April Fools!

I hope you all enjoyed this year's April Fools gag. I haven't actually been able to see the results yet--why they don't install computers with Internet access in the backcountry continues to mystify me--so I left Wassa in charge of pulling it off. I hope at least a few of your were fooled by the joke. It was months in the making--my part (including the creation of the theme, buying the mcletterboxing.com domain name, and such) had to be done before I left for the trail.

As for McBoxer, all I can say is that I'm so glad I had Wassamatta_u on my team, because sheeze, I'd probably have wanted to strangle the guy myself had I thought he was real. Wassa really took the gag to a whole new level I had never envisioned when I first proposed the 'selling out to McDonalds' joke to him with that McBoxer persona.

He also lobbied for the mcletterboxing.com website. I liked the idea but wrote it off as too time consuming and I had bigger fish to fry. He wouldn't let the idea die, however, and enlisted a few folks to help create the website and give the caper a certain legitimacy that otherwise wouldn't have been there.

I'm not sure if the other folks who helped pulled off the joke want to remain anonymous or not, so I won't say their names here. I'll let them introduce themselves (assuming they haven't already on the message boards--like I said before, I can't read them myself at the moment).

Now we must hatch another caper.... Hmmmm.... *ideas twirling in the head*

*evil, sinister laugh*

Special kudos to wassa for helping me to pull off the best April Fools joke in AQ's history.

I know a lot of you like the random themes theme from a couple of years back, so I set that to run on April 2nd. Figured if it ran on April 1, it would spoil the McJoke gag. Not to worry, though, the random themes will only last one day and AQ hasn't flipped out. (At least that's the way I had set it to work.)

Last year's April Fool joke is still available for your viewing pleasure at http://www.atlasquest.com/press/2007/

Just in case you missed it last year or wanted to relive it this year. =)

I have been able to read my AQ mail, and I got three absolutely scathing messages about what a horrible thing I'd done and how ashamed I should be by ruining letterboxing. One person even told me now I could trade in my Payless Shoes for clown shoes, which I thought pretty funny (even if I'm actually wearing shoes from Sears at the moment).

Happy trails!