Bandito’s Burritos is a delicious little restaurant located on W. Holly Street in downtown Bellingham, Washington. One of their major attractions is a well-stocked salsa bar featuring home-made toppings from 1 to 5+ stars, in flavors from savory to sweet. Today, they had this:
If I worked there, I wouldn't have written the "ha ha." Which is why I'm not allowed in the food service industry.
While so far this salsa is my favorite April Fool’s joke (that sucker was NOT one star), I keep seeing awesome contributions to today’s fun, so I’m going to compile a list. This will be updated throughout the day as I find more jokes.
Baby Skeksis born at Franklin Park Zoo
Unicorn Meat for sale on ThinkGeek
Changeable tattoo kit for sale on ThinkGeek
Man from future arrested at Large Hadron Collider (highlight: “It is a communist chocolate hellhole and I’m here to stop it ever happening.”)
Starbucks adds two new sizes of drinks
Unique colony of penguins (this probably isn’t April Fool’s, but it was sent to me today, so it counts!)
Entmoot convenes to discuss same-sex marriage
I love illustrating Twitter. (And um, embellishing it.)
Please take my commentary as seriously as if John Cleese was giving it while he wore a wig.
Imagine, if you will, that Amazon is a witch. They have used magic to make it so your cow’s milk is actually carbonated duran juice. Now, no one in the market will buy from you. Your livelihood is suffering, which stinks because this inexplicable buckle on your hat is getting rusty and you can’t afford to replace it. You rightfully call out Amazon as a witch in public. A few other people step forward and agree with you–they heard from a friend of a friend that Amazon tried to sleep with your cow and your cow refused to cooperate, and jilted, Amazon is pouting in the witchiest way it can. (Keep in mind, Amazon doesn’t usually come to town on this day, and in fact, has specifically slept in on weekends in the past, like that time they made all your gay chickens disappear from the barnyard.) You rally together, storm Amazon’s house, and lynch them. Their hangover might be what prevented them from speaking up for themselves, but they also might just have had no excuses to give. Good thing that friend-of-a-friend knew what was going on, so you didn’t have to depend on Amazon. Good old…well, you don’t know her name, but good thing she was there to explain things.
I have seen the same anonymous source cited repeatedly, and fifty snazillion pissed off authors and readers in an uproar over the disappeared books. They’re right to be pissed off, and I am not disputing that Amazon is a witch. However, because neither megacorporation has commented, we don’t know that Macmillan didn’t decide to quit selling through Amazon!
If we were accused of something so juvenile and petty, wouldn’t we want people to let us come back to work on Monday and tell our carefully crafted and yet transparent lies, not let some anonymous, unauthorized source speak for us? This “source” could be the janitor. Please don’t let the guy who files urinal cakes tell you why I make my decisions. I should get to lie to your face myself! I don’t think we’re exempt from the Golden Rule because we’re talking about a corporation–after all, instead of one person, that’s thousands of people.
Nothing new at BoingBoing, however. The comments section ALWAYS looks like this.
Once again, I’m not saying Amazon is innocent (it’s highly effing unlikely), or even that they deserve to be defended. And this public discussion about e-book prices is necessary and vital, regardless of the validity of the catalyst. Still, I feel like Twitter is being used as a time machine to bring us all back to 1692. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I miss the tweets about the boring-ass bagel you had for breakfast, since you actually know that happened. (;
Please, mark your speculation as speculation. (Props to Cherie Priest, for doing that very thing.) Call/e-mail Amazon and demand they explain the disappearing titles, and urge that others do so. The faster we have some corporate bullshit answer, the faster I’ll feel it’s morally warranted to decry their new soulless ways (in addition to the heap of other soulless ways). You can contact them using the e-mail form on their website (I think you must be logged in, though), or you can call them at 1-866-216-1072.
Update: This is closer to being evidence. They’ve done it before.
Update #2: Thanks, John Scalzi, for tweeting a link to the official Macmillan letter. And now I have at least half of a story straight from the horse’s mouth, I am willing to say that yes, Amazon is definitely a witch. Pitchfork is ready.
…And in case you don’t know what I’m talking about:
BoingBoing
BusinessInsider
NYTimes
Whatever
I won NaNo at 50,006 words! A day early, which I don’t think I’ve ever done before. Audrey put a banana peel on my head as a victory hat, since we didn’t have a viking helmet lying around. (Or we did, she hid it because she just wanted to put garbage on my head.)
I'm having a bad fruit day. ;__;
Afterward, we took my dog for a walk and looked for Christmas lights. We found this house, which is clearly an anime smiley.
^__^
Those were the best parts of the day. Perhaps the worst part was when I realized how carefully I’ve cloistered myself behind a curtain of intelligent people. The barricade is rarely broken (sometimes by customers or friends-of-friends). I made the mistake of following Keffy into the NaNoWriMo chat room this afternoon, in spite of his warnings. Here is a collision of “wry humor” and “absolute idiocy.” I think my respect for humanity was totaled, but at least I’ll get a LOLInternet settlement.
It’s short. » Continue Reading…
A few weeks ago, I started writing a near-future science fiction story that explores what might become of Ushahidi and crisis reports via text messaging in the years to come.
A few days ago, I started seeing parts of my story unfold before my eyes every time I refreshed my Twitter account.
I live in the United States, where it is generally safe to have opinions, even loud ones, even unpopular ones, simply because you’re a human being and here we consider that a right. It means that when I see people’s opinions being ignored, crushed, or brutally silenced, I’m angry. And I’m five feet tall and my grandma can benchpress me, so what would I do about it?
Years ago, I could travel to the location of injustice and try to help with my hands–costly and dangerous, and I could never travel everywhere. I could petition my government to get involved. I could peacefully protest to encourage my fellow citizens to help with the petition. Or I could pray, which I’m sure has its internal uses, but frankly, I’m not convinced it has any immediate external power.
But the world has shifted, while and because we’ve been building technological toys for ourselves. We’ve accomplished powerful handheld computer/phones. We can instant message friends, play Tetris, download music, take pictures and shoot video. They’re pretty fun! And with Twitter, and later with Ushahidi (mark my words! and my fiction!), they’re going to change the world.
The streams in which our daily activities flow have shifted, subtly at first, but they’re beginning to pour into rivers, and those rivers are heavy with potential, heavy enough to carve canyons into the way things were. People are connecting, networking, coordinating, and preserving, and they’re using these Tetris-playing, photo-taking toys to obtain an audience.
As long as you have a phone, there is no longer revisionist history to erase your voice, to stomp out who you are and what you stand for and what you do about it. The Internet collects your Tweets, your blog posts, your YouTube videos. The Wayback Machine saves them for sweet eternity. You are immortal. If you have a phone and you’re close enough to a cell tower, you cannot be erased. You can die, but how many of us can suffer and die from one entity before the rest of the world will feel threatened by that entity and bitchslap its in its vile face? That is where this can go. Right now, injustice can be reported in real-time; some day, we can fight it in real-time.
The terrible things man does to man will never disappear, but we’re fumbling with a new way to fight it. Activism is as simple as changing the settings on your Twitter account to say you live in Tehran. It’s as simple as sharing this link:
Iran Election Cyberwar Guide for Beginners
…and letting other people decide whether or not they want to be a part of history. I hope you do. I am.
