Our friend Rob Cockerham over at Cockeyed has issued a challenge to pranksters around the world. He writes:

The economy is pitiful right now. Both where I live and where I work, I’m seeing a bunch of businesses closing their doors forever.

Shuttered buildings are incredibly depressing, so I’m launching a plan to help liven up our neighborhood streets and remind everyone that economic recovery is just around the corner.

It’s a contest. Create and print your own “Opening Soon” flier and tape it to the door of an empty retail, industrial or warehouse property. Email a picture and you are in the contest! Include a description of the location and hazards if you would like.

Check out his site for details on how you can participate.

This photo’s a little blurry, but it made me laugh. It looks like it was posted somewhere on the campus of USC. It’s part of a larger project called POSTERGASM. The leader of the movement wrote in to say:

I run a project called POSTERGASM which you might dig – basically it’s an open source poster prank project. People create weird, funny, or surreal posters and upload them to the ‘net. Then other pranksters print them out and put them up in their neighborhoods.

Here’s a site where you can download various absurd posters to put up locally. And you can see hundreds of photos of the posters in action on flickr.

Thanks Dan.

“Chris” put up some hilarious photos around New York asking people to meet up with him for a range of bizarre interactions.

via zoomdoggle (also see Craig’s postings in Melbourne)

Make sure you read the instructions carefully next time you’re about to press the button at a crosswalk. Total Crisis Panic Button was installed all over Los Angeles by Jason Eppink. That project inspired the second two, put up by Ryan Laughlin in New Haven, CT.

We’ve seen street-side seat installation projects before, but this is a nice riff on the idea. When not in use, the seat is rotated upwards to act as a sign informing passerby of its potential use. Created by Ken Mori.