A Foolish April

A Foolish April

I dislike this day. Not because I'm a stick in the mud who doesn't like pranks being pulled on me.. Oh believe me, I'm a-okay with pranks. My complaint comes in the fact that no one is able to pull a good prank these days.

Suggesting that Facebook is going to start charging after May 1st isn't a good prank. At best you'd have me saying "Well then, that's unfortunate". Also, suggesting that you are pregnant to your boyfriend isn't much of a prank. I mean.. not unless you really want to hear him tell you how he wants you to abort it. Then the pranks just come full circle.

Over all the art of the prank has long since died. And really, that's the biggest complaint here - That no one is actually pulling off good pranks anymore. But I can't blame them. How are you suppose to pull a prank on someone today? The day that everyone expects someone to pull a prank on them. That's got to be the worse possible thing possible. This day is just set up for failure.

I'm more than happy to get into a prank war. I will make you cry with the WMD's that I'll bust out. I'm serious, you do not want to cross me when it comes to having pranks pulled. I go full blast. Some of the classics:

- Putting tape on the bottom of a friend's optical mouse. They wont know why the mouse isn't working.

-Make a fake desktop on their computers. Basically hit Print Screen to capture all the normal icons that are up there. Then go into the file and make that image the background/wallpaper. Now take all their shortcut icons and put them in a folder so that the desktop looks like it normally would but clicking on anything doesn't do shit.

Or you could just make it look like their computer is fucked up.

nuff said.

- Tie a rubber band around the sprayer handle on the kitchen sink. When the person turns on the water they'll get blasted.

- Put a thin layer of saran wrap tightly over the toilet bowl. Let the sadness ensue.

- Super glue a couple of quarters to the ground and see who will sit there trying to pull them up.

- You can be one of the millions of people to use Facebook and pretend to Break up/ Get Engaged / Married on April 1st.... Then again, you could be the only person NOT to do this also.

- If you have a friend who wont kill you for it, post their phone number on craigslist casual encounters. At least you'll be helping a friend get laid.

You see. Those there. Those are pranks. Telling me that Facebook is going to charge money or that you're getting a divorce is not an April fools joke. It's nothing but baggage I don't want to deal with.

Another side to April fools is the many many different online fuckery. In fact, today is probably the worst day to be on the internet. You will never find anymore amounts of fake news and otherwise bullshit pranks than you will online. From websites that change their format to simply offering stupid offers.

But there is some of them that are worth noting.

Think Geek always has their annual April Fools Products:
http://www.thinkgeek.com/interests/looflirpa/
Which always annoy me a little because they're not actually real. Though in the past one or two items got such popular demand that they were made. I'm guessing that the star wars popsicle molds will be made into a real product this year. Otherwise I'm just going to make one myself. The Apple Store Playmobil playset is very well done for a faker product.

Look at Hulu circa 1995-1996: http://www.hulu.com/index.htm

Adblock's getting a major update.

It looks like Google pulled out a doozy with their Gmail motion. It's a way you can e-mail using a webcam and gestures. Not outdated interfaces like a keyboard and mouse. http://mail.google.com/mail/help/motion.html

Here are some simple, easy to use gestures we'll be able to use any time we're emailing!



I love how "Hello" and "I love you" are disastrously similar to one another.

XKCD has apparently gone 3D.

Wikipedia's main page is appearing a bit less than normal.

Then I give you the latest in great products from Ikea.. The Ikea Hundstol



If you want more online April fooled sites, just take a look at this site as it has a nice list for you to keep track of. http://aprilfoolsdayontheweb.com/

So yeah.. how about putting some effort in to your otherwise lame joke. The internet did, why can't you?

The Jokes On You

The Jokes On You

I'm conflicted. On one hand I really hate holidays as a whole because, like I've explained many times, these are sort of celebrations of life you should be doing on a daily basis. Showing emotion and romance for your significant other shouldn't just occur on Valentine's Day. St. Paddy's day is full of amateur drinkers crowding up the bars I typically love to frequent. Then we come to April Fool's Day.

In all truth, I should be happy about this one. It's only SEVEN DAYS before I get older. In terms you can understand, that's how long the scary long haired girl takes to come out of the TV after you've seen that VHS tape.



But I have to say that I hold firm that pull pranks on people should not be limited to just one day out of the year. I love pranks. I sort of had to stop myself because I can pull some mean pranks. I'll tell you, I had to pull my punches because I could come up with some pretty mean shit.

So that's why I really fucking hate the internet on April 1st. These websites put in all this effort for these elaborate pranks (the legend of zelda movie trailer is an example), but they only work once. They don't go away after repeated viewings, so it's the same tired joke over and over again, like someone saying, "Surprise!!!!" a couple dozen times to your face.



It really is a case of April Fool's Day as being a day for assholes and amateurs. Surprise, surprise absolutely nothing you are trying is funny anymore. I mean, even I tried to get in on this and as you can see from the other blog post for the day of random facts that were all lies, it's not really all that witty. Okay, admit it, my random facts were a little witty. But still, I'm trying to make a point here.

One person I talked to was going to call their boss and tell them they quit. How the hell is this an April's fools prank on the boss? What the fuck does he care that you quit? It just doesn't make sense. Another person I talked to about all Fool's day said that last year she made it look to her boyfriend as if she was cheating on him by saying she was in the office but having her co-workers suggest to her boyfriend that she had the day off.

Who the hell does that effect, really? You're making the joke out of yourself and it's not really something you should do. Even if the Boss cares, it's not like he's going to give a fuck when you tell him you're not quitting. The girl's boyfriend will always have it in the back of his head that she is cheating.

I can't wait to see the Ivy League schools prank all those people so hard today when they reject hundreds of thousands of kids and crush their hopes and dreams. Oddly enough, SAT scores are also suppose to hit today for them. Great timing. And you can always count on Starbucks to lead the way to awesomeness...Starbucks... showing us that they're clearly not all that witty. Oh ho! Big coffee cup. Zing! Good only Starbucks..



In the field of internet jokes, there's still some classic. You can check out Youtube. They've introduced a new resolution. Watch videos in ASCII and save on bandwidth cost for them. Goodbye Horses music video is pretty much awesome in ascii. Aphex Twin - Come to Daddy is still creepy as fuck in ascii...

Were you annoyed at the V countdown clock during LOST the other night? I wasn't cause I watched the Canadian feed three hours earlier.. HA HA, LOSERS! Well, anyway, someone took that joke and ran with it and suggest that ABC will do a countdown clock till the series finale of Lost...

Then there's always Google in the news. They had a couple but my favorite is returning the favor to Kansas. You may remember Topeka renamed itself Google for a month in an effort to get wireless for the city.

At 79, Bill Bunten doesn't exactly understand the Internet boom. The Topeka, Kansas, mayor has an e-mail account, he said, but his assistants take care of most of his online communications and tend to search the Web for him.

But Bunten believes so firmly that younger residents of Kansas' capital city will benefit from faster Internet connections that he wants Topeka -- which he describes as a place of many lakes and the site of a burgeoning market for animal-food research -- to change its name for a month.

In a formal proclamation Monday, Bunten announced his city will be known as "Google" -- Google, Kansas.

Well, google is giving back and renamed itself Topeka today..

A change this dramatic won’t happen without consequences, perhaps even some disruptions. Here are a few of the thorny issues that we hope everyone in the broader Topeka community will bear in mind as we begin one of the most important transitions in our company’s history:

* Correspondence to both our corporate headquarters and offices around the world should now be addressed to Topeka Inc., but otherwise can be addressed normally.
* Google employees once known as “Googlers” should now be referred to as either “Topekers” or “Topekans,” depending on the result of a board meeting that’s ongoing at this hour. Whatever the outcome, the conclusion is clear: we aren’t in Google anymore.
* Our new product names will take some getting used to. For instance, we’ll have to assure users of Topeka News and Topeka Maps that these services will continue to offer news and local information from across the globe. Topeka Talk, similarly, is an instant messaging product, not, say, a folksy midwestern morning show. And Project Virgle, our co-venture with Richard Branson and Virgin to launch the first permanent human colony on Mars, will henceforth be known as Project Vireka.
* We don’t really know what to tell Oliver Google Kai’s parents, except that, if you ask us, Oliver Topeka Kai would be a charming name for their little boy.
* As our lawyers remind us, branded product names can achieve such popularity as to risk losing their trademark status (see cellophane, zippers, trampolines, et al).

Which is odd because whenever I think of Topeka, I can only think of one thing...



Then there's always the go-to April Fools joke that is clearly not more than 10 years old now... in that you can always count on Duck Nukem...

So maybe I should pull out a couple of these tasteful and tactical April Fool's Jokes so you amateurs can learn a thing or two...

-Put tape over the bottom of your co-worker's optical mouse so that it doesn't work when moved.

-Make a fake desktop on their computers. Basically hit Print Screen to capture all the normal icons that are up there. Then go into the file and make that image the background/wallpaper. Now take all their shortcut icons and put them in a folder so that the desktop looks like it normally would but clicking on anything doesn't do shit.

Or you could just make it look like their computer is fucked up.

nuff said.

-I've always been a fan of the rubber band wrapped around the sprayer handle on the kitchen sink.

- A thin but tight layer of saran wrap over the toilet bowl does the trick

- Nothing is more fun than Clippy.. so bring him to the party non stop!

- Super glue a couple of quarters to the ground and see who will sit there trying to pull them up.

- You can be one of the millions of people to use Facebook and pretend to Break up/ Get Engaged / Married on April 1st.... Then again, you could be the only person NOT to do this also.

- If you have a friend who wont kill you for it, post their phone number on craigslist casual encounters. At least you'll be helping a friend get laid.

So there you have it. Some of the internet and my personal favorites. Try not to be a complete amateur about it. If you don't think your joke will be funny.. chances are.. well fuck it. More than likely your prank will NOT be funny and you're still going to do it regardless of what I say. Maybe you could be clever about it.