The Old Improbable Island Wiki

¹⁾

1. Try to give a cig to an old man in exchange for using him as a horse.
   
2. Start eating only steaks.
   
3. Take a trip to Stonehenge just to walk in the center and try to get cigs/charm/hp.
   
4. Consider getting real tattoos and jewelry in hopes that it'll increase the odds of you finding their respective boss creatures.
   
5. Buy some Mace or pepper spray and spray yourself before traveling.
   
6. Keep a close eye on your household appliances, waiting for the day they become sentient and attack.
   
7. Keep a close eye on people when going anywhere, waiting for one of them to attack.
   
8. Aren't afraid of normal woodland creatures, finding them too mundane to be a threat.
   
9. Ask your local bartender about rumors, expecting to go on a wild hunt and be handsomely rewarded for it.
   
10. Have no qualms about flirting with the local bar wench, but you would never consider actually marrying them.
    
11. Don't go camping without taking a chainsaw and the strongest armour you have. Oh and speaking of camping. . .
    
12. Expect your tent to be alive and larger than it actually is on the inside.
    
13. Go into attack stance upon use of martial metaphors.
    
14. Go tramping through the nearest woods for a couple of hours, expecting to find cameras that give you money.
    
15. Have the Improbable Island Theme Song stuck in your head, but you're too tired to kill it until tomorrow.
    
16. Start planning your day based on how many new days you have saved up.
    
17. Fully expect any crazy cat ladies you see to give you a chance to gain energy by looking at their cats. Oh, and you do a little dance whenever you see hedgehogs in your backyard.
    
18. Can never feel comfortable at a store, surrounded by all those appliances and pants. . . Watching. . . Waiting. . .
    
19. Think you can cross a mountain or an ocean in a day because you think you have enough stamina. ²⁾
    
20. Think you can go to a construction site and buy a bulldozer with only a pack of cigarettes.
    
21. Explain to people that the FailBoat is an actual place and yes, you've been there.
    
    1. Actually plan on buying a boat and calling it a FailBoat.
22. Start dreaming in text, and your nightmares involve typo gremlins turning your meticulously composed dialogue into nothing but a string of random letters.
    
23. Read a list like this, and say to yourself “there's nothing funny about that.” Because you are defensive about doing all of them earlier.
    
24. Wonder why you haven't encountered the Fourth Wall for a while.
    
25. Consider, at work, customer interactions to be Jungle battles, display changes to be Quest beasties, and when you're called into the office, you wonder what you did to annoy the Watcher this time.
    
26. Begin a paragraph in a business letter with :Dan thinks this is a good time for you to. . .
    
27. Go into different restaurants and try to sell them different cuts of meat.
    
    1. Where did you get the meat? Simple. Skinned a bowl of soup.
       
28. Narrate, aloud or in thoughts, your every action in the third person perspective.
    
29. Narrate your narrating.
    
30. Think about the appropriate colour codes when narrating the narrating and
    
31. Narrate that as well.
    
32. Mentally cheer upon finding a cigarette.
    
33. Whip out your wallet when you cut your finger.
    
34. Walk into your garden expecting to meet strangers from 3 towns down the Rush Hour Driver infested road, regardless of the time.
    
35. Realize you're sooooo going to be late for class 'cause you're still up finishing your day and you're afraid to go to sleep 'cause your alarm might try to kill you.
    
36. Are asked to do a creative writing assignment, and your mind automatically jumps to the Island.
    
37. Start having dreams involving Kittymorphs in place of humans. . .
    
    1. And none of the remaining humans bat an eye at it.
       
38. Debate hitting someone in a specific spot rather than flailing away madly, as it might tire you out more quickly.³⁾
    
39. Consider your underwear to be armor.
    
40. Type “/me” or “::” or “:” before replying to an e-mail.
    
41. Have reflexively reached for a spork when the hot girl/guy at work strolls by.
    
42. Are convinced that you can use improbable powers by jamming a metal piece into your head. ⁴⁾
    
43. Become extremely uncomfortable⁵⁾ around red-clad blonds in their mid 20's. (I wonder how she hasn't been mentioned yet.)
    
44. Start throwing insults at mushrooms at the grocery.
    
45. Start counting as soon as any web page loads, and only click links on counts of 1-7
    
46. IM someone you know, and wonder why : isn't giving you grey action-speak
    
47. Mispronounce a word and your first thought is 'Damn typo gremlins'
    
48. Get a cake, somehow,⁶⁾ and you eat a big piece because you want to be FULL OF CAKE. And for the rest of the day, you enter situations thinking, “it's okay, I have a Cake buff!”
    
49. Get tongue tied in actual physical conversation and mention squashing the typo gremlin, then wonder why the person you're talking to looks at you funny.
    
50. Wake up in the morning and your first thought is “It's a new day on improbable Island.”
    
51. Are playing Loaded Questions, and your answer to a question is “Sorry, it's a new day on improbable island.”
    
52. Are talking to your friends and you say, “Something Improbable! \[Insert name here\] lunges at you with \[insert action here\]” ⁷⁾
    
53. Have a character that can't speak, and hasn't been able to for a while, and one day someone at work says “You've been quiet lately.”
    
