April 2 2020 - April Fool's Round Up at the Hidden Bench Barn

The online gammers put out a lot of effort on April Fool's, creating pranks within their games.  Lots of them participated, but NPR, National Geographic, and others announced no April Fool's Jokes from them.  Snoopes gave a round-up of April Fool's news from yesterday.  It is their specialty, so they must have fine doing this. 1. RoboForm, the password manager software, on the contrary, introduced a "Barkpass".   2. Shiny Leaf shampoo released a Ketchup Smapoo:  picture of red glop on soapy hair.  It is a "Colour-boost ketchup shampoo".   "Our favorite bit from this April Fools’ Day prank comes when you click the purchase button on Shiny Leaf’s website. That opens up a list of related products which seem, at first, to be believable (especially if you just bought ketchup shampoo). But after listings for a “Hair Bun” and a “Mayo Leave-In” product, the “related items” section basically turns into a restaurant menu. If you try to complete your order, you’ll be greeted with a “WE GOT YOU! HAPPY APRIL FOOLS” message.  3. Virgin Australia announced it is giving away toilet paper.  Snoopes says that this one isn’t a joke.  "With many flights cancelled, and with fears rising about a potential toilet paper shortage, Virgin Australia announced that it would be flipping April Fools’ Day on its head, and “turning the airline’s annual prank into a reality.” The company announced that it would be taking all of the unused toilet paper from its grounded planes and donating it to those in need." "Each year our passengers use enough toilet paper to stretch from Sydney to Los Angeles, so we’re thrilled that in true Virgin spirit, we’re going to help the elderly, the vulnerable, medical staff, and our charity partners, by giving them the supply of toilet paper that’s currently locked-up in our grounded aircraft and storage facilities throughout Australia." I imagine that toilet paper will be with us permanently.  Don't you look at that roll differently? Our picture today is taken at the Hidden Bench barn in front of the vineyards on McLeod Street on what's known as "The Bench".  I always think of this as Locust Lane, but the winery is around the corner and it is on Locust Lane.  I went searching for the street name, and the second picture that showed up was my own picture of the Hidden Bench barn, December, 2013, a snow scene.   Today's picture has the addition of a Skylum sky.  Lots of fun adding these with California town names. I think this one is Anaheim Sunset.  The second picture, in front of the barn, has a more realistic sky, although this one is from Skylum too. And there's that wonderful barn.

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April 1 2020 - Rooster Fools

April 1st as April Fool's Day is associated with the vain rooster, Chauntecleer, in Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales.   But this is not the Chaunticleer that Chanticleer Gardens is named for.   And there are large rooster statues at the entrance gates, and throughout the garden.  So one wonders how this pretty garden in the Philadelphia area got its name. "The Chanticleer estate dates from the early 20th-century, when land along the Main Line of the Pennsylvania Railroad was developed for summer homes to escape the heat of Philadelphia. Adolph Rosengarten, Sr., and his wife Christine chose the Wayne-St. Davids area to build their country retreat. The family's pharmaceutical firm would become part of Merck & Company in the 1920s." "Mr. Rosengarten's humor is evident in naming his home after the estate "Chanticlere" in Thackeray's 1855 novel The Newcomes. The fictional Chanticlere was "mortgaged up to the very castle windows" but "still the show of the county." Playing on the word, which is synonymous with "rooster," the Rosengartens used rooster motifs throughout the estate." Chanticleer was used as the proper name of the cock in the literary cycle of Reynard the Fox.  Its definition refers to this:  a domestic rooster or cock, especially in fables and fairy tales.   On to rooster jokes, as there aren't any Chanticleer jokes. They are mostly profane, given the job of a rooster.  On jokes sites this is the approach:     This is pretty well it for the rooster jokes.  A long, long listing of this box.  And generally, it is the same joke with variations. So here are the remaining two jokes: What do you call a rooster that stares at lettuce all day long? Chicken sees a salad. Why didn't the rooster tell Dad Jokes? He was afraid his kids would crack up! It's railroad day today.

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March 29 2020 - Google's no Pagan Fool

Here's a question?  Is April 1st a pagan holiday?  Every holiday seems to have 'pagan roots'. The 'pagan' term comes from Christians describing the Roman Empire who practiced polytheism. Equivalent terms were hellen, gentile, and heathen.  So it is a label that Christianity applied to others. "Anyone not Christian" is how it started out.  So was April Fool's Day a pagan tradition? The first written reference to April 1st as a day of tricks comes from Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales.  This reference is disputed.  What is confirmed is the French poet Eloy d'Amerval refer to a poisson d'avail in 1508, considered the first reference to the celebration in France.  Wikipedia says this: "Although no Biblical scholar or historian is known to have mentioned a relationship, some have expressed the belief that the origins of April Fool's Day may go back to the Genesis flood narrative." Reader's Digest claims that the likely origins are the Roman Festival of Hilaria.  It took place around March 25 in honour of the first day of the year longer than the night (equinox).   Because the origins are unknown, there are lots of articles and sites who weigh in on their version. And so it goes.   However, with this year's Covid-19 concerns, there is April Fools' news!  Google has officially canceled its April Fools' joke. Here's the list since year 2000.  We'll have to revisit them instead of getting a new one.  This turns out quite fun. Google's first April Fools' Day hoax, the MentalPlex hoax, invited users to project a mental image of what they wanted to find whilst staring at an animated GIF. Several humorous error messages were then displayed on the search results page, all listed below: Error 005: KUT Weak or no signal detected. Upgrade transmitter and retry. Error 466: Multiple transmitters detected. Silence voices in your head and try again. Error 05: Brainwaves received in analog. Please re-think in digital. Error 4P: Unclear on whether your search is about money or monkeys. Please try again. Error 445: Searching on this topic is prohibited under international law. Error CK8: That information is protected under the National Security Act. Error 104: That information was lost with the Martian Lander. Please try again. Error 007: Query is unclear. Try again after removing hat, glasses and shoes. Error 008: Interference detected. Remove aluminum foil and remote control devices. Error: Insufficient conviction. Please clap hands 3 times, while chanting "I believe" and try again. Error: MentalPlex™ has determined that this is not your final answer. Please try again. And our image today is the flower 'Statice' - this came from the greenhouse tour last year (on this weekend).  This was the Prins greenhouse.

