Just like in 2000, 2001's April 1st occurred on a weekend. So, like last year, we decided to go for another "fake press-release" joke. We had thought up some other more grandiose ideas, but they weren't worth doing, given the few people likely to visit the page on a Sunday. As it turns out, we don't really know how many people saw it, as the time change that happened that morning threw our logging scripts for a loop and we lost our web logs for Sunday (how embarrassing!).

Anyway, just like the previous year, this year's joke was received with little-to-no reaction.

The email/newsgroup totals:

   liked it: 3
   hated it: 3
   questioned whether it was real or not: 3

...pretty strange how it ended up perfectly even. We had another machine crash here that day and I was in at work trying to fix it, so I did get to watch the logs a bit, and my guess is that we had at least a couple thousand hits. I guess it didn't strike people as funny or unfunny enough to write in... sigh.

Discussion: -- Note: Click on the picture above and read the page now if you haven't already read it--
We chose the merger idea to make light of the "declining economy" and mega-merger trends going on in America. I wrote up our little merger story and with the help of a few other people, and massaged it into (I think) a decently funny joke. The original version, the one that didn't make it through the approval process, had a couple of good digs at UGA, maybe a little too good (yeah, jokes about animal husbandry are a bit much).

With the UGA jokes removed, the real jabs were in the last paragraph. I don't have anything against Kenessaw State, but "Kentucky Fried Kenessaw State" just sounds funny. I did sneak in (unapproved) one dig at UGA, pairing them with Pepsi (we are in Atlanta, after all, the home of Coca-Cola).

Few people that I talked to seemed to get the mega-merger joke (AOL, Powertel, etc.). If you take the first letters of each of the companies listed, it spells out "APRIL 1". Strangely, most people found it funny anyway, even if they didn't completely get it.

Finally, this year's joke couldn't have happened without the help of my supporting cast:

   George P. Burdell (Greg P. Bondon) - inspiration
   Ranjana Murthy (R. J. Murphy) - brainstorming and moral support
   Josh Guttman (Joshua Goodman) - ditto
   Will Day - the Wiley E. Coyote joke, proofreading
   Jeremiah Spradlin - the graph
   John Kidd - proofreading, editing, last-minute brainstorming
... and ...
   Many Others (the Campus Services Group & my other friends) - sounding boards

April 1, 2002, will be on a Monday, and the pressure will be on to top the "Drucilla Monitor" virus. Stay tuned.

You can click on the thumbnail above to view an archived copy of the page.