Who’s the Fool Now?

The contest, Free Stuff, was itself an April Fool’s joke. There really is no book.

Actually, the previous sentence is yet another April Fool’s joke, as there actually is a contest. But only one person put “Stupid Contest” in quotes, so he wins.

Just kidding (boy, I’m on a roll). The actual winner was John Maleckar who will be receiving a congratulatory email very soon. No, this one’s for real.

The most common response to how many books you own was zero. Many of the people who reported owning zero or one also included an apology. To be clear, I didn’t write any of those books. I did do a technical review on a couple of them, but that doesn’t make them my books. If you were to buy one of those books by following the link, I would get some money. It’s actually better for me if you don’t own any, because you have greater capacity to buy. The person who owned the most owned four. I had as many clicks in the last 10 days as I had all last month, but half the sales. And none of the sales I’ve had this month are books. I don’t really know how that whole thing works.

Here’s what some of you had to say:

April Fools joke that involves Excel: Keeping millions of Excel VBA programmers hanging for year after year regarding the future of their chosen development platform.

My favorite April Fool’s joke for Excel was to have the “blue screen of death” appear when my victim selected a certain cell.
It was harder than I initially intended, as you cannot take a screenshot of that screen for future use. Using a digital camera was equally horrible, so I had to go into Paint Shop Pro and painstakingly create a picture that was close enough to fool most computer mortals.
All in all, well worth the time.

My favorite April Fool’s joke concerning Excel is this : I have a co-worker who’s life revolves around one particular Spreadsheet. He must be in it at least 6 hours a day. While he was away from his desk (mother nature calls everyone from time to time) he didn’t log out, so I took a screenshot of this open Spreadsheet, then made it his new desktop background image. It provided about 5 minutes of amusement watching him get mad at his “damn locked up Spreadsheet”. Even funnier when he re-booted and still didn’t get it when the computer somehow “booted up with this Spreadsheet mysteriously launched all by itself (and still locked up… damn it)”.

As for my favorite prank, is to hide all rows and columns on a worksheet, switch off scroll bars and sheet tabs, and then send the sheet to a co-worker, telling them that it contains all the info they need. I must have gotten this from someone else, but I can’t remember who it was.

This one must be funny only in Canada.

This e-mail is confidential. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify the sender and delete this e-mail and any attachments without copying, disclosing or retaining it in any form.
Ce courriel est confidentiel. Si vous n’etes pas le destinataire designe, veuillez en informer l’expediteur et supprimer ce courriel ainsi que tous fichiers joints sans les copier, divulguer ou conserver d’aucune facon.

This one reminds me of screwing with the AutoComplete, which is always funny.

Not an Excel trick, and not original, but still damn funny. In The Office (American version), Jim writes “just a simple macro” so that every time Dwight types his name it turns into “diapers.”

In other news: Guess what I’m doing this weekend.

If you guessed “Playing golf while your wife stakes out the perimeter of your yard”, you’re right. To quote one of my co-workers, “You are the laziest bleepity-bleeps that every lived.”

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6 thoughts on “Who’s the Fool Now?

  1. Missed the April Fools contest, but I recently replaced the paid day off request template on our server with one that, when you press the print button, plays one of 10 brief “appropriate” musical selections I clipped from songs. Some examples: Big Bad Voodoo Daddy singing “So long, farewell, bye bye” and Barry Manilow “I can’t smile without you” or dire Straits “Where do you think you;re going?”

    I had to refrain from some I’d have loved to put up there like Lyle Lovett singing “She’s hot to go, she’s ready, she’s hot to go right now,” and no one has reported the “issue” yet, but it’s only a matter of time, since summer vacations are coming up. It will likely get pinned on the originator of the template. Heh.

  2. As one of the 0 book owners, I would like to say that I make very good use of my local library (it has a number of these books on it’s shelves)…

    I am also currently looking on eBay for some second hand copies, but it looks like most owners like to keep hold of them!

  3. Dick, can we have a review of the mower? I’ve been thinking about one of these but can imagine some hilarious consequences of it going out of control, like carving up the wife’s newly planted borders or taking a dip in the pool.

  4. MB: No worries, it’s in the works. Five hours to set it up. Less than satisfactory on the back yard. Stellar performance on the front yard. I’m disappointed in how many zones I have to have and how many small patches I have to do manually, but I’m reserving judgment until I give it a couple of weeks. After the first pass of the backyard, I had an epiphany: Nobody who spends a grand on a robot mower is going to write a bad review of it. Fortunately for the world, I’m not encumbered by such pride. That’s the short version. I’ll give it a couple weeks and I’ll give it a proper review. In the mean time, see

    http://www.bamabots.com/robomower-evolution-review.htm?gclid=CN3V9qeQy4sCFQGPWAod0iKqHA
    http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8245098052437327472&q=robomow

  5. I actually sell robotic lawn mowers, and it is really great to see our review up there! In order to get a good clean cut in all your zones it just takes some planning on where to start and release your mower. If you release your mower in the same spot every time you will get the exact same mow every time. So one day put it on the left side facing east and west, the next time you cut your back yard put it on the right side facing north and south. So just play around with it some and you will get a better mow each time until you get it perfect.

    http://www.bamabots.com


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