HereÂ’s a piece on ten of the best April Fool's Day hoaxes.

In 1996, American fast-food chain Taco Bell announced that it had bought Philadelphia's Liberty Bell, a historic symbol of American independence, from the federal government and was renaming it the Taco Liberty Bell.

How do you think that went over? Aside from the astounding fact that many, many people believed it, you have to wonder who signed off on that one. Some say there’s no bad publicity, but I envision pickup trucks and molotov cocktails converging on Taco Bell. You can never reckon what you’ll get from the “we’ll teach them a lesson” crowd in suburban America.

In 1998, a newsletter titled New Mexicans for Science and Reason carried an article that the state of Alabama had voted to change the value of pi from 3.14159 to the "Biblical value" of 3.0.

IÂ’m pretty sure that most evangelist types are wholly ignorant of pi, but at the mere mention of the bible I bet a bunch of them jumped on the bandwagon out of faith. Regardless, when I was in school they didnÂ’t even use the decimal form. When I was a kid pi was 22/7. ItÂ’s been brought to my attention that some people (virgin, male comic book readers) can recite upwards of three or four thousand decimals of pi from memory. My initial reaction is to set up a BB gun firing squad for these folks.

And hereÂ’s my favorite:

Noted British astronomer Patrick Moore announced on the radio in 1976 that at 9:47 am, a once-in-a-lifetime astronomical event, in which Pluto would pass behind Jupiter, would cause a gravitational alignment that would reduce the Earth's gravity. Moore told listeners that if they jumped in the air at the exact moment of the planetary alignment, they would experience a floating sensation. Hundreds of people called in to report feeling the sensation.

I simply cannot fathom the idiocy most people. These are the same people that feel better when they wave a magnet over an injury. The same people who send cash to Nigeria. The people that scald their balls with drive-through coffee.

It’s a large pool to draw from. New age hippy types, frequent customers of palm readers, people who look directly into the hose when there’s a kink in it, “Jackass” impersonators, Bermuda triangle aficionados, the “black helicopter” crowd, unemployed poets, urban myth spreaders (excluding the dog & peanut butter story), ad nausium.

On an unrelated note, the only thing that’s ever been up my ass are a doctor’s fingers. I don’t want anything in my ass. If Angelina Jolie was begging me to stick her finger in my ass during sex I would decline adamantly. It’s a personal choice—do whatever you want, just stay away from my ass. Aside from not relishing the feeling of any type of probe, no matter how many times she washed her finger I’d be consumed with watching that finger all night long and keeping it away from me. Who knows, it could put me off for weeks.

And while weÂ’re at it, leave my balls alone too. TheyÂ’re fragile.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 03:20 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 539 words, total size 3 kb.

I had been shanghaied into attending an afternoon “party” at my mother-in-law’s condo, which is populated by exclusively by people older than Moses. My wife laid down the law, that we were stuck there for at least two hours before I could “come down with the flux” or pretend to have a fever, thus extricating myself from the affair. It was rough.

As soon as I walked into the clubhouse I became depressed. Gaudy furniture, wood paneling and the smell of death. As we made our way to an empty table I looked around and took in the scene. These people were fucking old. You know what I mean. Full grown adult women shrunk down to the size of leprechauns, every third person had a walker and scattered about were a few with portable oxygen tanks.

A buffet was being set up that contained “pot luck” dishes made by the attendees. Let me first say that I don’t eat things other people have prepared behind closed doors. I will eat dinner at friend’s houses because I have known most of my friends for twenty years or more. I know their food preparation habits. I lived with some of these people and they’re clean and smart. However, under no circumstances will I eat pot luck food at work or anywhere else. Especially not shit that’s been prepared by these old bags. They looked like they could have voted for Lincoln. I couldn’t even identify some of the shit they cooked and I was sure it contained rubber gloves and morphine patches and cotton balls and who-knows-what-else.

I did drink a glass of “wine” which came from a bottle with a screw on cap; only because it was the only thing I could find to anesthetize myself from the whole affair. And if that wasn’t enough some old bastard was setting up a PA system and trying to fix the reed on a tenor saxophone. I am not making this shit up. Meanwhile I was being introduced to people as fast as they could shuffle by, which wasn’t very. It was 2:00PM and they announced that the food would be served at 3:00. That meant I had to sit there for an hour with the pre-dead. Just then the guy with the saxophone cranked up his karaoke machine and started singing along with it as if that was a fucking acceptable thing to do. And it was bad. Very bad, and very old. I felt a part of me die as belted out “Quando, Quando, Quando.” He couldn’t get with the beat, probably because he was listening to the Angel Gabriel calling him home.

I started to feel light-headed. I had another glass of “wine.” And every once in a while the old guy singing would start blowing into his saxophone and it would cut through my head like a hot knife through butter. And then the food was served.

I was determined not to get up any reason but then my mother-in-law asked me to get her a plate of food. The worst part was I knew that I could not possibly fulfill this request to her exacting specifications. So I got up and walked over and stood in the line. It was peaceful enough for a minute or two but soon the old folks realized they had forgot to push and shove and when they realized their mistake they made up for lost time with gusto. I kept getting jabbed by some guyÂ’s walked, the leprechaun women were moving in under my arms and the whole thing was just too much to weather. Since they couldnÂ’t see they were dropping food all over the floor and meanwhile the old bastard was blowing into his saxophone and I freaked out and went back to the table and pleaded to my wife to please, for the love of God, help me before I became wholly undone.

By the time I got home I went right to the bottle which is where I find myself still, some hours later. Forsaken.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 06:00 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 691 words, total size 4 kb.

Had buffalo meatloaf for dinner tonight and it was pretty damned good.

On an unrelated note, the next time someone at work uses the phrase, “Think outside the box,” I’m going to punch them in the windpipe and no one will be able to stop me. People think they’re so cutting edge with that, when in reality, it’s like fifteen years old.

When I hear that phrase I almost canÂ’t control myself. I will become violent.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 06:27 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
Post contains 80 words, total size 1 kb.