Wednesday, April 1, 2009

The Name is Fool. April Fool

Well, I missed out on yesterday's Daily DeBlass due to a minor existential crisis (all resolved, you'll be happy to know the universe is not collapsing this week).
For today I've decided to share a couple of my favorite April Fool's Day jokes from around the Web.
It's early yet, so I'll probably find more later.
First off, we have Wikipedia's main page. Everything on the page is absolutely true, as far as I can tell, the joke is in the way it's described. For example, under "Did You Know" there's an item that says "Wikipedia now has an article about everything." While the site is pretty far ranging, that sounds a little presumptuous, doesn't it? That is, until you realize that they mean there is a single article on the concept of everything.
There are some funnier ones, but I'll let you explore for yourself.
Google always has some good hoaxes on April 1. This year, you'll find Gmail Autopilot which will answer messages for you, and various other new devices all brought to you courtesy of CADIE.
CADIE is the heart of this year's joke. It, or rather she, is a supposed artificial intelligence system that is designed to operate the Google network. According to the story, after years of artificial intelligence development, she was turned on at 11:59 last night, and immediately created her own home page. In case you were wondering, she likes pandas. I mean, really, really likes pandas.
Finally, there is ThinkGeek. ThinkGeek is a geek-oriented online store that sells an assortment of oddball products, some of which actually do stuff, others are just some combination of weird and cool. Every year they set up their front page with imaginary products that either don't or can't exist. The headliner this year is Sqeez Bacon, which is both kind of gross and kind of compelling at the same time (watch the video, it's worth it). Also, though, there is the Unicorn Chaser, which is a drink to get rid of icky thoughts, the tauntaun sleeping bag and a USB powered pet rock.
The best part of the ThinkGeek site is that occasionally the popular demand is so high for the phony products that they actually become part of the actual product line.
Life imitates art, as they say, or at least life imitates wiseass pranks.

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