Yeah, my head would have exploded. I mean, I have a lot of rage at the way the media covers victims who were possible or probable sex workers and the ways in which they're dehumanized in reporting to start with. So I think, yes. Boom.

ahhh! April Fools Day has infected my websites! I went to look at comics and they were ALL WRONG!

I kinda went close to boom myself. You know something's bad when I consider the highlight to be the 27 seconds that James Marsters was on screen as Ted Bundy. I mean, seriously.

I think I should stick to documentaries and news programs. These not-so-true-crime movies are pissing me off on a regular basis. I suppose they're geared towards people who don't know much about the actual cases. Said people are less likely to get irritated by the liberties they take.

Like, phone calls that never happened. Fuckers.

One of the hallmarks of seriously good true crime reporting is respecting the victims in the narrative, and remembering that it's their deaths that are the true reason for the story, not merely an oh-so-fascinating serial killer, and paying due respect to the detectives who work on these cases for literally their whole careers. Hollywoodizing a true story in the fashion described is a bit on the obscene side. FEH.

I've been more or less awake since 2:30 AM -- not even the Sonata sleeping pill I took around 3:30 has done me much good. Thank goodness I only have one class today....

Time to kick the warm cat off my lap and go to work....

I am so over April Fools Day.

Comics fans, Dinosaur Comics is here: [link]

xkcd is here: [link]

Questionable Content is here: [link]

on April Fool's Day from Writers Almanac

Today is April Fools' Day, a holiday celebrating practical jokes of all kinds. Some people say that April Fools' Day began in France in 1582 when the Gregorian replaced the Julian calendar, making New Year's Day fall on January 1st instead of April 1st. At the time, news of such things traveled slowly, and it took many years for everyone to get up to speed. People who continued to celebrate New Year's on April 1st came to be known as April Fools.

The news media have been responsible for some of the greatest April Fools' Day pranks in history. In 1977, the London newspaper The Guardian published a seven-page supplement commemorating the anniversary of the independence of San Serriffe, a completely imaginary small island nation located in the Indian Ocean. The article described the geography of the nation — it consisted of two main islands, which together formed the shape of a semi-colon; the northern one was called "Upper Caisse" and the southern one, "Lower Caisse."

The island's natives were of "Flong" ethnicity, but there were also the descendents of Europeans settlers who had colonized the nation: "colons." The two groups had intermarried over the years; their offspring were "semi-colons."

The capital of the nation was Bodoni and the national bird, the "Kwote."

In the supplement, there were even advertisements from real companies. Texaco announced a contest whose winner would receive a two-week vacation to the island's Cocobanana Beach. Kodak placed an ad saying, "If you have a picture of San Serriffe, we'd like to see it."

The day it ran, The Guardian was flooded with calls for more information. Travel agents and airline companies complained to the editor because the news had been disruptive to their businesses — customers refused to believe that the islands were only imaginary.

The Guardian has reused the prank on a few other April Fools' Days — in 1978, 1980, and 1999 — and each time the island has changed location, moving from the Indian Ocean to the South China Sea to the North Atlantic.

On this day in 1992, National Public Radio announced that Richard Nixon was running for president again. The news came on the show Talk of the Nation and included excerpts of Nixon's speech announcing his candidacy, in which he said, "I didn't do anything wrong, and I won't do it again." It also featured analysis from real political experts.

Masses of people called in to express their surprise and indignation. In the second half of the show, host John Hockenberry revealed that the announcement was a practical joke, and that Canadian comedian Richard Little had impersonated Nixon.

Years ago (in the '70s?) a local TV news program out West reported that a nearby mountain was actually a volcano, and it had erupted. They showed stock footage of lava flowing down the side of a volcano. The story did cause some panic, and the newscasters involved lost their jobs.

10 Best: April Fools' Gags (the Web Is Closing for Spring Cleaning!)

Does bt know about this?

1995 The hotheaded naked ice borer, a sort of mole with a searing, bony forehead, lurks under Antarctica, melting the ice beneath the butts of hapless penguins and eating them as they sink. When Discover magazine publishes its retraction, penguins everywhere breathe a collective sigh of relief.

With like a bajillion (or 50) cloves of garlic? No?

Aah -- that was actually just a couple of breasts, not a whole bird.

Why you going to NO, Burrell? That sounds fun!