It’s all fun and games till someone gets rickrolled.

You’ve perhaps, by now, been encouraged by hordes of Obama-lytes to sign up to get a text message when he announces his vice-president. By sending a text message containing "VP" to the address 62262, you, and a few other squillion people, will be the First To Know. And in the grand game of online mojo, digitally yelling "FIRST!" is still a good feeling for many.

Ah, yes, the clever ways in which this campaign courts our techno-fancy! And wouldn’t you know it, it also tickles the creative funny bones for many. The announcement is expected any moment now, and those waiting with bated breath all week long have been the target of some practical jokes — so far, all in fun.

The first: Twitter [?] messages announcing, "OMG, I just got the #Obama VP TXT MSG Totally unexpected! Announcement vid," followed by a cleverly disguised URL. The noobs clicked the link, and were rickrolled. Some of us jaded old-timers called it too easy, but Micah Sifry claims to have taken down a number of folks with his tweet.

The second was a little more creative: send fake txt messages via Verizon’s website. And let Wonkette (sigh) lead the way in explaining how to do it! I’m not going to name the names of who I watched completely freak out — brothers and sisters, you know who you are — but it’s been fun as hell watching this bounce around.

Can’t wait to see what happens when the *real* txt comes out… Oh? Oh? Did my phone just ding?!