Hacking a Hurricane
Tuesday, August 30, 2011 at 11:19AM As my friends in the Northeast will attest to, Hurricanes don't just suck. They blow! Food markets are picked dry, Home Depot sells out of wood, and who can forget the pleasant experience of the gas station.
That pleasant experience is the focus today.
Filling up with gas before or after a storm is a riot waiting to happen. The lines are longer than the Toy Story Ride at Disney's Hollywood Studios. (I have a hack for that as well but that is a different blog post.)
Today when I filled up my car at the gas station I saw this.
Front:
Back:
This BP gas station is offering you a chance to skip the lines (no word on offering protection from your pissed off neighbors) and fill up with gas sans the waiting. Tom Petty said it best, "The Waiting is the hardest part!" Go Gators!
I am reading Kevin Mitnick's book, Ghost in the Wires. Kevin's earliest hacks was figuring out that he could ride the bus for free by taking a used transfer ticket and punching it himself.
Lets look at the controls associated with this "promotion."
A star punched out along with the date and a "impossible to forge" signature.
I asked someone at work where I could get a hole punch. She offered to let me borrow her set. Hearts, Stars, Clovers, and every other shape that was in a box of Lucky Charms. How magically Delicious!
So I went back to the store after punching all 10 spots in the extra card I liberated from the stack on the counter and I was able to redeem it for a permanent card entitling me to skip the line and fill up 1 car and 2 gas canisters. I believe in a ruling class because I rule!
Remember, there is a difference between old tricks and classic ones!
(I also did not blot out the address of the gas station for all my local hackers. Use this trick well but remember, Snitches get Stitches!)