April Fool

today seems like the king high holiday for unfunny people to try to prove how unfunny they are, usually ending with the sentence, "APRIL FOOL'S! HUR HUR HUR HURrrrrrr!"

(I was about 12)

When I was a kid, I did the switching-the-salt-and-sugar thing a lot.

We made a pizza. Underneath the tomato sauce layer we put a layer of marmalade. We also made a green salad. At the bottom of the bowl we put a slug.

I swear to god I have never seen my dad so angry. He thought the slug was fake at first but his face when he realised it was real... yikes. He didn't speak to me for the rest of the holiday. Until then I thought only children could sulk.

So... best or worst? Well it seemed like a great idea at the time. I suppose I'd be pretty angry now too if my kids served me up inedible, possibly hazardous food.

I think my trick on the kids today might be kind of cruel. At the beginning of each class I've been announcing that this is my last week as their teacher. I tell them I'm going to be a police officer and that starting next week Ms. Ch0ice (a despised lady down the hall) will be their new teacher.

A little girl this period was so upset she ripped up her paper and nearly started to cry before I could tell them 'April Fool's'. I can't believe they keep buying it.

Um... why would you want to do that? (Anyway, it's no longer April 1 anywhere in the contiguous U.S.)

It's surprising how innocuous a slug can seem to an 11 year old. (Even though I do suspect you of having completely made that fact up Pete.)

Why is TiSP in beta?
When things go wrong with TiSP, they go very, very wrong. Let's leave it at that.

"It's paper, plain and easy. I sometimes find myself wondering: what will Google think of next? Cardboard?"

Bill K., Armchair Futurist

Here's The Guardian's effort.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/apr/01/guardian-twitter-media-technology

Not seen any others.

http://torrentfreak.com/warner-bros-acquires-the-pirate-bay-090401/

http://mail.google.com/mail/help/autopilot/index.html

The Guardian one is too obvious but I did laugh.
Currently, 17.8% of all Twitter traffic in the United Kingdom consists of status updates from Stephen Fry...A further 11% is made up of his 363,000 followers replying "@stephenfry LOL!"

Daily Mail - even more obvious than the Guardian one...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1166245/Oh-Jacqui-surely-you.html

Some people I know created a message that you send to people via Facebook that is, ostensibly, a heartfelt "Im writing to tell you I care about you on your e-mail at 2 am - take my heart but please don't break it = ah here goes nothing" e-love declaration. It quotes the book "The Prophet," but quickly reveals itself as an April Fools joke (the poem ends with the Fresh Prince of Bel Air theme songs quotes).

The replies they got from it last year were v. funny and I sent a few out myself tonight, though I'm now I'm getting a case of the not-funny-she'll-be-alienated blues.

On another note, a friend told me copies of X-Men: Origins were floating around torrent sites tonight (this is over a month before the film arrives in theaters). You'd think it was an obvious joke but others are confirming its validity. So I guess the biggest fool of all this year might be 20th Century Fox.

Adult Swim is showing The Room, which is less funny than it is cruel.

1. Twitter switch for Guardian, after 188 years of ink

2. Premier League: Alan Shearer appointed Newcastle manager until end of season

http://www.iwantoneofthose.com/new-arrivals/the-memory-stick/index.html

The Guardian one is too obvious but I did laugh

Yeh, I wanted to hate this, but it is quite neatly done: JFK assassin8d @ Dallas, def. heard second gunshot from grassy knoll WTF?

R4 Today presenters wearily reading some of them out this morning ... I don't like starting my day shouting FUCK OFF, FUCK OFF, FUCK OFF from under the bedclothes, but there you go.

(Actually: that's an increasingly common occurrence with Today, sadly. The fucking smugness ...)

http://www.sophos.com/pressoffice/news/articles/2009/04/shatner.html

A Reading-based IT company is warning people using the web to beware – typing the word ‘google’ into the Google search engine this morning will “break the internet”.

ho hum.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7964880.stm

This is a few days too early to be an April Fool's joke.

Night of the Recluse Authors: 3/10.

My mum had to reassure her neighbour that the story on the back of the local paper about the town council paving over the brook that runs through the town centre for health & safety reasons to stop people falling in was an April Fool.

xpost to Tuomas..

and the BBC has a 'religious correspondant' to explain what the Archbsh said in perfectly clear language already!

http://www.thisistruck.com/

Describing Dave Mustaine as 'enigmatic' = not really in it to win it

I have no idea what size of a festival "Truck Festival" is, so I could've easily believed Megadeth will perform there.

They play on the back of a Truck, isn't it?

xpost Then why would you have been on their website?

