April Fool's 2018

By Bixyl Shuftan

Yesterday, the Newser had a little fun with it's "April Fool's" article. We got a few groans, and a number of chuckles. But we weren't the only ones pulling peoples' legs.

Linden Lab decided to get into the act. Unlike two years ago, it didn't involve calling readers for a special announcement only to just play "Never Gonna Give You Up." Instead, in a take off of Allstate Insurance's "Mayhem" commercials, a character called "Pandemonium" calls on the residents to upgrade to Premium account status to get comet insurance, referring to the update for Linden Realms that it's plotline attributed to a comet knocked off course to plummet to Earth.

In gaming, World of Tanks claimed they were selling the monster tank from their Halloween 2017 game, The Leviathan, as part of a special package with ten other tanks and 6666 gold currency, for $5000 US dollars. World of Warships had a "What cruiser matches your personality" test. But unlike in some previous years, no special games. Elder Scrolls Online did have a special in-game event, the Jester's Festival.

Elsewhere on the Internet, Google announced they had come with a "Bad Joke Detector." T-Mobile announced their "Smartshoephone." And no doubt there were a few yours truly has yet to hear.

What are your April Fool's stories? Know another gaming or Internet one the Newser missed?

Bixyl Shuftan

April Fool's In and Out of Second Life

Last Saturday was April Fools Day, a day which is noted for people, and occasionally media and other businesses, playing jokes and harmless pranks. Second Life would see a few as Furry Fashion, Grendel's Children, Bay City, and the Newser itself got in the act. Online games have also played some fun jokes in the past few years, including some special games that were up for just a day. But this year, there was a surprising lack of foolery in online gaming.

Read more in Events.

Examples of April Foolery Across the Internet

If you're reading this, chances are by now you've seen the April Fool's article from us, our yearly tradition. But we're far from being the only ones pulling an April Fool.

World of Warships announced a new "Jacuzzi Mode" for four toy "Tier Zero" ships, the "Bottlesheep," the "Bathyscrap," the "Pokeyboat," and the "Das Boot." Taking place in a bathtub, matches could be either two teams in PvP or one in PvE against bots, pooting toy cannons against one another in sounds that compared to the rest of the game are rather cutsie. While players couldn't earn experience points or credits, there were missions to be done for rewards. (Click here for a video).

War Thunder continues to get comments over it's putting "My Little Pony" fighters in the game for April 1 a few years ago. This year, they've brought pirate ships into the game. There's only one kind of ship of for play, and aiming the cannons can be tricky as the ocean waves are rolling. But it is possible to fire at one enemy on one side, then switch to the other immediety and give another a broadside. For all the laughs about "Yo-ho-ho!" and "15 Men on a Dead Man's Chest," it's believed this is an open test to see how the game and the players handle ocean action. So this April Foolery has some seriousness behind it. (Click here for a video).

And then there are webcomics. Many engage in April Fools pranks such as the artists of two doing a one-shot joke comic for one another's strip. "General Protection Fault" by Jeff Darlington did something different this year, an ode to old time text-based computer adventure games.

April Fool's Day pranks have a long tradition here at GPF. For 2016, I had the idea of replacing the front page with an old style computer screen, like and old DOS oe UNIX prompt, or, even better, something related to old home computers like the Commodore 64 or TRS-80 Color Computer. I wanted it to be able to play a game of some sort, something that would hearken back to the simple games I played as a kid.

The comic itself started in 1998, and after almost two decades has gone through a number of plots with characters going through a lot of changes. One can also find April Foolery in other comics, but Darlington's 1980's throwback is almost certainly the most unique.

That's all for now with the foolery. Happy April Fool's.

Bixyl Shuftan

The Newser's Anniversary Celebrated at The Vinyl

On Thursday evening, June 5 at 6PM, the first of the SL Newser celebrations took place at the classic rock club "The Vinyl" high above the HV Community sim.

BREAKING NEWS! SL Newsers is having a Birthday Bash at The Vinyl Museum at 6 pm until 8 pm SLT. Come honor our favorite reporter Bixyl Shuftan and his crew as SL Newser is another year older. Tonight's Theme is Newsers. Be a TV Anchor, or news reporter for a chance to win 500 $L and a free Newser Hat!

Tantari Kim was the DJ for the event. Was her Union Jack shirt a tribute to Dana Vanmoer, the editor of SL Newser's predecessor newsletter, whom was from Britain? Tantari says she was just trying to look cool for the event. Vinyl manager Skylark Lefavre commented that Tantari reminded her of a certain blue werewolf in a popular animated music video.

Throughout the event, Tantari was giving me the "roast" treatment with a series of Chuck Norris style jokes, "Bixyl Shuftan doesn't take a break from the news, the news takes a break from Bixyl Shuftan." "Walter Cronkite and Barbra Walters got together, had a son, and called him Bixyl Shuftan." There was also a joke or two from the crowd about me having a preference for investigating henhouses.

Also during the event, there were a few trivia questions given out about the Newser and it's predecessor paper Second Life Newspaper. Some could be a little tricky.

The 500L prize went to Becky "Sha" Shamen. She looked a little less like "fox news" and more like her stories were "hare-raising" though.

The events continue today at Gemma Cleanslate's beach at Thorstar at Noon, and then at Club Cutlass at 6PM, and at the Happy Vixen on Sunday at Noon.

For those wanting to check out this great Xanadu-style classic rock club, The Vinyl has events every Tuesday and Thursday, with two DJs performing 6-8 PM, and 8-10 PM SL time. The club was founded by Perri Prinz and RECoyote Mindes and currently managed by Skylark Lefavre.

HV Community (68/207/4051)

Bixyl Shuftan.