Sunday, March 30, 2008

In honour of a long-held tradition of trickery and pranks, I'm letting you in on some of the most successful April Fool's Day jokes played in past years:

The Taco Liberty Bell
In 1996 the Taco Bell Corporation announced that it had bought the Liberty Bell and was renaming it the Taco Liberty Bell. Hundreds of outraged citizens called the National Historic Park in Philadelphia where the bell was housed to express their anger. Their nerves were only calmed when Taco Bell revealed, a few hours later, that it was all a practical joke. The best line of the day came when White House press secretary Mike McCurry was asked about the sale. Thinking on his feet, he responded that the Lincoln Memorial had also been sold. It would now be known as the Ford Lincoln Mercury Memorial.

The Sydney Iceberg
On April 1, 1978 a barge appeared in Sydney Harbor towing a giant iceberg. Sydneysiders were expecting it. Dick Smith, a local adventurer and millionaire businessman (owner of Dick Smith's Foods), had been loudly promoting his scheme to tow an iceberg from Antarctica for quite some time. Now he had apparently succeeded. He said that he was going to carve the berg into small ice cubes, which he would sell to the public for ten cents each. These well-traveled cubes, fresh from the pure waters of Antarctica, were promised to improve the flavor of any drink they cooled. Slowly the iceberg made its way into the harbor. Local radio stations provided excited blow-by-blow coverage of the scene. Only when the berg was well into the harbor was its secret revealed. It started to rain, and the firefighting foam and shaving cream that the berg was really made of washed away, uncovering the white plastic sheets beneath.

The Left-Handed Whopper
In 1998 Burger King published a full page advertisement in USA Today announcing the introduction of a new item to their menu: a "Left-Handed Whopper" specially designed for the 32 million left-handed Americans. According to the advertisement, the new whopper included the same ingredients as the original Whopper (lettuce, tomato, hamburger patty, etc.), but all the condiments were rotated 180 degrees for the benefit of their left-handed customers. The following day Burger King issued a follow-up release revealing that although the Left-Handed Whopper was a hoax, thousands of customers had gone into restaurants to request the new sandwich. Simultaneously, according to the press release, "many others requested their own 'right handed' version."

15th Annual New York City April Fool’s Day Parade
In 2000 a news release was sent to the media stating that the 15th annual New York City April Fool's Day Parade was scheduled to begin at noon on 59th Street and would proceed down to Fifth Avenue. According to the release, floats in the parade would include a "Beat 'em, Bust 'em, Book 'em" float created by the New York, Los Angeles, and Seattle police departments. This float would portray "themes of brutality, corruption and incompetence." A "Where's Mars?" float, reportedly built at a cost of $10 billion, would portray missed Mars missions. Finally, the "Atlanta Braves Baseball Tribute to Racism" float would feature John Rocker who would be "spewing racial epithets at the crowd." CNN and the Fox affiliate WNYW sent television news crews to cover the parade. They arrived at 59th Street at noon only to discover that there was no sign of a parade, at which point the reporters realized they had been hoaxed. The prank was the handiwork of Joey Skaggs, an experienced hoaxer. Skaggs had been issuing press releases advertising the nonexistent parade every April Fool's Day since 1986.


Anyone else have some interesting and funny April Fool's Day jokes to share?

*Stories found at The Museum of Hoaxes

Wednesday, March 26, 2008



Meet Sarah, my newest character. She came banging on the doors of my mind these last few days, demanding that I tell her story, so I've decided to give you a little peek into her world:

I thought I would be an accountant when I grew up. I could even maybe see myself doing something a little more adventurous like pushing paper at a law firm. Never once in all my childhood imaginings did I dream that I would become Buffy the daemon slayer.
Ah, yeah, that was daemon, not vampire. No vampires in my neck of the woods. Thank God, because come to think of it, if there were, I’d probably be stuck hunting them down too. Thank goodness for small favors I guess. I’ve got enough on my plate lately as it is dealing with the mangy hell beasts that come through the gateway.

And no, my name’s not really Buffy. Again, thank goodness for small favors. It’s Sarah. Plain old Sarah, who should have been a plain old accountant. But fate can be a funny thing. Okay, I’m leaning more towards lousy. Fate can be a damn lousy thing.

Take tonight for instance. It’s really not my night. Actually, night isn’t much my thing at the best of times, I tend to pass out around nine if given half the chance. Another reason why I’m really itching for that accounting software.

But since I came into this fateful occupation just a month ago, I’ve been forced to assume perma night owl status. I spend my time from dusk to dawn prowling the darkest corners of Toronto, not in search of the next happening club, which is what I should be doing at twenty-three years old, but on the hunt for daemons.

I feel no bitterness about that. Really.

It sounds ridiculous. Unbelievable. I know, because that’s exactly what I thought myself when I was attacked by one of these things on my way home from school last month and ended up stuck with the job of killing them.


*Art by Amanda Prue www.amandaprue.com

Friday, March 21, 2008

The release date for My Immortal looms closer and closer, and so starts the necessary rounds of promotional "appearances". At least I don't have to leave my computer, and neither do you!!

Join me at Romance At Heart Magazine and read my very first interview. J.K.Coi Interview

Let me know how you like it, and I'm happy to answer more questions, just post them here for me!

Sunday, March 16, 2008

Isn't it purty?!



Please come and visit my website at jkcoi.com for more information about Book Two in the Immortals Series, coming July 15, 2008 from Linden Bay Romance!