I told my mom that someone at school died. She believed it and was crying and was about to call people on the phone about it. Then I confessed that I made it up. I still think it was funny.

http://www.nin.com/strobelight/

http://goal.com/en-us/news/66/united-states/2009/04/01/1186244/riquelme-petitioning-to-join-us-mens-national-team

http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/

http://improveverywhere.com/2009/04/01/best-funeral-ever/

Has there been an April Fool's Day horror movie, yet?

xp to StanM I want to hear this:

even closer (featuring justin timberlake and maynard james keenan)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/9/98/Aprilfoolsday_poster.jpg/392px-Aprilfoolsday_poster.jpg

It's no Thanksgiving, though.

http://bjork.com/news/?id=899;year=2009#news

x-post Oh man, I really wish they'd make a full-length Thanksgiving.

I wanted to believe

This probably doesn't count because I can't link to it but today I left work at 3, called my buddy (who I work with, who has in the past been my replacement or whatever) at 3:15 all like "wtf where are you man, I'm ready to get out of here where are you?" and he totally went in to work...AAAand I didn't tell anyone there what I was doing so they were all "ha Stu u r stupid".

okay, "gmail autopilot" is not bad.

http://blogtown.portlandmercury.com/BlogtownPDX/archives/2009/04/01/i-demand-a-tauntaun-sleeping-bag

http://img511.imageshack.us/img511/5079/tauntaunsleepingbag.jpg

This high-quality sleeping bag looks just like a Tauntaun, complete with saddle, internal intestines and glowing lightsaber zipper pull. Now when your kids tell you their favorite Star Wars movie is Attack of the Clones you can nestle the wee-ones snug in simulated Tauntaun fur while regaling them with the amazing tale of Empire Strikes Back.

http://www.google.com/intl/en_us/landing/cadie/tech.html

Part of the autopilot gag, contains jokes about Descartes, ELIZA, Turing tests

And here we go again:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/apr/01/labour-gordon-brown-hard-man

'Olaf Priol' - not even trying tbh

Posted upthread, from last year & still brilliant: http://www.nin.com/strobelight/

See the full Labour campaign at guardian.co.uk

lol at this tho

'Olaf Priol' - not even trying tbh

― j0rdslovesomedude (acoleuthic), Thursday, 1 April 2010 01:29 (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

they used the same byline for 2006's one about coldplay and david cameron: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2006/apr/01/mainsection.topstories2

there's more pressure to make it obviously an april fool if you're using real people: so leave the celebs out of it. april fools are shit if you don't fool anyone. prefer holidays in san seriffe, lying under the spaghetti trees.

Death imminent for Saudi 'Sorcerer'.

Would like to think this is one, but genuinely not sure as:

1. very unBBC to joke about Saudi religious police.
2. Follows usual feeble template of questioning guy's confession on procedural grounds, rather than lunacy.
3. Not amusing.

I just got taken in by Today show telling me how Shakespeare was French - it wasn't till I saw this thread that I realised what happened. What made it all extra convincing was the A++ trolling from a pretend French MP.

the guardian has been liveblogging april fools day:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/blog/2010/mar/31/april-fool-round-up-hoaxes

Saudi barbarism/insanity appears not to be a hoax, unfortunately xp - other outlets are also running it with 31 March date, and there is a fair amount of backstory on the poor guy

yeah, the shakespeare one's classy. the guardian's isn't at all subtle, but still funny.

Aussie version of the spaghetti hoax:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fACJ22ixzhg&feature=player_embedded#

http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2549

i told axl rose that because of copyright problems. Chinese Democracy was now out of print

I think I might be on the same train as mr. Wittmore from L O S T. Someone could be April foolin' me but more deets soon.

last year I convinced a co-worker that a project we had worked 4 months on already was temporarily on hold. I called it off earlier than I wanted to as they believed it and I was afraid they would actually cease work on the project.

alarmingly a few people I know have posted the Guardian's on to Facebook without realising. Someone else I know also posted a story from Mixmag about Felix Da Housecat beating up Deadmau5 in front of 12,000 clubbers, although given the stories about Deadmau5 that might not be a prank

Felix da Housecat, best know for spearheading the electroclash movement, did not react well to being hit by a full can of the premium strength lager and pounced on Deadmau5

yeah, pretty sure that's real

This morning there was an email round saying that this week only the staff newsletter would be online-only and not on paper, so I looked at the pdf ready for some lols before a real paper edition arrived

first article was about a project being completed ahead of schedule, so I smirked gently, a-ha ha riiight

but after reading 4 pages of very dull articles including an obituary, I realised it was not, in fact, a comedy fake newsletter, and there really was some kind of printing issue this week. no lols for me :(

http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/04/science-nature-team-up-on-new-jo.html

Science and Nature have ended their historic battle for the world’s best basic science articles, agreeing to cease their respective publications and co-launch an open-access, online-only journal with an innovative democratic peer-review system, sources at both journals revealed this morning.

http://bbcmusic.x10hosting.com/1/hi/entertainment/music/8597138.htm

that one's a pretty off!

that one's pretty off, I mean

Wait is this real? I really don't know any more:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8598472.stm

I'm hardly one to talk, but that Manics one is in very poor taste.

