Rob Cockerham is a guy who has no trouble deciding what to do with his spare time. (Lately he’s been attaching hundreds of tiny mirrors to the inner surface of a satellite dish in an effort to set things on fire.) For almost 10 years, Cockerham has maintained the website known today as Cockeyed.com, a detailed and illustrated catalog of exactly how he has spent most of his spare time.
One thing he likes to do is make his own Halloween costumes. He lovingly documents every step of planning, construction and presentation (usually at a costume contest). He has dressed himself as California (the state), Africa (the continent), a group of paparazzi, a giant Jenga game and all three American Idol judges. Talked into attending Burning Man, he figured he’d fit in better if he built 10-foot silver wings to wear around while he was there. So he did.
Last summer, Cockerham was featured on ABC’s 20/20 during a segment on credit-card fraud. He’d long been tearing up applications for cards he didn’t want. But it occurred to him to see whether the credit company would accept a mutilated application. As usual, Cockerham’s method was methodical and entertaining. He tore the application into tiny pieces, then taped them back together. Then he completed the application. As a final flourish, he crossed out his address and changed it to that of his parents. Sure enough, weeks rolled by and Rob Cockerham was awarded a shiny new credit card from Chase bank—which arrived at his parents’ home. The video of the 20/20 segment is posted on YouTube and, of course, there is a step-by-step report on Cockeyed.com.
One of his most popular recurring features is “How Much Is Inside?” Did you know that a Rehrig Pacific Company “Vista” model plastic shopping cart will hold 256 uncrushed 12-ounce aluminum cans? If you crush them, you can fit 853. It took Cockerham and his friends exactly two hours to crush them, although they had to recruit a Volkswagen Jetta. Cockerham normally eschews traditional methods of measurement for these chronicles. Why calculate the volume of a keg when you and your friends can drink 141 cups of beer? If you’re invited onto MTV2 to honor the Foo Fighters and show off your skills, why not measure Dave Grohl’s surface area by wrapping him in aluminum foil and measuring that? (For the curious: Grohl’s surface area is 2,361 square inches, or 16.4 square feet.)
All of this is merely the tip of the Cockeyed.com iceberg. Cockerham & Co. have executed countless “victimless pranks” (at least I didn’t bother to count them)—for example, he makes photorealistic stickers that look like electrical outlets and sticks them on walls in the hope that someone will try to plug something in. Cockerham has written travelogues of his trips to several countries in western Europe, as well as Costa Rica, New York, Washington, New Orleans, Bulgaria and Turkey. Each is infused with the same humor and fascination characteristic of the website. Everything includes photos.
The vastness of the Internet is no better illustrated than in the pages of Cockeyed.com. I’ve been visiting the site for years, and I’m not sure I’ve read it all—but I get lost for hours each time.
Cockerham is a father and a husband. He has a regular job. He finally did catch something on fire with his satellite dish. And he makes me reconsider exactly what it is I do with my spare time.