Fax machine practical joke

The Fax Fan Belt

1. Simply come up with a piece of text so clever that it must be unicast to someone with a fax machine over and over. This text must be big enough to cover 1-6 pages, depending on the fax machine you are using.
2. Print or write out all of this text, then tape the pages together so that they form a paper strip that can be read continously from top to bottom.
3. Dial the fax number of the person whom you wish to alert of your underutilized state.
4. Insert your paper strip into the machine, making sure that the text-covered side is facing the direction of the scanner lamp.
5. Once the bottom of the strip comes out of the machine, tape the top edge of the strip to the bottom edge so that it forms a nice loop.
6. Let the machine run until the other person realizes what is going on and hangs up, or runs out of paper, or your appetite for tomfoolery has been fulfilled (like that's ever going to happen).

Of course, all of this could be done with properly modified fax software, but then you'd be letting your mind waste away by not doing anything that develops hand-eye coordination and paper-cut treatment skills.

A variation of the Fax Fan Belt trick, the Moebius Fax Fan Belt can be achieved with slightly more topological expertise. Rather than printing text on just one side of the strip, you would print it on both sides, and in step 5, the top end of the paper strip would have to be given a half twist before it is attached to the bottom end.

Happy Belting!