Not that poor taste in necessarily a bad thing, but it's not something that the BBC should be indulging in imo.

The BBC news dept I mean.

Check the URL.

ah

it's also a pretty weak prank, they don't really commit to the idea of him being alive past the second paragraph, after that it's just a recap of band history

My favorite of 2010 thus far (warning, comic geek lols):

http://www.comicsalliance.com/2010/04/01/top-shelf-announces-league-of-extraordinary-gentlemen-1988/

lol

This one's endless:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/herocomplex/2010/04/florida-writer-brad-meltzer-banned-from-bookstores-censured-by-peers-.html

“Dear Brad, I'll never forget what a joy it was to meet you at the White House Breakfast. I was just sad that it had to end so soon. Honestly, in retrospect, letting the Secret Service know you'd made it into the building and within shooting distance of the president, again, might have been a mistake. I should have waited until you'd finished your coffee.” - Neil Gaiman

At this Wal-Mart there's this big wall of celebrity photos taken from the Wal-Mart semi-annual corporate event, or whatever. Miley Cyrus and her dad, a few other people. Well my friend took a photo of OJ Simpson and photoshopped it appropriately, then he placed the photo of OJ on the wall with the others.

So right now there's a big photo of OJ Simpson, smiley face on his jacket and all, in between Miley Cyrus and Huey Lewis, at yr local wal-mart.

We'll see how long it stays up.

http://www.thinkgeek.com/index.shtml

Check the URL.

Gah! Can't believe I missed that...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/by-royal-appointment/2011/apr/01/royal-wedding-live-updates

A bit obvious but quite amusing.
(I presume it's a joke but with the Guardian these days who knows)

"This is seen as crucial for the president's hopes of re-election in 2012," comments the Paris-based political analyst Avril de Poisson

My boss just emailed me to go "That piece of work you did yesterday, you did it wrong, please investigate." So I stressed and ran around for five minutes before I got an email going "April Fool!". That's gotta be borderline mean.

Ohh that is mean! I hope he heaps praise on your work all day!

I ran a piece in the newspaper today (tradition) about the municipality having taken air photos and they've detected a lot of illegally built sheds, outhouses etc. People can check out the photos at City Hall this morning to explain themselves, before the municipality undertakes action. CH and the mayor are in on it, they put together a nice binder full of air photos of the area. Knowing there actually are illegally built buildings some people are shitting themselves and went to CH this morning... "oh I just came to have a look"... Plus a competing newspaper fell for it and copied the article, so it's turning out to be a pretty awesome April Fool's day for me!

http://www.thisishullandeastriding.co.uk/news/Scientists-wind-council/article-3397434-detail/article.html

what city is that, Le Bateau Ivre?

It's in a rural area the north of the Netherlands, so probably some distance from where you are :-)

IN the north of

Google the word 'helvetica'

dunno if that guardian one is an april fool's. they've clowned themselves rly.

Comic Sans for Everyone

;_;

http://www.thinkgeek.com/interests/looflirpa/e8bb/

(plus all the other products at the bottom, about 10 of them)

[http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/international/portugal-sells-ronaldo-to-spain-in-8364160m-deal-on-national-debt-2258903.html]Was taken in for a second[/url]

Control gmail with your body. Oh... Google

http://mail.google.com/mail/help/motion.html

http://www.factmag.com/2011/04/01/burial-announces-third-album-home-counties/

Tracklist:
Stolen Dog
Mothercare
Home Counties feat. Thom Yorke
NYC
Down The Kennel
Street Halo
Wimpy’s Carpark
Lampost
DLR feat. Spaceape
Knackered

I'm not very familiar with Burial, so I don't even get how exactly is the article supposed to be funny?

i was hoping radiohead on jackmaster's fabric mix was the april fool :(((

the google helvetica one is good though not sure if it's an april fool as such, more like ricktroll for font nerds

well tuomas that's because you're not familiar with burial isn't it. anyone actually checking fact magazine will be. if you're not it doesn't matter! never mind about it!

lol tuomas

I dunno, those song titles are a bit funny without the knowledge..

The Helvetica one is a bit unclear to me too... The font Google changes to doesn't even look like Helvetica, as far as I can see.

