Internet Adores First Day of April, Celebrates with LIES
By Karl Klockars in Miscellaneous on Apr 1, 2010 6:40PM
Oh, internet. How you adore April Fool's day. Whether it's the opportunity to try to pull the digital wool over some of our eyes, or just the chance to have a little seasonal fun, lots of sites see today as a reason to fool around a little bit. So, since we're taking this year off of toying with readers in the name of good fun, what else is going on in Chicago-related tomfoolery? Here's a few:
The "Too Good To Be True" Prank: Alinea At Home's April Fool's posts are starting to become a tradition. Last year, AaH author Carol Blymire ducked into the Alinea kitchen and got Grant Achatz to make a cameo in a video where Blymire claimed to have been hired as an actual Alinea chef. Ha-ha. This year, the ante has been raised. Somehow Blymire must have known that the food-truck zeitgeist was about to slam full force into Chicago, because she's mocked up a full Alinea On The Road plan. Except for the fact that it's not real (mid-April dates in Chicago? Those food truck laws won't be passed by then), it looks totally kickass. Dehydrated tacos in a bag? Bahn mi explosion? Yes, please.
While it's not going to fill anyone up after stumbling out of John Barleycorns at 2am, it's fun to pretend that it'd be real. It wouldn't look out of place at all pulling up next to the Graham Elliot booth at Lollapalooza. We wouldn't be surprised if Achatz had a hand in some of this as well - or if they actually showed up on an Alinea menu, either.
More Chicago-centric prankery after the jump.
The "If We Were Trust Fund Kids Maybe We'd Want It" Prank: Chicago-based Groupon has offered, for one day only (we're assuming) the ability to purchase things like a money collage, a "water-scented fragrance" and designer sleeves through their new Groupoupon site. If this were 2006 and people were still offering cocktails with rubies in them and gold-gilded hamburgers, this might have actually been a real venture-capital rollout.
The "Oh, Those Wacky Public Radio Types" Prank: Middays with David Letterman? Actually, this would be a great fit for Vocalo.
The "Attention BaconFest Organizers" Prank: This morning, Think Geek made some of us fall in love with the idea of a MAME arcade setup for the new iPad. However, it's the idea of My First Bacon that has us hoping that someone will actually come up with this for Baconfest Chicago grand poobah Seth Zurer before the next 'fest rolls around.
The "We Love Having A White House With a Sense of Humor" Anti-Prank: You wouldn't be blamed too heavily for thinking that the political fundraising wing of the Obama administration coming up with a "Health Care reform is a BFD" tshirt was a complete and total prank. Especially when it pops up on the President's Facebook page the afternoon before April Fool's Day. But it could be real, if you vote for it. Kind of like health care reform, which the GOP is still hoping is a very, very elaborate gag by the Democrats.
The "Things You Think Of When You're Drunk" Prank Talespinning: Windy Citizen brings us this touching tale of a boy, his reclining chair, Jake Gyllenhaal and a drunk furniture-thieving co-ed.
And finally, both Gapers Block and ChicagolandRadioandMedia had the same thought for today's augmentation of the site - just flip the damned logo and be done with it.