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The Spaghetti Harvest Celebration Day!

Before we find out if there are any amazing April Fool's Jokes today, let us revel in the past. Here is the link at CNN telling us their top ten April Fool's jokes of all times.  Number 1 on the list is pasta growing on trees.  It is a BBC joke from 1957 showing the Swiss spaghetti harvest.  This has been ranked Number 1 by the Museum of Hoaxes.  The Museum's listing is HERE. This is the pinnacle of the year for this website and its day to shine.  At this site you can read the top 100 April Fool's Day Hoaxes of all time, or find out the early modern hoaxes from 1500 - 1700, Hoaxes of the 1990s, Television hoaxes, Journalists hoaxed, and so on. They are listed by decade - all kinds of listings and stories. After the Swiss spaghetti harvest, the Instant Colour TV of 1962 is the second joke - tv viewers in Sweden were advised to pull a nylon stocking over their tv screen and the images would appear in colour. I liked the Taco Liberty Bell hoax of 1996, in which the Taco Bell Corporation took out a full-page ad that they had bought the Liberty Bell and was renaming it to the Taco Liberty Bell.  "The best line of the day came when White House press secretary Mike McCurry was asked about the sale. Thinking on his feet, he responded that the Lincoln Memorial had also been sold. It would now be known, he said, as the Ford Lincoln Mercury Memorial". Look out for our hoaxes today - and all completes by noon.

Fools Rush In

If we were in ancient Rome, this would be the Festival of Hilaria.  So let us celebrate the festival of Hilaria in style today! If we consider Wikipedia's observation, we will be on the look-out for pranks - "With the advent of the Internet and readily available global news services, April Fools' pranks can catch and embarrass a wider audience than ever before." So before I go discover what might be in the Globe and Mail, I took a spin with a google search. The Telegraph headline today is April Fool's Day:  all the best fake news April Fool's day is usually only observed by children, that 'really hilarious' person in your office and journalists who have to write about it. And of course, the people in charge of press for large companies, who spend the days before April Fool's sending over weird, wonderful and sometimes tiresome press releases. In a time of fake news as well as weird and wonderful real news, you'd be forgiven for thinking some of these were real." So the article proceeds to showcase the best April 1st news stories  - so check out the link. There are so many that it is hard to pick out the best one so I picked two for your pets.   "Amazon Echo - for pets! "Now, wouldn't this be nice if it were true - which it clearly isn't. Amazon claims to have updated its Alexa personal assistant to make it compatible for pets. Introducing Petlexa! The Petlexa feature allows dogs, cats, and other animals to communicate with Alexa just like you do. The Petlexa feature gives pets the freedom to place orders from Amazon, and to activate smart home enabled toys." "Introducing the world's first hot tub for birds Guarantee your feathered friends aviary good time with Wilko’s brand new Hot Tub for Birds  – the ideal garden accessory for bird lovers looking for a modern upgrade to the traditional bird bath.  Complete with mini-jets for a truly relaxing spa(rrow) experience, this is the perfect way to attract beautiful British birds into your garden and allow them to play, splash and wash. The flow of bubbles mean it will never freeze in cold weather, offering fresh drinking water all year round - creating an eye-catching centrepiece for any outdoor space.   Big enough to make sure your garden birds are never left owl by themselves and that it never gets hawk-ward, this bubblicious hot tub is sure to attract birds in their flocks. Priced at an affordable £25, plans are already underway to release a bird-friendly bubble bath later this year – the ultimate pampering for your feathered friends. Neil Fairhurst, Pet Buyer at Wilko, commented: “We’ve got a soft spot for wild birds here at Wilko and know our customers love to make the most of their outdoor space to encourage natural wildlife into their gardens. Hot tubs are the centrepiece for many British gardens, but why should they be reserved for humans? Birds deserve bubbles, too!” View this email in your browser

A March Ending

We are coming to the end of March.  Each day has something to celebrate: Sunday, March 26th - Nougat Day Monday, March 27th - Quirky Country Music Song Titles Day Tuesday March 28th - Weed Appreciation Day Wednesday, March 29th - Lemon Chiffon Cake Day Thursday, March 30th - Doctors' Day Friday March 31st - Crayola Crayon Day Then it is April  - the month of many activities and things: Garden Month Poetry Month Decorating Month Inventor's Month Couple Appreciation Month Straw Hat Month Jazz Appreciation Month These all come from daysoftheyear.com  where April 1st is not celebrated as April Fool's Day.