    1. And you realize just how much you've been communicating with gestures for a corresponding period of time.
       
54. Show up early to work for the sole reason that the NewDay starts at the start of your shift.
    
55. Have tried italicizing words by using `i.
    
56. Have blamed `i not working on typo gremlins.
    
57. Refuse ever to throw anything out around the house, because it may come in useful in the future. . . Even after it has DIED.
    
58. Think maggots will run off with that leftover meat.
    
59. Dream that you're a kittymorph in a strange island where improbable things happens, then you wake up, think for a while and runs to the closest mirror just to find yourself human again (and you blame Horatio for that).⁸⁾
    
60. Dream about Failboat hot chocolate. Then wake up, and have to go out and buy the bits. ⁹⁾
    
61. Read “panther” in a book as “panthzer”, do a double-take, laugh at yourself, and STILL find yourself with a craving for steak. ¹⁰⁾
    
62. Researching the use of German armor, have this image of a black cat with treads rolling across Russia. . .
    
63. Consider Hunting for new pants. ¹¹⁾
    
64. Have pants that consider hunting you.
    
65. Hear the annoying song on the radio, and bang your head against a nearby rock until it goes away.
    
66. The head banging actually works. ¹²⁾
    
67. Have the idea that breaking the fourth wall in real life is a religious debate.
    
68. Overhear a coworker discussing possible baby names that start with 'S', and the first thing that pops into your head is:

• Sally
  
• Skidge
  
• Suzie
  
• Samantha
  
• Sheila
  

1. Catch yourself talking about RL prices in 'Req'.
   
2. Or, when you don't catch yourself.
   
3. Are asleep and in your dream a familiar light brown tableau appears with the words “Something Improbable!. . .” and the event described unfolds in your dream.
   
4. Are on your way to somewhere IRL that you will need cash, and you think: “I'll need to swing by the bank and withdraw some Req”.¹³⁾
   
5. Start typing everything in your character's accent.
   
6. And speaking that way. . .
   
7. And when you talk about the goings-on in the Island more than the news IRL. . .¹⁴⁾¹⁵⁾
   
8. Start narrating your IM's using a colon and color tags from the game¹⁶⁾. . .
   
9. Have the person on the other end of your IM conversation doing the exact same thing.
   
10. Are talking to friends on Facebook chat and you try to colourise your speaking.
    
11. Type in a forum, website, or IM and try to italicize your text with `i
    
12. Have your mouse break, but you find an alternate way of using the Internet, just for II's sake.
    
13. See pig's ears for sale at a pet store, and have post-traumatic stress flashbacks of hammering for all you're worth while rivers of blood, gore, and tears run around your ankles.
    
14. Have nightmares involving a large number of pigs, all of them missing their right ears, and all of them very, very angry at you.¹⁷⁾
    
15. Have the urge to shout “Hedgehogs? HEDGEHOGS?” and do a dance when you run across the word in other contexts.
    
16. Are given a requisition for a medical procedure, and you stare blankly at it, uncomprehending. Isn't requisition money?
    
17. Have twenty guests in your house. . . “That'd be a pan full of tasty meat.” . . . “And, come to think of it, I wouldn't have to spend req buying steaks for them then.”¹⁸⁾
    
18. Are trying to avoid someone and when you run into them anyway, the phrase “You have failed to flee your opponent” appears on the inside of your eyelids
    
19. Are trying to come up with a solution for a problem and find yourself thinking “You have encountered. . .”
    
20. First think, when you wake up, about how many chronospheres you have saved up while sleeping.
    
21. Wake up and expect to find something horrible licking your face
    
22. Are tired but still need to do something, you find yourself thinking “New Day Menu. . .”
    
23. Have daily conversations and gossip that revolve more around Island happenings than personal happenings.
    
24. Wake up this morning after being Joker-needled in the arm. My immediate response was “Seriously?”
    
25. Have dreams about mutant animals and mechs that didn't exist yet in the Mass but now do.¹⁹⁾
    
26. Read a forum and try to “(G)o back to where you came from” to get back to the index. . .
    
27. Say something wrong in real life and blame typo gremlins for it
    
28. Just bought some food from a small deli, selecting that particular shop because it was called “The Munchies”. And are disappointed to get only some chicken (that you had asked for), not 'a lean steak, as big as my head'. And you realize all that after you left the shop. Go figure.
    
29. Carry a coin or die with you to make decisions. The fancier the item, the better.
    
30. Log on at the end of the day, only to realize that you've gone through the entire day on the assumption that II is the real world and your life is a game.²⁰⁾
    
31. Purchase a cheap, but excellent umbrella that makes a delicious SHOOOMPH noise when you press the catch button, and your first thought isn't “man this is AWESOME”, but rather “man this is AWESOME I should get one for [character name] too!”²¹⁾
    
32. Spend hours on ll, only to realize you haven't blinked for a really long time.
    
33. Spend an hour explaining every facet of the game²²⁾ to someone who's never heard of it simply so they understand why you're so happy to have killed the drive in one day.
    
