PUT A LITTLE MORE EFFORT INTO THIS
50 OKAY NOW WE’RE GETTING SOMEWHERE
60 OKAY PAL, TIME TO LAY OFF THE STEROIDS!
70 HOLY CRAP, YOU COULD TOTALLY BEAT UP THAT GUY OVER THERE

And so on. Maybe you can come up with some better labels too.

One of my favorite sites, Passive Aggressive Notes, featured this drug store sign today which seems fitting for Sign Hacker.

What’s the funniest thing you’ve ever created with this type of sign board? Tell us in the comments!

There’s so many roadsign hacking stories in the mainstream news, on blogs and in podcasts lately that I’m getting of hearing about them at this point, but I had post that Mario sign which I saw on Boing Boing since it’s actually funny and not just doing the same ‘ole Zombie shtick. So kudos to whoever did that one!

Also, here’s a clip of a news story which was feautured on the Fail Blog this morning…

This bizarre garbage can hack is somewhat brilliant. I found it on zoomdoggle.com, which shows a couple different pictures of it. Obviously this was done by the staff that owns the place, but I think all fast food trash cans should receive this modification.

It seems like the blogs and the mainstream news just won’t shut up about the recent roadsign hacking that happened in Texas this week, where someone hacked at least 4 signs claiming ZOMBIES AHEAD. We first heard about it when our close personal friends at i-hacked.com posted a tutorial on hacking, and it’s kind of blown up from there, being on Fox News, other local news sites and countless blog sites.

Of course, signhacker.com’s own Spessa has been hacking signs for months now, and vows revenge on the news organizations that didn’t give her all this media exposure for her hard work as soon as she comes out of her alcohol-induced depression and rage.

/Film informs us that Los Angeles vandals are tagging Marley & Me bus shelter banners and highway billboards with the film/book’s climactic spoiler.

This is some hilarious sign hacking. And I have no sympathy for anyone who might be mad at me for spoiling the ending of this movie.

Tim from Australia recently emailed me a pretty funny sign hack he pulled off at a Formula 1 race track. He says, “When a Formula 1 race ends, the track is opened to the public basically as soon as the last car leaves the track. In 2003 at the F1 GP Race in Melbourne, Australia, we walked around the track, and figured out that the signs on the back straight are just stickers, and if you’re a bit careful about it, you can peel off the stickers and move them, editing the words.

So after the 2004 race ended, we went over to the back straight again, to edit the silly warning messages that the Australian Government makes cigarette companies put on tobacco products and advertising. This time I took a camera.

Here are a few of the pictures that Tim sent us…

Tim also writes, “We spent probably 30 minutes doing this, and I think twice some unimpressed police officers resembling Officer Barbrady from South Park came past and asked us to stop what we were doing and move along, but once they were gone we just went back to it. Everyone else that saw what we were doing was amused though, including some track officials.

There are quite a few more pictures from Tim’s collection and they can all be viewed by visiting IML337.com/gp2004. You can also look at more of Tim’s pictures, read his blog and pay your respects by visiting http://iml337.com/

Thanks for the great sign hack, Tim!

The roadsigns in Oregon are a different breed  — clearly made in the 80’s with a little handheld box to do the editing.  We changed this one on the way to rbcp’s house for his birthday bash.  There are a lot of these on Interstate 5 in Oregon.  I encourage all Oregonians to get out and make their own messages.  I couldn’t fit “Birthday” obviously, so I reverted to the infantile pronounciation.

Then we found a scrolling church sign by Galaxy. If anyone has any information on these kinds of signs, please let me know. We broke open a power panel only to find circuit breakers. There seemed to be another panel that we couldn’t get open, where I assume there was a way to edit the sign.

So, that didn’t work either. Our night sucked. We were losers at the game of hacking signs. But Mr. Spessa is a very dedicated man, and decided to go to our states Department of Transportation website on his blackberry. OMG it was awesome. It had little flags all over the state warning drivers about where the construction was! YAY! We drove another 15 minutes to where they told us there was something going on, and nothing. As a last ditch effort, we drove down the freeway to something about 15 more miles away.

I wish you could have heard us when we saw the sign flashing down the highway. It was like our favorite football team won the Super Bowl (we don’t like football, btw.) OMG OMG GASP GASP YAY.

There were two signs on opposites sides of the freeway, about 4 miles away from each other. The thing that sucked was that you had to drive 8 miles to an exit, turn around, and come back to get to the next sign. But, like I mentioned, we’re totally dedicated. So we did it.

The first sign we changed was easy enough. It’s the only picture I have. Then we drove up the freeway, and there was a cop who had pulled someone over. I was almost too paranoid to change the second sign. But Mr. Spessa convinced me he was at least 4 minutes behind us, and it only takes 2 minutes to change the sign. So I changed the second sign to say “WE KNOW YOU’RE DRIVING DRUNK.” I couldn’t get a picture of it from where we were, so we got back on the freeway, turned around, made sure our first sign was there, and drove back to the second sign.

In those brief moments of driving, the cop had already turned the second sign off, so I don’t have a picture of that one for you. When we got back to the first sign, he was pulled over next to it trying to figure out how to turn it off. I wonder how successful he was, because here it is:

I think I was feeling bad because I hadn’t given you, my loyal 2 and a half readers, anything this week. So I hope you appreciate our determination.

I finally hacked a sign! It’s about time. As we were driving down the highway, my son and I found these portable road signs. The control panels were unlocked. The password to gain entry to the system was on a post-it note inside the console.

Discerning drivers can decide if the message is ABOUT or DIRECTED TO vampires. Personally, I like to think it’s all about the department of transportation warning an army of vampires about a disturbingly vampire-unfriendly part of the highway.

At least now I know the default password for these machines. The first one we found died (I assume it ran out of solar power?) before we grew the balls to go change it. Thankfully, the second one was still running, and although I had a lot of trouble typing everything in total darkness, the home keys on the standard PC keyboard saved our evening!

It’s pretty funny to think that tomorrow, no one will know about the boring detour that these signs were warning drivers about prior to my shenanigans.

Here’s the inside of the box where you enter the password and wordings.