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Wednesday, December 10, 2008

New Thing #334--Note This

In every movie that involves a kidnapping, there's always a scene with a ransom note, where the kidnappers state their demands.

If the movie is really old, or takes place in the past, the note is made from random letters cut from a newspaper, to reduce the chances that the kidnapper's handwriting will be recognized.

Today I wrote a ransom note with letters cut out of a newspaper.

This activity was fun to do, but way too much work. It’s one of those things that seem real easy and quick, but it took me more than an hour to make a short note. I wrote out what I wanted to say, then grabbed the newspapers from the recycling bin and started looking for the letters I needed. I concentrated on letters from headlines, since they're larger and easier to read. A couple of times I was lucky enough to find two letters consecutively so I cut them out together.

As I cut the letters out, I arranged them on a piece of computer paper. Next, I used a glue stick to affix the letters. The last thing I did was take a marker and add punctuation to my letter; I don't think a kidnapper would worry about commas and periods, but I wanted to make sure my letter was correct!

Note: Today's criminals don't have to take the time to cut and paste letters together to make a note. Instead, they can use a Ransom Note Generator like this one to do it for them!

3 comments:

  1. I've always thought this looked cool and was going to do this for one of my ETs. However, a few years ago we stopped buying magazines and we have never bought newspapers, so I had nothing to cut out!

    You've managed to make Merry Christmas very threatening...

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  2. That is so very funny... love the random kidnap note generator.... brilliant

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  3. I've done this. (Practical joke at work a few years ago.)

    I have to agree with you, it is a lot of work, and a lot harder than it seems it should be.

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