April Fool's Day

[filkertom]

A day to wonder at the, hm, politeness here, naïveté of our fellow humans. First one I saw this morning was this e-mail apparently making the rounds.

Got any good ones? Or at least can't-believe-someone-believed-it ones?

ETA: Another good one.

Comments

[skunktaur.livejournal.com]

There's only one I found rather clever this year sofar.
JMC, producing company of 40%-50% of all commercially used TFT screens is reporting massive pixel failure. (http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=17839)
At least some people in my office fell for it, which is remarkable since I work in an IT company.

Other than that, I have the feeling sites like ThinkGeek aren't even trying to be clever anymore (they could make big money on their squeez bacon, though).

[jannyblue.livejournal.com]

they could make big money on their squeez bacon, though

Maybe not, actually...

This is a real product.

[skunktaur.livejournal.com]

... I am speechless...

[palenoue.livejournal.com]

This is a real product too, and tastes like bacon concentrate:

http://www.amazon.com/Better-Than-Bouillon-Ham-Base/dp/B00016LA8E/ref=pd_sim_gro_3/175-4723296-6573544

I use it often, especially in soups.

[foenix.livejournal.com]

I gotta say, ThinkGeek always has some fun and clever stuff, and this year I love their Tauntaun sleeping bag (http://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/41/tauntaun.html)/.

[jannyblue.livejournal.com]

Is it wrong that I acually want one?

The rest are here.

[foenix.livejournal.com]

Not at all, I think they'd sell a bundle. The lightsabre zipper is the best.

[jannyblue.livejournal.com]

Grey plush fabric.

Fabric that looks like guts (pink with drawn-on lines?)

Looooong zipper. Make (or buy) small plastic lightsabre for the zipper-pull.

Pattern to make a plush tauntaun head.

Big black button eyes (optional)

Also needs off-white/taupe fabric and embroidery floss for the horns
(although it could be quilted as well.)

I need to eat something. I'm starting to think it's actually do-able...

[markbernstein.livejournal.com]

The USB Pet Rock is just brilliant.

[palenoue.livejournal.com]

Evidently, they are getting overwhelmed by people wanting one, so they're actually going to talk to Lucasfilms suits to get the rights to make them. You can go there to sign up, the more people they get the more leverage they'll have with the suits.

[gelfling-flys.livejournal.com]

my family wants one

[saganth.livejournal.com]

But the BIG question is: do they smell bad more on the inside? Gotta give the tykes an authentic experience ya know...

[jannyblue.livejournal.com]

...there's Febreeze for that...

[devospice.livejournal.com]

I'm not looking forward to work today. I hate practical jokes and I work for two guys who love them.

[alverant.livejournal.com]

I hear ya. My boss likes to joke around with the employees and I have an (earned) reputation for being the proverbial straight man. (He's my boss, I initially believe he's telling the truth, even if he's joking.)

[netpositive.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I know the feeling. I don't have the book handy to get the quote exactly right, but my feeling about April Fools Day is summed up by an aside about Betan communication in one of the later Vorkosigan books. I think it's being said in reference to their elaborate earring code denoting sexual preference, experience and relationship status. Something along the lines of:

"But what if someone lies?"
"Oh, that's discouraged very strongly -- Betans don't approve of that. The feeling is that it screws up communication for the rest of us."

[jannyblue.livejournal.com]

http://www.bugmenot.com

Now even THEY require you to sign in to use their site. ;-)

[jss]

Blogging Project Runway had a good one this morning.

[partiallyclips.livejournal.com]

Google has outdone themselves this year with CADIE.

[sdelmonte]

Unfortunately I downloaded a beta version, and now it's automatically answering my e-mails in the style of Henry James.

[partiallyclips.livejournal.com]

Would it be too much to hope that this is a prank?

God damn it.

[bryanp.livejournal.com]

Damn that Bush! He's taking care of his own.... oh.

Eh. He could be guilty as hell, but if the prosecution didn't do their job he walks. Just ask O.J.

[zellion.livejournal.com]

*snort*

See, I was thinking something similar this morning; if I were a headline writer I would like there's no point in doing any April Fool's jokes this year - just print the real headlines, they're just as messed up as anything fictional.

[liddle-oldman.livejournal.com]

This has nothing to do with anything, but I love your hedgehog icon!

[stevemb.livejournal.com]

The case against Stevens went down the series of tubes.

[bryanp.livejournal.com]

Car and Driver got a few people with this one:

http://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/hot_lists/high_performance/motorsports/obama_orders_chevrolet_and_dodge_out_of_nascar_car_news

[alverant.livejournal.com]

What do you want to bet some people are going to take it seriously or at least use it against the President at some future date when most people have forgotten it was a prank.