34. Teach a kid named Sessine to swim and wonder if he knows anybody named Zolotisty. ²³⁾
    
35. Can read a hundred different ways that Improbable Island can take over your life, and they all apply to you.
    
36. Receive the same gift from your friend in real life as your character did from that friend's character.
    
37. Are reading a book and, when someone in the book says your characters name, you wonder why and how they're talking to you.
    
38. Laugh out loud when you see a pair of old boots with their laces tied together.
    
39. Glare suspiciously at a yellow tub with “I Can't Believe It's Not Butter!” written on it.
    
40. Are told that someone had the best steak ever, you almost ask “You went all the way to Pleasantville?”
    
41. Dream (from the perspective of your character) about a feature that hasn't even been released yet, and go so far as to dream it being buggy and rampaging sideways rather than forwards. Yay, titans*! ²⁴⁾
    
42. Accidentally start typing with your character's accent everywhere. . .
    
43. And when you've done it so much, the people you're talking to don't even ask about it anymore. XP
    
44. Get home, your first thoughts are: “I hope I have enough chronospheres to do (Insert task here)”.
    
45. Have the laptop background of a photoshopped picture of a spiderkitty.²⁵⁾
    
46. Have all your Internet browser's homepages as II related.
    
47. Consider making your own handheld cat launcher.²⁶⁾
    
48. Wonder how much stamina you will save each day when all the snow melts.²⁷⁾
    
49. Never sleep near any cameras in plain view, for fears they will poke you.
    
50. Drive past a landscaping company and they have a sign out: HELP WANTED - EXPERIENCED MASON . . .and you think, “Hmm, my stat is pretty high, wonder what they pa. . Oh. Wait.”
    
51. Think you can cater an affair because of your high level of cooking.²⁸⁾²⁹⁾
    
52. Listening/reading/watching things about the election. . .
    
53. When they say, “the new ruler of the island tomorrow”, you think “What's happened to the Watcher?
    
54. They talk about not being able to take ballots out of the ballot boxes, you think “Of course. It would bite them.”
    
55. They say our “titan” will be. .and you rev your chainsaw (or cricket bat if you're poor) to try and find them and kill them, hoping to get money for it.
    
56. The site goes down for maintenance, you constantly refresh the page or keep trying to log in.
    
57. Meet someone who introduces himself as “Horatio”, and you automatically reach for a non-existent bandolier OR wonder if he would like to join you for tea.
    
58. Can't stop drawing things from the Island!
    
59. See commercials for the recent Alice in Wonderland film and think someone's made a movie about the Island.
    
60. Feel compelled to moan the word BRAAAINS along with any words rhyming with it.
    
61. Use the in-game codes to describe something (for instance, looking for `k-coloured wool, or such-and-such is happening an hour after next Newday).
    
62. Have your girlfriend yelling at you and you decide that you are only going to rate that encounter a 1
    
63. Sit in a doctor's office and hear a duck-like noise and start to think to yourself. “Gee, when did QQQ invade the real-world. I wonder where they put the rubber duck this time.”³⁰⁾
    
64. Someone complains that something keeps on happening and they say “Not again!” and you think of the contestant NotAgain.
    
65. Go to another web game and don't check their wiki, expecting half of what you find to be a lie.
    
66. Someone asks you where you live, and you reply “Pleasantville/Acehigh/Dunbernarding/the Failboat³¹⁾“
    
67. Try to explain a problem through interpretive dance.³²⁾
    
68. Hear a common expression for the first time in a while, and immediately try to think up a monster encounter for it.
    
69. Go and buy eight thousand cartons of cigarettes, thinking that you would be able to buy all the land available for sale in your city.
    
70. Blame Horatio for things happening in real life.
    
71. Blame typo gremlins for verbal mix-ups.
    
72. Can draw a perfect Map of the Island from memory.
    
73. Went to bed on a couch and thought to yourself: ah, 6% more stam tomorrow! (same for the floor, small bed, or a folding bed)
    
74. Have your Avatar featured in your Family Photo Album.
    
75. There are no photos in your Family Photo Album, only avatars.
    
76. Start roleplaying in the forum.
    
77. Go out when it's overcast and think, “Well, at least it'll be gone in an hour.”
    
78. Stared at the game's code so hard, you blurt out parts of it while asleep.
    
79. Only visit friends to use their internet.
    
80. Time your clicks within 4-7 seconds anywhere else on the Internet.
81. Put lobster, ninja, and horse on the same culinary plateau.
    
82. Start a thread like this if you can't get your fix.
    
83. Hear someone is moving and assume it's because they finally found their DanQuest Monster where they were living.
84. Drive by Pittsburgh during a road trip, and wonder why the road signs are missing the word “New.”
    
85. Arrive at this wiki page by accident, and can't remember how you got here.
86. Actually read all of these points because you can't get away.

Feel free to add more.