Stuology

It’s getting a little foolish

Mar 31st, 2008By: Mellystu Comments 6

At first, widespread online April Fool’s jokes were interesting. I’m a little less enthused about it now, but I still hold hope that someone will come up with something creative enough for a good laugh. I will keep my list of favs that I’ve seen so far

• YouTube UK and YouTube Australia is RickRolling^* all their featured videos. Will YouTube US do the same? YouTube US is doing the same thing. This one is full of win.
• Google Australia released GDay^TM. You can now search one day in advance. The part that won me over was the testimonial: “This is old news. I read about this announcement yesterday on Google.”
• Google US says you too can become a Virgle Pioneer.
• ThinkGeek always has fake products. This year: Wii Sports for your iPhone, USB Pregnancy Test Kit, Spazztroids Caffeinated Cereal, Betamax to HD-DVD converter (which wins for the funniest), Defendius Labyrinth Security Lock, and more…
• Gmail has added Custom Time — date your e-mail in the past and mark it as read when you send it!
• NASA APOD: “In a surprising and potentially troubling request, the new space station robot known as Dextre demanded that astronauts refer to it in the future at [sic] ‘Dextre the Magnificent.’ Brandishing power tools that would make any handyperson blush, the mobile servicing system thanked humans for creating it and promised a glorious future where humans would retain an important role in the new robot order. “

GMail Paper got a small giggle playing off my annoyance of people who print all their email, but it was only a small, teeny giggle.

This is not a comprehensive list of April Fool’s jokes. These are interesting ones. I’ll post more amusing ones as I come across them. Just for grins. You can leave some here as long as you don’t link to SlashDot. It is an April Fool’s joke everyday of the year.

*For those not up on the latest Interwebs HAHAHAHALOLROFLWTFBBQ, RickRolling is providing a link to people that really ends up linking to Never Going To Give You Up by Rick Astley. So, I could post a photo of something that most people would want to see–say a boob shot–and when you clicked on it to go to Flickr to see more, you would find yourself on YouTube watching a Rick Astley video. Haha, I just RickRolled you. As a matter of fact, I just told Mac that I was going to RickRoll him all day–responding by singing that Rick Astley song for every question he asks me. His response: “You’re not going to work from home tomorrow, are you?” No, I’m not, but how funny would it be for me to RickRoll my co-workers all day tomorrow^**.

**It is funny–if you’re me.