- Secretly become pregnant and wear large clothing for several months or simply disappear to a writer’s retreat. On April 1, arrive home and immediately give birth.
- Work for a bank until you are trusted enough to handle the money that goes into stocking an ATM. Write “There’s an ostrich behind you!” on every bill you stock in the ATM the night before April 1. Also, raise and train an ostrich to trust you and to squawk “April Fools!” When you go to the ATM with your friend, they’ll see the message, scoff at the ridiculousness of it, then turn around and see you riding a talking ostrich.
- Create a fake Twitter account for your friend which, through viral means, becomes insanely popular. Use this as a launching point for registering your friend as a candidate for city council and schedule a speech and rally on April 1 with printouts of his face. Joke about how it’s funny that your friend shares the same name as a famous politician and convince him to go to the rally. When he arrives, just before he gets cheered onto the stage, yell “April Fools!”
- Plant an assortment of flowers in your friend’s front lawn that, when blooming, spell “April Fools!”
- Have identical twins, but raise them in separate environments until they are teenagers. Then, arrange for them go out one night to the same place and to go to adjoining bathrooms at the same time. Install a “fake” mirror between the bathrooms and watch as they try to figure out why their reflection is being all weird.
- Invest in the field of robotics until research has progressed to a stage where you can get a fully functioning robot hand that looks and feels like human skin. Replace your hand with the robot hand and go to shake your friend’s hand. When they shake, send a small shock through your hand, then use the built-in flamethrower to light their pants on fire. Don’t forget to say “April Fools!”
- Become the charismatic leader of a extremist group that wins popular approval and a government position through democratic means. Ascend in power and over time, transform the country into a dystopian fascist state. Arrange to have a friend seized and executed on April 1, but as they put on the blindfold, it says “April Fools!” on the inside of it.
Category: year26 (Page 80 of 92)
I posted an entry each day during my 26th year of life.
There’s been a video game story that’s been hitting the blogs recently, even though the actual story that it’s reporting is about a year old. I first saw this on GamePolitics, and the gist is this: children who play video games before their bones are strong enough end up getting deformed fingers.
The main researcher behind this argument is Mike Tomich, who has an ugly website with pictures of hands where he has superimposed lines to make his point.
I’m not sure whether I buy this or not, but if you delve into the site, you’ll soon see that Mike isn’t just a video game alarmist; he’s actually against children doing most things that put repetitive strain against their bones (e.g. crayons and computers), and is even arguing that adults can deform their bones from “high effort” steering vehicles.
Regardless, this is topical for me because just a few days ago, I had mentioned to Katie while we were watching TV that I had crooked fingers. My hands have never really hurt, I don’t have any kind of repetitive stress injury, and I’ve never had trouble doing dexterous actions (such as juggling or some coin/card manipulation for magic), but check this out:
These are my hands. I’ve didn’t include my thumbs, as they’re pretty normal-looking. I haven’t drawn lines on them either, but look at how crooked they are! As I didn’t play many video games as a young kid – I only really got into them in college and after, with just dabbling in high school and before – I’m not sure what “caused” this, if anything, or if my hands were just born this way.
Still, my left pointer finger clearly veers toward the left, especially at the top knuckle, and there’s a gap between the pinky and ring finger (partially due to my wedding ring). On the right hand, my middle finger leans left and my pointer finger leans right, making them bump into each other while leaving a gap between the middle and ring fingers. These pictures also show that I need to cut my nails, especially on my left hand.
Katie’s finger straightness, on the other hand, is pristine compared to mine. Which got me thinking – are there more people who have crooked fingers like me? How unique are my deformed hands? Or is it more rare to have perfectly straight fingers, like Katie?
If you’re reading this, take a picture of your hands and upload it! Are your fingers straight? Does one lean to the left or right? Could you be a hand model?
I used to think I could be, but it appears that dream may now be dashed.
Today, I read the following headline on my news feed:
Oregon police say man’s sneezing fit caused him to lose control of car, crash into home
This is scary. This is scary because it can happen to any of us. We all sneeze. Most of us drive. By simple statistics, we will sneeze while driving probably at least, like, a thousand times in our life.
It’s just another thing to add onto the list of news stories that inspire fear, not due to the fantastical or ghastly nature of them, but because they could happen to any of us.
Even after you filter out all the stories about things we do everyday like drive, fly, and live in areas with natural disasters, there are still those uncommon stories about the most mundane activities leading to our downfall.
It’s why I always feel unjustifiably nervous when walking by a track and field event. That’s where javelins get thrown into people’s heads. It’s why I always make sure that when using a hair dryer or toaster, there are no pools or puddles of water nearby. That’s how people get electrocuted.
Sure, it doesn’t happen all the time. That’s what makes it scarier! I can deal with the fact that fender benders and muggings and petty theft of unsecured valuables happen.
But once, a guy watching Lost had his house hit by a meteor. I watch LOST. Thus, this could happen to me.
I clearly don’t know how my mind works, but I think it is correct to make these connections. I’m sure it has something to do with how I was good at chess when I was younger.
For reference, here’s the fantasy baseball team I drafted:
- C Mike Napoli
- 1B Joey Votto
- 1B Mike Jacobs (bench)
- 2B Brandon Phillips
- 3B Aramis Ramirez
- 3B Adrian Beltre (bench)
- SS Jimmy Rollins
- OF Bobby Abreu
- OF Matt Holliday
- OF Carlos Quentin
- OF Jermaine Dye
- OF J.D. Drew (bench)
- DH Jim Thome (bench)
- SP Erik Bedard
- SP John Danks
- SP Jeremy Guthrie (bench)
- SP Rich Harden
- SP Derek Lowe
- SP Chris Young
- RP Brian Fuentes
- RP Chris Ray (bench)
- RP Joakim Soria
Today, I dropped Mike Jacobs and picked up Kevin Gregg after the closer decision announcement came out. I also picked up and stashed Troy Glaus in one of my DL slots. I’m shopping J.D. Drew and may look to trade Beltre at some point to try and bone up my pitching (or a better catcher). Overall, I felt that the draft went relatively well, despite my rather weak starting pitchers.
Of course, we won’t actually know how successful my season will be until the real season starts in a week.
I had a dream last night that I had built an Iron Man-like suit and was flying down the hallway of an old apartment my parents and I lived in when I was a kid. It was quite strange.
I played Fallout 3 until about 3 AM last night. That was too late. I haven’t even bought the Pittsburgh expansion yet! I do plan to, though, so that I can stand in a ruined Point State Park and shoot mutants. It was my dream in Pittsburgh, but…the apocalypse never happened. Oh well. Maybe one day.
You know, I never thought I’d have one of those guy friends who’s “that guy.” But now that I think about it, my co-worker Jerome is kind of like “that guy.” And that’s cool with me. Like, the movie I Love You, Man just came out. Looked kind of funny, but would I really see it on opening weekend? If I’m Jerome, the answer is OH YES. That guy. He’s great. He and his scruffy Euro-face.
I don’t think Jerome reads these. I guess we’ll see!
I’ve been playing the recently-released EA DS game Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure, which is a great title and an addictive game, but I’m not sure how much I actually like it. I want to keep playing because I want to see what additional powers I get, but the levels and action get a bit repetitive and dying – although there isn’t a large penalty associated with it – is annoying when it’s because I’ve been suddenly surrounded by enemies. In other words, the difficulty seems a bit manufactured instead of natural.
It’s no Professor Layton, that’s for sure. Here’s some Professor Layton fan art I found on the Internet:
