April Woots Day

Last night at midnight, I dutifully checked Woot! as I do every night. Sometimes the deals are really just too good to pass up (last weekend, we picked up a new Dyson for $300), and other times, they're just crap. Because we are all the internet shopping lemmings that we are, in fact, it stands to reason that their most popular nights are when they offer "Random Crap" (a.k.a. a Bag of Crap, or BOC). Usually, they sell out in minutes and then the more cranially-challenged nerds spend the majority of the day bitching in the comment boards about not getting in on the sale fast enough.

Last night was one of the best woots ever: An April Fools Day Bag of Crap sale. Click:
1. 2.

Yes, I attempted to buy at that price. I could always dispute it if it went through... and the credit report ramifications would have been fascinating. Anyway, I lurked in the forums for a little while to see how others were reacting. It was all a nice joke, and I went to bed 90% satisfied that at least I hadn't missed out on anything.

I woke up today to realize I should have paid more attention to the 10%:
3.

I realized that there was indeed a trick, and that, despite my having clicked on the image of the bag and seeing this, I didn't think to try to use PLEASE as a discount code on the order. Those that did got a $1,000,000 discount. Oh, well.

Google had their annual fun today, too, with 1) a press release announcing sewer-based free internet and 2) a Gmail roll-out of paper-based email.

I used to try to fool people on April Fools. My favorite scheme was when I 'fell down the stairs' at the cottage, slamming into the door at the bottom after what I thought was a well-executed, noisy descent, only to hear my mom call calmly from the other side of the door: "April Fools, Andrew."