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Morning Brew: April 1st, 2009

Posted by Jerrold Litwinenko / April 1, 2009

32 Comments

paintmanPhoto: "Paintman" by j lee, member of the blogTO Flickr pool.

What's happening in the GTA (and sometimes beyond):

A study by a handful of people that are a few years behind the times shows that 87% of hipsters and douchebags use the terms "hipster" and "douchebag" in comments on blogs. From now forth, when these words appear within blogTO comments, they will either be disemvoweled OR automatically changed to read "hula hoop" and "donkeyface" respectively. In other words: enough already, trolls. Just because someone is younger than you or has more fun than you or is open to ideas you're not into doesn't mean they're a hula hoop or donkeyface. And besides, this shit is so 2004.

Every road in the city of Toronto is being resurfaced this weekend. Everyone who planned on leisure driving is asked to stay at home and beat the recession instead. As of today, it's cheaper to drive to work than it is to be a red rocket commuter, right?

Public sector workers making more than $100,000 in 2008 were unveiled in the annual why-the-heck-am-I-in-the-line-of-work-I'm-in list. One city employee made $692,093.83 last year but apparently working overtime actually saves taxpayers' money.

If you're reading this, Conficker didn't spell the end of the internet or your computer (yet).

Elsewhere in tech news Toronto Bloggers voted to move into a strike position unless they get more comments on their entries than bloggers in Woodbridge, Oakville, and Ajax. While we were all distracted, net neutrality ended up nowhere near neutral and will have a pH of 1.

Happy April Fool's Day, Toronto! Feel free to find real news here and share any cool Toronto April Fool's finds in the comments below! :P

Note: I wouldn't normally link to images, and accept no responsibility if any of the images are changed at the source.

See also: last year's April 1st Morning Brew post.

Discussion

32 Comments

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ChuChu / April 1, 2009 at 08:46 am
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April fools day on the internet makes me weep. It's the one day where everyone and their dog takes it upon themselves to unleash their "funny" on the rest of the world. 90% of the april fools jokes I see are nowhere near funny, 8% would have been funny if it weren't for the fact that our patience had been worn thin by the throwaway 90%, and the remaining 2% is legitimately funny stuff. If you are ever wondering if your april fools joke falls within that 2%, the answer is "probably not" (statistically speaking of course).

God help us all.

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Jerrold / April 1, 2009 at 08:49 am
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Whatever, donkeyface.

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James / April 1, 2009 at 08:49 am
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Slightly saddened that the hula hoop & donkeyface filters will not be applied.

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Nic / April 1, 2009 at 08:52 am
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Whoa, ChuChu, don't be such a donkeyface. (that cracks me up. wtg blogTO)

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huginho / April 1, 2009 at 09:14 am
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get rid of the damn hula hoops!!

nothing about the damn hooligans?? lol, over the top journalism!!

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Jerrold / April 1, 2009 at 09:16 am
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<a href="http://www.blatherings.com/2009/04/squirrel-invasion/";>Giant squirrel invasion</a> at Debbie's Blatherings. LOL.
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Jerrold / April 1, 2009 at 09:38 am
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[not a joke]

The TTC needs to update their online commuter cost calculator to reflect the new charges for parking at commuter lots.
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Carlos / April 1, 2009 at 09:48 am
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Hahaha! awesome!
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jamesmallon / April 1, 2009 at 09:52 am
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"The TTC needs to update their online commuter cost calculator to reflect the new charges for parking at commuter lots." Not really. If you own a car, you are better off driving it than relying on the antiquated TTC, so long as your parking is free. If you have to pay for parking, but own a car, it's a toss-up.

If you do not own a car, can use the TTC, walk or cycle to commute, and use Autoshare/Zip-Car infrequently, the TTC blows but will cost you a fraction of the average $6-8000/yr Canadians spend on car-ownership.
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Jerrold / April 1, 2009 at 10:02 am
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Not Toronto, but one of my faves annually: <a href="http://www.thinkgeek.com/index.shtml";>Thinkgeek's new products unveiled</a>!
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Alex / April 1, 2009 at 10:05 am
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Hula hoops are the borg of pop culture and must be stopped!

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RBeezy / April 1, 2009 at 10:40 am
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donkeyface (just checking)

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T r o n / April 1, 2009 at 11:00 am
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D O N K E Y F A C E.
OMG censorship in the media!!!!!

Lets hold a concert, a parade, a gathering of h u l a h o o p s, book reading, pillow fight to protest this white collar crime.

