April Fool's Day

Sidd Finch was the baseball pitcher who could throw a 168mph fastball and went to spring training with the New York Mets in the mid-'80s.

Finch had grown up in an English orphanage prior to his adoption by an archeologist who was later killed in a plane crash in the mountains of Nepal. Finch briefly attended Harvard before dropping out to study yogic mastery in a Tibetan monastary. These teachings allowed him to learn to throw a baseball more than 60mph faster than had ever been recorded (with pin-point accuracy no less), making him unhittable.

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I thought I'd do this just for fun. I've lived and worked with my share of pranksters long enough to either lose my sense of humor completely or develop a really warped one of my own. Anyway, being the history nut that I am, I thought I'd share with you where April Fool's Day came from (one explanation, that is), and for those of you still looking for pranks and jokes to play on friends and family, I'll post a few links with some suggestions.

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OK, Brenda, you made me do it. Though I know what day it is, I was just going to keep quiet and mind my own business, not to mention the various blogs I said I was going to be writing. But ... Oral Pixation Day ... on April 1st ... must ... control ... fist ... of ... mirth ... :)

As I'm sure everybody knows by now (and if you didn't you can look it up a zillion places including here and here), the first of April, being close to the spring equinox, has been celebrated time out of mind as the beginning of the New Year. After all, it's when plants and animals come to life in most places in the Northern Hemisphere that are habitable by humans. California excepted. It's the sensible time for a New Year's Celebration by anyone who pays attention to Biology.

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