Happy Birthday, We Made You a Cake!

When I was a kid, I hated that my birthday was just days before Halloween. I didn't invite ghosts and goblins, so I didn't want them to show up at my parties. I didn't want to go running into the house looking for a bandage for a guest's gushing wound and return to a cluster of laughing boys tossing the "fake wound kit" around. I just wanted to have a regular old birthday party, thank you very much.

Speaking of birthdays, we celebrated my mom's with a Styrofoam cake one year. We were just little tykes and covered a piece of Styrofoam in icing. Dad told her that we (the tykes) worked really hard on it. When she cut through it, it squeaked and flaked away bit by bit. See, her birthday is today, April Fools' Day (happy birthday, Mom!).

April Fools' Day has a long, rich history. Even media outlets and corporations get in on the joke. A "documentary" in 1957 discussed Swiss spaghetti crops and in 1996, Taco Bell took ads out stating that the company had bought the historic Liberty Bell in an effort to reduce national debt. The ad said they were renaming the national treasure to "Taco Liberty Bell" and encouraged other corporations to help out in similar ways.

This year, g-mail joined in by introducing CADIE technology, which allows you to put your email on autopilot so you'll never have to read or write another message.

It also reports that it matches your style and tone with the following autopilot settings:

The technology also promises to help manage relationships, as demonstrated below:

Somehow, the jokes never seem to get old. I wonder if Mom would agree?