They are censoring our rights to protest online and create "awareness" we can't allow them to do this to us. We should tie ourselves to the tubes to prevent this from happening.

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T r o n replying to a comment from T r o n / April 1, 2009 at 11:03 am
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HA! HA! censorship FAIL
h u l a h o o p s

:o

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T r o n / April 1, 2009 at 11:06 am
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H_u_l_a_h_o_o_p
donkeyF&acirc;&Ccedil;e

lets see if this works

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T r o n / April 1, 2009 at 11:12 am
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I can see I will have fun with this. One thing hÌþ§tër knows is censorship draws more attention and it will increase their use 10x more than you intended.

seriously this is censorship 101, even China knows it.

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T r o n / April 1, 2009 at 11:15 am
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donkeyface and hulahoop should sue because of the negative connotation attached to them.
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Ghoul Friday / April 1, 2009 at 11:20 am
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I love it.
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Ratpick / April 1, 2009 at 11:23 am
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Agreed. Hating on the hula-hoops (fun as it may be) has become as tedious as riding through Parkdale on your way to a pillowfight, on a vintage bike while wearing Buddy Holly glasses and a wool cap cocked slightly to the side.

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devon / April 1, 2009 at 11:26 am
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Ha ha ha! Awesome post, Jerrold.
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T r o n / April 1, 2009 at 12:05 pm
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Why are hÌþ§tër self-censoring themselves?

such a dauch bag thing to do.

Do you think the blog would survive without the words:
pillow fight,
TTC fare (main form of hÌþ§tër transport),
bike lanes,
bike tax,
bike theft,
independent,
artistic grafitti (otherwise known as vandalism)
green methods (as opposed to poverty),
anti condo,
anti renovation of a dump,
vintage,
cafe,
story telling for adults,
awareness,
artistic,
fashion,
band name no one knows or cares,
clothing store no one knows or cares,
cappuccino,
latte
authentic,
all-stars,
v neck,
wayfarer,
restaurant about to die in 6 months,

I want Mr. Robotext to censor those words as well please. Because they are synonyms for hÌþ§tër

[robo-text plugin notification: sorry, I'm not programmed to take requests from hula hoop donkeyfaces]
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Elle Driver / April 1, 2009 at 12:26 pm
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This is awesome, Jerrold. I hope you keep this around beyond April 1st. :)

(And somebody needs to find themselves a latte/kebab place and seriously relax.)
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Andrea / April 1, 2009 at 12:37 pm
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I didn't need to read past that first item. Hilarious. I want to see someone apply Godwin's law to a thread involving hula hoops. And maybe the word "plonk". (Killfile!)

I've just outed which generation of geek I am.

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Justin / April 1, 2009 at 12:57 pm
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'[robo-text plugin notification: sorry, I'm not programmed to take requests from hula hoop donkeyfaces]'

lol!
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Patrick / April 1, 2009 at 01:04 pm
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[robo-text plugin notification: your previous comment would have been real it it had this]
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Ariel / April 1, 2009 at 02:15 pm
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Here's an Aprils fool image for you. TRUCK NUTS!!!!?

http://www.joehagen.com/images/dodgeballs.jpg

*Believe me, I wished this wasn't a joke.(*sigh)

Happy "nutty" Aprils fools everyone!

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Jerrold / April 1, 2009 at 02:17 pm
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Trent Reznor has a sense of humour?
http://twitter.com/trent_reznor/status/1313265641
http://www.nin.com/strobelight/
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Johnny / April 1, 2009 at 02:48 pm
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The "h" word really is an offense to the English language, and improperly used. In a recent Eye magazine article, the writer used the "h" word THREE times. From NOW devoting an entire column to the death of the "h" to young writers at the Star describing youthful citizens of the Annex to aging vets at the Globe and Mail digging deep into his/her reportoire of vocabulary to describe an urban concert scene, the "h" word needs to be shovelled aside to the curb like dirty winter snow and left for some other generation to co-opt its usage.
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Gary / April 1, 2009 at 04:04 pm
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If y jst pt "dch" wll t chng t t "dnky"?

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Get Over Thyself / April 1, 2009 at 04:10 pm
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<i>Just because someone is younger than you or has more fun than you or is open to ideas you're not into doesn't mean they're a hula hoop or donkeyface.</i>

Besides, everyone knows you're just jealous!
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q_e_d / April 1, 2009 at 05:56 pm
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oh noes
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Dialog replying to a comment from Get Over Thyself / April 1, 2009 at 05:58 pm
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No Sir, No It Does Not. But you'll understand this once you hit your 30s, I assure you.
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