What's So Special About Today?

Last night I get home fairly late from karaoke (started at 244, ended at Czehoski). I check my email and such before going to bed.

From her bedroom, my roommate is also on teh innertubez. She suddenly exclaims "Holy crap!" I ask her what's going on.

"Canada bought half of Hawaii!"

My response is less than politic: "Ummm, no."

"Yes! I'm reading the article right now. We bought half of Hawaii to help them with their debt. It's on sympatico.ca!"

I try to tell her you can't just buy half of a state, or even a whole state. She'll have none of it. "They bought Alaska from the Russians! And New York! What about New York?"

I try to explain that those areas didn't exactly have governments when they were purchased, they were just big chunks of functionally empty land. I do a Google search, and tell her no one else is reporting this monumental news. She'll have none of it.

"I'm trying to read the article! Go to sympatico.ca! It's... oh, crap, what day is it? Crap! Crap crap!"

Now, I'd like to say I knew it must have been an April Fool's Joke, but frankly it never even occurred to me that it was after midnight and therefore April 1st. I'm just so used to having to filter out bullshit being peddled by the media, that this story was just one more log on the fire, so to speak.

I'm not claiming I never fall for April Fool's pranks. I'm just saying that, relatively speaking, 'Canada buys half of Hawaii' isn't really all that far off from the usual spew we get from Fox or CNN or WaPo.

The "news" has all but become one year-round April Fool's joke.