"Lock the doors and close the blinds -- we're going for a ride..."

I've failed you all, and I apologize.

I thought of a great April Fools joke to play, but apparently it was far too subtle, and thus nobody figured out that s/he was being duped.

(Except for Kate, after some hinting...)

What am I talking about? Click here for a link to the "article" I posted this morning about Howard Stern being banned in a Nevada County -- and how listeners were subject to fifty dollar fines.

Read it yet? Good. Now scroll down to the very end, where there are links to other stories.

Viola. April Fools, everyone.

You see, I was really hoping that someone would feel that the story was implausible in a way, and would discover the punchline. I mean, come on! Imposing a fine on people listening to Howard Stern?

Sadly, it appears that the story was credible enough to be taken as true. Which meant nobody took a close look to see if I was full of it. A sad commentary on the state of our country nowadays...

So, in any case, I apologize for not providing such an effective prank for you all. But hey -- there's always next year, right?

(One final thought - I was flattered that this was rated as a "very real" blog by my fellow MindSayers. I haven't had a "very real" before...)

Speaking of Howard Stern -- he played a good joke this morning after all: when the show began at 6am EST, an announcement was made that Howard was taken off the air and replaced by a squeaky-clean morning duo. It was very well executed, and went on for about 80 minutes before Howard came back on.

At work, the pranks were the usual ones that you get with computer geeks like us. The less technical of us started to steal mouse balls when someone's back was turned. And the more intellectual losers among us would take the opportunity to quickly "xhost" our victims' workstations, and then start running wacky programs taking control of the machine. I know. Many of us need a life, and quick.

Oh - and Avi went in for his 15 month check-up today, and we discovered that he has an ear-infection. Wish that was an April Fools joke, but it's the truth. Luckilly he's been a good sport about it so far.

And while I still have a few minutes left -- happy birthday to all you April first-ers!

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That being said -- I'm off for a couple of days. We're going up to Connecticut to visit my grandfather, down to NYC to visit friends, and then over to Hoboken, NJ to stay with my brother and his family for the Passover seders. We'll be driving back on Wednesday. And I'll have lots of your blogs to catch up on!

For those of you who share in my tradition -- Happy Passover! !חג שמח

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