 Why
I Love April Fool's Day
 Posted
Apr-2-2005
Hopefully by now you realize that I didn't
make $17,000 on eBay by auctioning off a reincarnated Jimmy
Durante strawberry (secret: I haven't been an active
participant on eBay since 1998). But with the recent attention
given to a $28,000 Virgin Mary grilled cheese sandwich and
other high-priced novelties like haunted paintings and walking
sticks, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to craft this
April Fool's Day joke.
Everything in the Jimmy
Durante strawberry story was a work of creative
fiction, EXCEPT the strawberry. I did in fact find the uniquely-shaped
fruit mixed in with a quart of other strawberries bought
at the store. The funny thing
is when I picked it up to clean it off, the 'Hotch-cha-cha-cha-cha’ nose
of Jimmy Durante immediately came to mind. Oh, and yes, I
have been watching Warner Bros. Looney Tunes cartoons on
the Boomerang channel.
 It's kinda cool to see how an idea comes to fruition,
eh?
April Fool's Day Fun
Now, this is why I really like April Fool's Day. It's one
day out of the year when humorous shenanigans are sanctioned.
With a background in practical
joking, I love to watch how
the events of the day play out when people are in good humor
and play nice.
What I don't do is mess with other people's stuff — such
as computers and other gadgetry. To me there's a fine
line between light-hearted practical joking and heart attack-inducing
pranks that go too far. There are a ton of software-related
jokes and programs you can download from the Internet to screw
with other people's computers, but I generally veer from those.
With the onslaught of computer viruses, Thiefware, and Spyware,
I'm extremely cautious about what I download from the Net to
install on my or someone else's computer. For that reason the
April
Fool's Resources page on the Creativity Portal doesn't
include computer software pranks.
 Creative Gags
Some of the tried-and-true April Fool's Day jokes are a blast,
but I really do enjoy innovative gags. This was my motivation
in creating the set of printable World's
Hardest Puzzles on this site. The authentic-looking word
search and crossword puzzles are perfect for work or classroom
April Fool's Day fun, and are easily downloaded in a PDF format.
One technology company liked the gag so much that they asked
permission to reprint one puzzle in their company newsletter.
I also enjoy Web sites that get into the spirit of April Fool's
Day fun. I did this one time with Creativity-Portal.com several
years back by transforming the home page
into a site about trees and dubbing it the "Treeativity
Portal".
Since then I've stuck to creating printable
gags instead of spoofing my sites.
More Fool's Fun
Besides my $17,000 Jimmy Durante strawberry story, here's
a few more April Fool's Day gags that played across the Web:
Google Gulp
Google Gulp is a beverage that helps "Quench your
thirst for knowledge." Available
in four great flavors: Glutamate Grape, Sugar-Free Radical, Beta Carroty,
and Sero-Tonic Water.
Discovery
of Water on Mars
NASA's featured Astronomy Picture of the Day.
Information
Does Not Exist
Article from ScienceDirect — Journal of Knowledge
Research.
Bill
Clinton to Join Chicago as Billy Flynn
Article from BroadwayWorld.com.
Fundue — Desktop
USB Fondue Set
New electronic gadget offering from ThinkGeek.
European
toilet paper holder
Informative article from Wikipedia.org. •
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