Tuesday, April 1, 2008

It's Fools Day, But I'm Not Foolin'

Happy April Fool's Day to everyone out there! I'm not sure why people seem to actually wish others to have a happy day on this most irrelevant of days, but who am I to question the norm? Apathy is happiness.

I also wanted to take this time to let you know that this blog will, sadly, not be partaking in any such 'fooling' today. What you see is what you get. Why is that, you ask? Well, let us discuss.

Once upon a time I ran a mildly successful Islanders fan site (not that hard to believe, eh?). There were a good number of regulars to the site, it was nice while it lasted, but all good things must come to an end. ANYWAY... One year for April Fool's I really wanted to mess with some people, have some good fun, you know? Everyone could have a good laugh over it and the like. I spent a good couple of days preparing a new layout for the site and implemented it early in the morning on April 1st. Everything looked exactly the same and by that I mean EXACTLY the same... Slogans, banners, links, little sarcastic copyright text... Everything. One difference, though. Everything that had to do with the Islanders was now changed to it's equivalent across town. Pictures of Alexei Yashin became Jaromir Jagr pictures, slogans about bleeding blue and orange changed to mention something about red and blue (or whatever that crap is). I think you get the idea. I thought it was really well done and that people would probably be quick to catch on to the fact that a site that for years (literally) had been about the Islanders changed to a Rangers website overnight (literally) just in time for April 1st.

Well... Yeah. That was not the case.

Some people got it and enjoyed it and others... Not so much. 24 hours and a whole bunch of hate-emails later the site was changed back and everything continued running like normal. But that was not a fun 24 hours. It's always amazing to see people get consistently fooled on April 1st. Companies always try to think up something funny and, if you have young kids, their peers will probably trick them a dozen times by the time noon rolls around later today. So there's my help for the day -- you've been warned. Hopefully you don't fall for the Taco Liberty Bell shtick again this year.

6 comments:

  1. Maybe Taco Bell can buy the Panthers and make them into a relevant franchise. Happy April Fool's Day to you and the rest of the fools.

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  2. I don't do anything on April Fool's since people are expecting pranks, which takes out all the fun.

    Then again, this year I flirted with the idea of transforming tWWoLD into either and all-emo page or a total "liek OMG is [player name] SOOOO CUTE!" puck bunny page. Then I realized I was too lazy to do it.

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  3. Ah I got Rick Roll'd by youtube, that's the best one so far. Anyone else have some good ones?

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  4. @mr plank: not a prank, but an actual conversation I had today with a group member discussing a presentation we're doing:

    other person: We need to do something that'll make us stand out
    me: let's rickroll 'em
    other person: Whaaa?

    By the way, best Rickroll EVA--anti-Scientology Internet memes people FTW!:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeuEMeg8eQE

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  5. April 1st:

    The Washington Capitals are tied for the Southeast Division lead with Carolina.

    April Fools!...... wait. Oh my God.

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  6. @Domi: That video was awesome... Absolutely made my day!

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