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April Fools Day is Cancelled this Year.

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Sorry folks, there's nothing funny to see here (unless you want to get painfully, recursively meta about it.)

22 Comments

1:

It's not cancelled- we're just celebrating April Fool's Day (observed) on 4/6.

2:

As long as Cheese Weasel Day is proceeding as normal, it's all good.

3:

Charlie, you win April 1 so far as I'm concerned. Almost all April Fools jokes require the reader to remember it's April 1 (or forget, and become the butt of the joke). You came up with an April Fools joke that explicitly includes "April Fools Day", and it still works.

4:

It follows that the following are both completely for real:

Mary Robinette Kowal says she's been running Scalzi's blog in his name for the past month (including the "reader questions" week):

http://www.maryrobinettekowal.com/journal/ive-john-scalzi-past-month-didnt-notice/

Subversion source control project switches its own development repository to git:

https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/INFRA-7524

5:

Just as well. I've been depressed all day with the news from NPR that America doesn't read anymore.. And they posted it on Facebook, even. So sad, the decay of our once proud civilization.

6:

April Fool! (Go follow that link now -- you'll feel better :)

7:

I call it "bloody stupid idiot day" for a reason.

I find days like this (and Halloween "trick or treat" in America) to be in the same spectrum as "enforced fun" events at work; they make me run, screaming, for the hills.

9:

The last six months of Australian government policy has been an ongoing April Fool's Day prank. I hope.

10:

Charlie never uses the name in deference to the international audience, but I normally call it "Huntegowk" (Hunt the Fool).

Oh and I never participate in "Demanding Money with Menaces" day either.

11:

Most April Fool gags I don't notice (well, most I never see), as there is plenty of bizarre stuff reported all the other days. Even the report about some German being well placed to assume the throne of Scotland didn't register as fake - I mean, it is plausible enough in principle, as dynastic disputes, usurpations, illegitimacy and depositions and so on mean any number of people could have a "real" right to the throne. Tony Robinson, in a non-April Fool documentary ten years ago, discovered that the "real" monarch of the UK was then an Australian called Michael Abney-Hastings (and now it's his son Simon), based on the notion that Edward IV (b. 1442) was illegitimate and so should never have been king.

However, this year (and with a publishing angle) I did like the Penguin Now! story: to enhance the energy and excitement of reading for younger people used to smartphones and Netflix, certain Penguin Classics would be re-punctuated with exclamation marks instead of full stops, reminding the reader "of the urgency of the story at the end of every sentence".

Some examples:

The Stranger, Albert Camus "Mother died today! Or yesterday, I don't know!"

Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky "Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart! The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on earth!"

with the extra news -

"The Penguin Now! list is also set to be supplemented by a range of corresponding audiobooks, read by Brian Blessed."

13:

The double-whammy is that the No Campaign actually said this would happen in event of independence. Facepalm.

14:

Sometimes, April Fool's jokes are too subtle to be amusing. Yesterday, I ended up watching a news report from an unfamiliar network claiming that it was 80 degrees F in Ohio, and that a student at a Massachusetts high school had been non-fatally stabbed in the buttocks by three non-students while leaving school grounds. The former is not entirely unreasonable (stranger things have happened this year, weather-wise), and the latter is probably more common than we recognize (on account of the fact that, normally, the news reports would not mention where the student was stabbed). I don't know if either were legitimate.

15:

Heh. Reminds me of a promise of the Rhinoceros Party of Canada, a satirical party that ran candidates in Federal Elections between 1963-93:

"Adopting the British system of driving on the left; this was to be gradually phased in over five years with large trucks and tractors first, then buses, eventually including small cars, and bicycles and wheelchairs last."

Of course, they made their promises in the longer festival of fools that is an election campaign.

16:

Reviewing the Rhinoceros Party Platform, I see several proposals that seem like fine and reasonable political stances. (At least as many as I find in a lot of Libertarian screeds.) Encouraging higher education by building taller schools is no sillier than most campaign promises, the one about banning winter should be popular with many voters, and the proposal to count the Thousand Islands to see if the Americans have stolen any would provide needed jobs - and when was the last time someone checked, anyway?

17:

While I'm waiting for the next Merchant Princes book, I'm just looking forward to seeing what you have to say about Errol Morris' documentary about Rumsfeld.

18:

I first thought the report that GLONASS had failed was an April Fools. However, it appears it really did, albeit temporarily - http://gpsworld.com/glonass-gone-then-back/

19:

Not seen it. (And by the time the new trilogy is set, Rummy will pretty obviously be dead -- he'd be around 90, with the added physiological stress of spending time as POTUS, which tends to age men ...)

20:

And there goes Cameron, dropping one veil on his gameplan for six months time :

http://www.scotsman.com/news/uk/call-for-2015-general-election-clarity-after-yes-1-3362897

At what point do you think the realisation will hit that the only person who can't lose out of this is Cameron? And, indeed, that the best the scots can hope for is not to lose out too badly?

If it weren't for the fact he's a snivelling little ...... you could almost admire his strategic game play.

21:

Other holidays, dates of observance not easily findable:

National Gorilla Suit Day (Mad Magazine) National Nude Day (www.literotica.com)

22:

National Gorilla Suit Day was celebrated by Mark Evanier's website (www.newsfromme.com) until 2007 when Don Martin's widow politely asked him not to.

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This page contains a single entry by Charlie Stross published on April 1, 2014 12:43 PM.

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