Update: This was part of an April Fool’s Day joke. I did this post so that people might believe my other jokes on April Fool’s.
I’ve decided to skip April Fool’s Day this year, and I’ll tell you why: I’m April Fools’ed out. I’ve done a bunch of April Fools jokes in the past, and this year I’m just too tired to do it. Plus I’m worried that if I escalate the jokes much further, things will get out of control. There was the time that we converted our VP of Engineering’s office into a beach, complete with hundreds of pounds of sand. Do you know how hard it is to clean out 200 pounds of sand out of a carpet? Then one April Fool’s I switched Eric Schmidt’s picture on Google’s intranet to be the fictional billionaire from NewsRadio:
I’m still a little nervous that Eric will figure out it that I was the person that switched the photos.
Two years ago I pretended that I was switching jobs with Jeremy Zawodny at Yahoo. Of course, a helpful co-worker emailed HR as if I were really leaving. It took me six weeks to undo my “resignation” and straighten out all the paperwork.
Last year was the final straw. I pretended that my blog got hacked:
Although the hack was a complete joke, a group of script kiddies actually did attack my blog soon afterwards. My blog got hacked for real twice in the following months. Luckily I keep good backups, so it didn’t cause very much harm.
So call me a party pooper if you want, but I’m sitting out this year. I haven’t decided whether I’ll do any posts tomorrow, but if I do they’ll be real. For example, this year I set a goal for myself to try to do something totally new and out of character for me each month. My new thing for March was to get a tattoo, which I got this past weekend. Maybe I’ll post pictures of the tattoo and people will think that it’s a joke.
{ 33 comments… read them below or add one }
The joke is that there is no joke, then?
Ummmmmmm … now wouldn’t it be quite clever of Matt to do this post on March 31st … and then on the following day, April 1st, he’ll post something outrageous (but not so outrageous as to be unbelievable) that would get everyone talking … and then on April 2nd, say April Fool’s … now *that* would be well done!
(Semi) Seriously, any “real surprises” coming from Google?
I remember Gmail being announced on April 1st with a GByte of storage and everyone was like “no way – this has gotta be a joke”
I already knew you were skipping an April fools joke. Know how? I used Google’s new Machine Automated Temporal Extrapolation (MATE) technology to know what you’re going to post, the day before you post it.
You guys have created some awesome stuff!
http://www.google.com.au/intl/en/gday/
Perfect set up for a real April Fools joke.
Hmmm, Matt got a tattoo of what??
Daffodil maybe? LOLcat? just the words Spam Killah? Who knows…..
I’m telling Eric tomorrow.
A tattoo?
They are so totally going to throw you out of the chess club… unless it is a nerdy tattoo. It’s good to see you let down your hair, as long as it doesn’t turn out to be a Google Logo.
Hey, how about a guess what Matt got a tattoo of and where. I am betting on a linux penguin, right arm, above the sleeve line.
OK Matt, you’ve lulled us into false sense of security…………………are we to now expect the unexpected
Tattoo=Porn Cookie Guys?
Is this how an alcoholic claims he is not drunk?
Either way, if you are ‘out of ideas’ ask us, and we’d be happy to help.
I would miss it if you didn’t do an April fools joke Matt. Most of the other April fools stuff on the ‘net is just rubbish. …tempted to turn off my internets for an entire day. (Am I alone in thinking this?)
Am I the only one who is suspecting an April fools in the post? It’s not that difficult to find, is it.
Let’s get to the bottom of this.
Who is responsible for THIS?
http://www.google.com/virgle/index.html
One thing for sure:
Mrs Cutss will never ever allow Matt to get a tattoo
Having discovered Matt’s latest posting in my RSS feeder and read the intriguing taster, I thought the April Fool was on me when I clicked to open my browser, which then announced “Unable to connect to database”.
However, a second attempt was successful!
You got me last year with the Hacked blog! I was wondering how far these jokes were going to go when I read about a fake concert in NZ that made a lot of people angry.