"i can't even read mandarin so i don't get how i'm supposed to understand this article"

alright tuomas, enough

let us enjoy april fool's day

(x-post)

Well, I don't see anything particularly funny about the song titles, they sound like something an UK electronic album could actually have.

See this album, for example:

http://www.discogs.com/Si-Begg-Commuter-World/release/42750

Oh Tuomaspaws :-/

Rebecca Black - "Paranoid Android"

idgi

tuomas just STOP

http://www.dcrblogs.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/hammer-time.jpg

Rob Brydon just did the Ken Bruce show as Ken Bruce with Peter Serewassisface guest starring as Wogan.

This one had me going for a minute: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/apr/01/derek-dougan-psychedelic?CMP=twt_gu

I hope to god this is a gag: http://www.johnsonbanks.co.uk/thoughtfortheweek/index.php?thoughtid=652

The name of the author of the Derek Dougan story gives it away immediately

i liked this one: http://www.bbc.co.uk.horsemind.com/news/education-1535/

Beta-Lactam Ring Records announces new ICP release + ltd. ed. box set

http://www.blrrecords.com/shop.php?art=Insane+Clown+Posse

Excellent: http://www.blrrecords.com/img/wire.jpg

http://www.blrrecords.com/img/wire.jpg

xp!

Audio samples are A+ too!

totally believable :/

a real Wire cover would have coverline with a droll wordplay in it

Like

INSANE CLOWN POSSE
Miracle Whip

And the whole thing was clearly concocted by someone who's entire knowledge of ICP is gleaned from the Miracles video

3 In Flagrante Delicious

^lolled

I don't rly follow this label but seem to recall they did a good one last year too?

so i have this coworker who i've been meaning to post about on the annoying coworker thread...

she basically does no work. spends *literally* most of her days surfing facebook. that or blogger. does the minimum amount of work possible and does shitty work at that (sometimes i think intentionally).

anyways - IT this morning, as a joke, redirected facebook to a fake page that says it has been shut down by a US court. she panicked for about an hour. called IT several times. sent out an all-staff about it (with IT's phony explanation attached) and has now been missing for an hour! this is hilarious.

(she cannot be fired soon enough, btw)

LOL

impressive

she's back and has been umbrella shopping online for the last 30 minutes.

I don't Facebook at work, the last thing I want to see when I'm at work are my family's faces.

she also updates her blogger every hour. how often a person can post variants on "still slacking off lol", i have no idea.

isnt that like a legit reason to fire someone imo?

also, ppl who are like HOW DARE YOU MY BLOG/TWITTER/FACEBOOK UPDATES IS MY PRIVATE THOUGHTS THIS CANNOT COME INTO THE WORKPLACE are the most disgusting savages in the world imo

Whiney so beyond OTM. I'm straight lolling at that girl though. Someone told popcorn girl in my office this morning that the partners were going to remove the microwave from the office due to "staff complaints" and I swear I thought she was going to cry.

HA HA hahah ahhahaha

and to the FB thing: a recent court ruling decided that, while the contents of said web surfing is private, the actual stats of said surfing (what time spend on what pages) are not protected.

Bit too easy imo:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/apr/01/cameron-shaun-ryder-advise-tories

if you have the adblock extension it shows you pictures of cats today.

I hate AFD but i hate the "when posting AFD jokes steer clear of these" cos it presupposes the other AFD jokes aren't either stupid or also hurtful

https://www.facebook.com/hugh.aylward.9/videos/756327181053549/

Today is actully April 2...

No just joshing, it is April Fools, I April Fooled you, you should of see your face

The rise of April Fools scolds on social media is really depressing. "No jokes because the world is on fire! Some of us are traumatized and don't find these jokes funny!" Oh ok maybe log off for a bit

don't you know this is the April Fool Scold Thread? do better.

Fuck AFD

https://www.reddit.com/r/LiverpoolFC/comments/1s931zb/arne_slot_signs_contract_extension_with_liverpool/

Thought this was quite well done, the time difference masked the bit for Amerikkkans.

Corporate April Fools media (even from relatively small hobby gear brands) can go die in a fire though.

i would never scold or tell people they shouldn't enjoy a joke/prank, but for my part i just don't have much of an appetite for it when we are indeed living in a sick, almost completely unbelievable joke that just gets worse every day

I guess it really depends on who is being pranked

My capacity for compassion and my fundamental belief in the goodness of humanity are being pranked by my unrevealed but deeply held pessimism

I wrote an article about an April fool I desperately wanted to believe was real.

https://thedriven.io/2026/04/02/april-fool-why-paying-cyclists-isnt-such-a-joke/

I wrote an article about an April fool I desperately wanted to believe was real.

https://thedriven.io/2026/04/02/april-fool-why-paying-cyclists-isnt-such-a-joke/