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Bah, Hum-April-Fool-Bug!

I have kind of a Scrooge-ish attitude to April Fool’s Day, except that not getting the spirit of AFD is more socially acceptable than not getting the spirit of Christmas. I always get a little P.O.’d when I look at a website or message board, and someone does a post that gets your hopes up, only to crush them. For example, DVD Beaver posted that it was going to release special Blu-Ray editions of great old movies that were in the public domain (and therefore could be released by anyone). If you then read closely enough, you’d see that it was an AFD joke, but it got a few movie fans raising their hopes anyway, because for an AFD joke to work, it has to be just plausible enough so someone could think it was true.

I prefer AFD jokes that give you bad news, so that when it turns out to be a joke, you’re relieved rather than disappointed. I don’t even think anyone’s particularly disappointed that Naked News isn’t going mainstream.

Of course, people who aren’t all bah-humbug about AFD will point out that you shouldn’t get your hopes up about suspiciously good news that’s delivered on April 1. And that’s true. But some of us just can’t resist hoping, even when we’re warned in advance.

Peanuts

Peanuts

Peanuts

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