April fools jokes are good in moderation
Here’s the only Tattoo you will ever need: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herv%C3%A9_Villechaize
This day is frustrating indeed. I never believe any news posted today, because you never know which are true and which aren’t. Plus, I blame Google for playing along and encouraging others to do so (this year it’s the Virgle prank, the gmail “back to future” emails, the youtube rick rolld video redirects, the google docs folding airplane and who knows what else. Next thing you know Microsoft and Yahoo will start doing pranks.
Matt
HAPPY BIRTH DAY -
in 1st April
Deb
This time he made every one fool =] check this http://www.google.com/virgle/index.html this is no one .. instead of matt
Good job replacing Eric Schmidt’s photo but I would have suggested using one of Mark McKinney from, “The Kids in the Hall”. Brother from another mother – http://www.imdb.com/media/rm1527290368/nm0571897
Hi Matt,
Here is a lot of fish from the sky of Google Earth : http://www.geo-trotter.com/actualites/article.php?id=1036
What’s your favorite ?
Stephane.
I just wanted to thank you for sitting it out this year. At 10 PM last night I was already sick of all the fake news. By the time I walked in this morning to have my boss tell me that “Google is switching to a full PPC model for all results” I was simply dead inside. Humbug, I say.
Awww….definitely next year then!
Something does not sound right here. A tattoo? No Joke? 200 lbs of sand????
Hey script kiddies…
Hey Matt, some funny jokes you have done in the past. I’m still awaiting for a new blog post to see if this is actually the truth as many other commenter’s have their doubts. I would of loved to see the beach in person haha.
how about next year?
This got me.
Los Angeles, California, March 31, 2008 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
As many of you may know, the SCALE chairs have been organizing SCALE for
6 years now. We are delighted with how the show has grown and have enjoyed the countless hours that have gone into the planning and execution of the event. That effort has resulted in SCALE becoming the premier grassroots Open Source software show.
However some things are more important than doing something because it’s what you believe in. We have always wanted the very best for the open source community through SCALE, but more importantly we’ve wanted more for the SCALE Chairs.
So we commenced negotiations with IDG several months ago. We feel as though IDG will bring something to SCALE that has been lacking. Namely, money to us, the organizers.
We’ve now completed negotiations with IDG, and are proud to announce that we’ve agreed to have IDG purchase the Linux Expo of Southern California, and its showpiece event, the Southern California Linux Expo.
The contract has been signed; IDG now owns SCALE. While we hope to be able to influence the direction of SCALE, discussions with IDG indicate that it will probably be rolled quickly into Linuxworld.
After extensive discussions with the Linux Expo attorneys, we’ve also included a clause in the contract to ensure that it expires at 23:59 p.m, on April 1st, 2008.
Gareth Greenaway, SCALE Community Relations Chair Orv Beach, SCALE Publicity Chair _______________________________________________
Scale-announce mailing list
Scale-announce@mail.socallinuxexpo.org
http://mail.socallinuxexpo.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/scale-announce
Deb,
“Matt
HAPPY BIRTH DAY -
in 1st April”
Too early
Me too… skipping.
Matt,
Next time you want to turn somebody’s office into a beach here is a trick used in retail display and trade shows:
1. lay down garbage bags (flat & overlapping)
2. shape the edges with decorative rocks
3. lay down the beach
4. trim any garbage bags sticking out with a scissors
No sand in the carpet.
Jeremy Zawodny, you’ve got a good reason to skip with that broken finger you’ve got. Unless.. wait a minute.. did you fake-break your finger days ago in order to prepare for the ultimate April Fool’s Day prank?
Tom Schmitz, I fibbed a little bit in a post. We did turn someone’s office into a beach, but we put down a tarp first so that it would be easier to clean up the sand later. Glad to hear from another office-filling expert though.
“fake-break your finger days ago”…
That made me laugh out loud! If I had been drinking something, my keyboard would have needed a serious cleaning.