[bryanp.livejournal.com]

I found the link on a firearms discussion board which tends to be rather more conservative than this place. ^_^ The original poster thought it was real. However, you'd be surprised how little time it took for others to chime in with "Oh come on, pay attention to the date."

[alverant.livejournal.com]

I just hope they notice the date 6 months down the road when a conservative says, "Obama tried to ban Nascar!"

[stevemb.livejournal.com]

About ten years ago, I wrote up a description of an allegedly upcoming Disney adaptation of Animal Farm, complete with every cutesification I could think of. Several people thought it was for real -- and, come to think of it, it's not that much more ridiculous than some adaptations that were actually produced....

[pyrephox.livejournal.com]

The Fox and the Hound.

The Fox and the Frikken Hound.

I actually checked that book out in middle school, because I'd seen the movie and thought, "Yay, neat!" It took me two weeks to get back right in the head, afterward.

[sdelmonte]

Nothing great besides Google.

And one really annoying RickRoll that forced me to shut my browser entirely. I appreciate that I fell for the joke, but didn't like the end result.

[markbernstein.livejournal.com]

Oh, I like this. The folks at Improv Everywhere spoofed themselves:



Thanks to Terence Chua, who posted the link on Facebook.

[jrtom.livejournal.com]

Not bad. I think it would have been even funnier, though, if they'd set it up so that the funeral was actually a "nested" IE sketch, i.e., the 'extra' mourners thought they were going to a real funeral but it was eventually revealed to be an IE event (possibly by the original mourners breaking out into a song-and-dance routine).

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Or maybe start talking about how much they hated the deceased, and how lousy a human being he was, spitting on the grave and all that.

Wow. How meta could that have become...?

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

I rather like this one (via JoCo)

[markbernstein.livejournal.com]

*snort* From the News section of SF Site:

Baen Books has announced that following in the footsteps of former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, former Vice-President Dick Cheney has signed to write an alternate history. Cheney’s novel, entitled The Fall of America, is described as an alternate history dystopia about a Gore presidency and the aftermath of the attacks of September 11. Publication is expected in 2010.

[alverant.livejournal.com]

Funny. (But I got the suspicion someone may try to write this for real.)

I didn't know about the existence of the SF Site until now, I'll visit it tonight when I'm not at work. Thanks so much!

[kilbia.livejournal.com]

I almost got taken in by the new letter up at http://www.goblinscomic.com/ - the only thing that stopped me from emailing anybody about it was that a few tabs down was http://overcompensating.com/ and his joke was much more obvious.

I'm really kind of ashamed of myself. Tarol's line about being confident he'd make tons of money off the lawsuit should've been a dead giveaway.

[sunfell.livejournal.com]

Gmail has a new feature (http://mail.google.com/mail/help/autopilot/index.html)!

[selenesue.livejournal.com]

Morning Edition had a story this morning on the efforts of animal lovers to save the reputations of otherwise blameless species from having bad sports teams named after them.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102566041

April Fool's, thank the gods. I was afraid for a moment that someone was THAT dingy.

[jcw-da-dmg.livejournal.com]

Oh, poop! I was gonna do that one!

[gelfling-flys.livejournal.com]

I heard that this morning and believed it. Really loony behavior is so common it could be true.

As a joke it was funny. It poked fun without damage

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

NPR is usually pretty good for that. A few years back, they told how Starbucks was going to build a cross-country high-pressure coffee bean pipeline to deliver the freshest possible beans -- even got the president of Starbucks in on it.

[hiddenriver.livejournal.com]

Go on a rocket ride to Mars (http://www.expedia.com/daily/mars/flights-to-mars/?mcicid=Mars_us) - only $99 ($3 trillion off for booking a package trip)!

---

On a sad note, I just learned that Andy Hallett died (http://news.google.com/news?um=1&ned=us&cf=all&ncl=1323273882) on Sunday of congestive heart failure. :(

[kirylyn.livejournal.com]

got MY button

(http://www.expedia.com/daily/mars/flights-to-mars/?mcicid=Mars_us)

[connor-campbell.livejournal.com]

a friend on campus managed to get a hold of a "global address list" for the campus and rick-rolled everyone on campus, including all the admin...i just filled the tiny school fish pond with rubber duckies...

[gelfling-flys.livejournal.com]

Lj staff announced that they were changing the friends notifications. It was an ugly little set of changes that upset people. Currently at 2600 comments which I have not looked at.

I briefly believed and was planning to delete my account. My take is on page 19 of comments.

I expect pranks from business to be obvious and fun.(avoids angry customers)

More involved pranks I expect from friends or co workers.

April 1 joke from Tor books

[hms42]

http://www.tor.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=blog&id=20007#comments