April Fools Meal: I Don't Recommend Doing this, But it's Funny

"How to Make an April Fool Meal"
wikiHow

"April 1st, otherwise known as April Fool's day, is a great day to play practical jokes on your family and friends. Tricks with food are always a real winner...."

Starts with "If your milk comes in cartons, turn it blue with a few drops of food colouring. No one will notice until they pour it out."

Ends with "Add food coloring to water to make it look like a glass of juice or punch."

With 11 steps between. I think it's funny: but I can't recommend carrying this plan out.

My favorite, today, is "Put an empty eggshell upside down in an eggcup and surprise someone with a boiled egg that's got nothing inside."

On the serious side: some people really do have physical sensitivities to some foods. Watching a buddy swell up and die isn't all that funny, even if you manage to get it on YouTube.

And, if you do go through with this (admittedly hilarious) plan: be sure you're aware of what's going on in the world around you.

Right now, the peanut scare is pretty much over: tainted peanut products have, for the most part, been pulled off the shelves, and there haven't been any new deaths for some time.

So, being funny with the food supply at home or work might not be misunderstood.

My personal story about this sort of thing involves the time a practical joker put salt in the office coffee maker. Not in the sugar. In the coffee maker.

Hilarious, right? As I recall, this was around the time of the anthrax letters - and nobody in that office was crazy enough to take chances. By the time the jokester was unmasked and the equipment purged and cleaned, quite a lot of productivity had been wasted.

Or, the Worst Driver Around

"Not Much of a Man"

An old, old joke that I first heard several decades ago, about a man, twits on motorcycles, and a truck.

Yard Ornaments in Hoosegow: Geese, Deer, Frogs, Gnomes in Custody

"Elaborate prank leaves Oregon officers in custody of gnomes." The seattlepi.com headline isn't quite accurate. But, at least one police captain is now sharing his computer with a gnome.

Better Ideas From France: A Paper Bridge

That's right: a bridge. Made out of paper and a little plastic. In France.

It connects an island in the Gardon River to the shore.

The paper bridge was "unveiled" last month. It's near the Pont du Gard.

The latter is part of a stone bridge, built by Romans about two millennia back.

If the rest of the river is like the part the bridge spans, France must define rivers the same way we do here in Minnesota: If it doesn't dry up in August, it's a river.

The architect, Shigeru Ban, is from Japan. He's about my age.

"It is a very interesting contrast, the Roman stone bridge and the paper bridge. Paper too can be permanent, can be strong and lasting. We need to get rid of these prejudices," he said.

In the article's photo, he's standing in front of his bridge, and grinning.

He's probably pleased with his design, and glad that it's getting so much attention.

Being the sort of person I am, the first thing that popped into my head, seeing the words, "paper bridge," and that grin, was "practical joke."

Nah. That couldn't be true.

Brilliant new idea or practical joke, it's quite a bridge: Paper bridge unveiled in southern France (July 27, 2007).

I know: this article isn't a blog. But it was too appealing to pass by, and if someone hasn't blogged about it yet, it's prime material.

More ideas - good, dubious, and strange - at "Better Ideas From ... "