There's a limit on how much you can explain a gag without ruining it, and our skimpy details on the wonderful AIM Search prank yesterday were intentionally open-ended.

Yes, it's a prank. No, the logs aren't real. And no, it doesn't randomize the "messages". And you need to read from the bottom up.

Unfortunately, it allowed you to do delete messages too, and overnight (Pacific Time) one user deleted 197 records until the feature was disabled, and some were lost forever, we're told. So not all the content that was there last night has been retained.

But nevertheless, there's some fine creative work going on:

"Hi! I'm made of wood. Care to wrestle?"
"some dood did a fake google?" … "I just read about it at register.co.uk"
"I tried http://*.* but it won't load it all"

And a haunting original that keeps returning…

"I still think about that one temp, the one with the glasses..."

So a few of the enterprising folk who've discovered the hidden add field have resisted the temptation to post WC Fields-style aphorims, and tried to create the weird banality of the authentic chat log experience.

You'll have to find the 'Add Messages' feature yourselves though. We're not telling.

Another change we noticed today is that the "Googol" navigation graphic now extends to cover all the entries, which reads "Goooooooooooooooooogol".

The site will expire on Monday, as part of a legal settlement between Google and the pranksters. ®

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