Monday, April 1, 2013

April 1... that's when one may be the butt of a joke.

Did YouTube fool many people? It had announced on Sunday that it was shutting down from midnight (March 31 going into April 1) until 2023, when the winner of the "best" video will be announced. There will be prizes, it added...


Here's the Reuter story, on insing.com (with the embedded video):

http://news.insing.com/tabloid/google-to-shut-down-youtube-april-fools/id-6c713f00

AFP, carried by xin.msn.com, also reported another Google April 1 prank -- about a new Nose search engine that lets the computer user smell whatever is the search item he had typed in -- as well as pranks by Twitter and other media outlets:

http://news.xin.msn.com/en/weird/youtube-shuts-google-sniffs-in-april-fool-gags-9

North Korea was clearly a favourite prankster's "target"...

South Africa's Daily Maverick newspaper carried a story headlined " Exclusive: Oscar Pistorius signs up for North Korea's inaugural Friendship Run."

The paper said the double-amputee para-Olympian sprint star who is charged with killing his model girlfriend, will lead SA's team in Kim Jong-Un's bid to build bridges between less-understood world regimes and less-understood global figures.

"Just days after being allowed to travel while on bail, Oscar Pistorius has received an unexpected honour: A personal invitation from North Korea's newly-minted and beloved leader, Kim Jong-Un, to join the many worthy celebrities participating in his Friendship Run, a 10km race through the exquisitely manicured streets of Pyongyang.

When he heard of the invitation, Pistorius said: "I'll take it."

...Meanwhile, German news website Tagesschau.de reported that television actor David Hasselhoff, known for roles in Baywatch and Knight Rider, had been asked by the US State Department to mediate in North Korea.

"Until now, diplomatic efforts have gotten us nowhere, as have resolutions and sanctions. Why not try less controversial methods for once?" the newspaper cited State Department spokeswoman Victorie Nuland as saying.

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April Fools' Day or not, the players in the Korean drama now going on are upping the ante! First, the US dispatched B-52 heavy bombers and B-2 Stealth bombers to South Korea. Now...



US sends F-22 jets to South Korea


Some analysts are starting to get nervous:






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Jet-powered warplanes, presumably armed and on "hot" status, may be flying all over the Korean peninsula now. Over here, what with the really hot and humid weather these days (at least until the afternoon rain storms take over), I was wowed over by this piece of "jet engine" technology:



Yup, I bought it. And, no joke, it works! Using this fan -- which has a compact but powerful motor -- together with either the conventional ceiling fan or the split-unit aircon, air was "vectored" more evenly, and the living room was cooled faster.

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Finally, there was this blurb item in ST... "Confession: I whacked a foreign worker who touched my butt on the train" (among other weird items, see below)... 


What also caught my eye was -- on the same page and near the funny stuff above -- what appeared to be a badly cropped picture of a Taiwanese actress' dress:


I thought it gave the impression that she had a funny butt! The story itself, in ST Life!, had the full photo of the actress -- and the dress...


So it was the dress that was funny after all (at least to me, a man).

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