April Fool’s Day is not an official holiday, but it is celebrated worldwide as the one day of the year during which playful and mischievous behavior is tolerated and even encouraged.  The most important rule of April Fool’s pranks is to do no harm.  Jokes and pranks should not cause physical or emotional hurt to the recipients of those pranks.  Some of my favorite April Fool’s pranks include the following:

In 1957, the BBC News show Panorama featured a story about spaghetti trees that grew in Switzerland.  Video footage showed farmers pulling spaghetti strands off trees.  Following the program, people contacted BBC News to ask where they might purchase spaghetti trees for themselves.  Those who asked how to grow a spaghetti tree were told to put a stick of spaghetti into a can of tomato soup and hope for the best.

An early 1990s news segment on KSDK-TV in St. Louis also featured an unusual April Fool’s crop harvest.  Two of the station’s reporters were filmed picking marshmallows off trees in the Jewel Box (a display greenhouse in Forest Park).  The reporters gently squeezed the marshmallows to check for ripeness.  Miniature marshmallows were left on the trees to grow larger.

In 1997, an email message supposedly originating from the Interconnected Internet Maintenance Staff of MIT, announced that the Internet would be shut down to clean out the accumulated “flotsam and jetsam” of old emails and dead websites.  Readers were told to disconnect all devices from the Internet during the 24 hours between March 31 and April 2.  This was an updated version of the telephone-cleaning April Fool’s joke that warned users to cover the ends of their telephone receivers with plastic bags to catch dust that might be blown out during the April 1 cleaning.

In 1998, Burger King introduced the “Left-Handed Whopper,” specially designed for left-handed customers.  The bun was rotated 180 degrees “to ensure a better grip” of the sandwich.  Thousands of customers ordered the specialty, while many others requested their own right-handed version.

In 2000, Nancy, one of my co-workers at the college, was the target of a clever April Fool’s ruse.  Two of her staff members rushed to her office and breathlessly told her they’d just found out that the dance instructors had hired a helicopter to fly over the entire college service area and drop pamphlets advertising their dance classes offered through Nancy’s department.  (You’d have to know the dance instructors, but this was plausible.)  Nancy was horrified and frantically began brainstorming ways to stop this before her budget had to bear the expense of the helicopter.  Nancy was a good sport.  When she learned it was a prank, she laughed in relief and admitted her heart had nearly stopped when she heard about the helicopter.

Happy April Fool’s Day.  Have fun and do no harm.  ?

 

20 pi jokes and puns, just for the fun of pi.

1  3.14% of sailors are pi-rates.

2  Never talk to pi. He’ll go on forever.

3  Come to the nerd side. We have pi.

4  Simple as 3.141592…

5  The roundest knight at King Arthur’s table was Sir Cumference. He ate too much pi.

6  The worst thing about getting hit in the face with pi is that it never ends.

7  What do you get when you take green cheese and divide its circumference by its diameter? Moon pi.

8  What was Sir Isaac Newton’s favorite dessert? Apple pi.

9  What is the official animal of Pi Day? The pi-thon.

10  A pizza has a radius z and thickness a. Its volume is pizza (or pi*z*z*a)

11  What is a math teacher’s favorite dessert? Pi!

12  The mathematician says, “Pi r squared.” The baker replies, “No, pies are round. Cakes are square.”

13  Just saw American Pi. I gave it a rating of 3.14.

14  In Alaska, where temperatures get below freezing, pi is only 3.00. After all, everything shrinks in the cold.

15  What do you get when you take the sun and divide its circumference by its diameter? Pi in the sky.

16  How many pastry chefs does it take to make a pie? 3.14.

17  What do you get when you cut a jack-o’-lantern by its diameter? Pumpkin pi.

18  What is 1.57? Half a pie.

19  What is the ideal number of pieces to cut a pie into? 3.14.

20  How many calories are there in that slice of chocolate pi? Approximately 3.14.

 

Thanks, Grammarly.

Not only is it Hallowe’en today, but it is also National Knock Knock Joke Day.  What a joyous cause to celebrate!  Here’s a un-knock knock joke:

Knock, knock.

Come on in; the door’s open.

And another one, just to make the celebration last longer.

Knock, knock.

Who’s there?

Ya.

Ya who?

I’m excited to see you too.

Happy Knock Knock Joke Day to all.

I’m reading a pseudo-detective novel and its text is liberally sprinkled with amusing sentences that make me smile.  My knowledge of French is extremely limited, but I’m pretty sure I know what this means and it made me laugh out loud.

After twelve years employed as a sewer engineer for Hydro-Québec, Huck had acquired a faint, but persistent, “l’air du poop” that wouldn’t go away, no matter how much he showered nor how many gallons of Old Spice that he put on.

Who to vote for?  Who to vote for?  This is a little late, but it’s too good to ignore.

So close to the truth!

The candidates could have been Jim Henson’s models.  Top -> bottom:  Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump, Ted Cruz.

I needed some labels, and I keep a started sheet in the in/out box on my desk.  I couldn’t find the labels, which are usually near the top of the pile, so I pulled out the entire pile and started going through it.  It’s no big shock that I ended up going through the whole pile–might as well clean it out while I’m at it–and I found a few things that made me smile.  Among them, some old birthday cards that I saved.

Here’s one from Tom and Jo.  A literary masterpiece, no doubt.

50 Shades

Then there was one from Jeff’s family.  It’s so “Jeff,” isn’t it?

Universal remote

And finally, I found one from Gary.  This is from way back when my car was new.  You got it right, Gary!

My convertible

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Or . . . think of three other friends who might be more unbalanced than the first three.

Outside of a book, a dog is man’s best friend.  Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.

–Groucho Marx