This April Fool's Day - I'm on Your Side
Penn Jillette

April Fool's Day is not my favorite tradition. For a rip-off artiste like me, April First is like New Year's Eve to a drunk; amateur night. I started to put together some stupid phoney "Pen-based Virtual Reality for Under Fifty Bucks" thing but it wasn't funny and I didn't feel good about it. I don't want to scam you people (other than the meta-scam of passing myself off as a computer writer). PCC readers have treated me very well. You people stop me on the street, at my shows, and in restaurants and say very kind things about these columns. The letters to the editor have been, for the most part, very complimentary. Those that have offered constructive criticism I have recorded in a little SideKick 2 file on my traveling Zen and these dirtbags will be dealt with individually. (Never put a return address on a nasty letter about me - I travel, I have spare time, I take everything personally, I have no mercy, and I never take things in the right spirit or let bygones be.) So, I decided to give you an April Fool's present. It's a very realistic looking ad that offers the hottest computer equipment for stupidly low prices (note the guarantees, this is not a fly-by-night ad). There must be someone in your office that you don't like, who bought one or more of the items listed below. After reading the fine advertisements on the back of this page, cut out the "ad" and put it on Mr or Ms Chump's desk. Done. Don't photocopy it to keep the mag pristine, it's the glossy paper and the parts of ads on the back that really sell it. They'll be bummed that they "wasted" all that hard-earned money. An enemy suffering should be enough to make your day but if they call the phone number on the ad, you really luck out. They'll get a tape of me, your humble author, berating them, telling them they've been had. Yippee. I like it when we work together.