Merchant of Venice, Act II, Scene 9

Merchant of Venice, Act II, Scene 9: I'm trying not to make this sound like an apology, but it is one, of sorts. Tomorrow, a lot of this website's readers are going to be poking around here, looking for my April Fool's Day jape. There won't be one. I'm sorry.

For the past few years, I've had a little fun either re-designing or making up content that appeared in this space, taking part in the "tradition" of spoofing websites on April 1. It began, for The BradLands, in 1999, when I translated the entire site into Pig Latin. In 2000, this was The BardLands (with a Shakespearean riff that was eerily prescient, as will become apparent soon enough). In 2001, the site went monochromatic and was thus transformed into "The DrabLands". And, in 2002, I "sold out", making this place The BrandLands for 24 hours. Last year, it was a sunshine day on April 1, as this site became The BradyLands.

This year? Nothing.

There are a couple of reasons I'm not participating in the net-wide jokefest tomorrow. First, I noticed a couple of weeks ago while analyzing and archiving a few months worth of access logs that over half -- in fact, nearly 67 percent -- of the folks who read this weblog and the increasingly inaccurately-named The Daily Brad do so using a newsreader or other syndication aggregator of some sort. That means my sort of visual punnery would be lost on the majority of folks who are simply getting a text-only view of this site. With no offense intended to the other 35 percent or so, reworking the whole site for so few simply wasn't worth my time. Again, I'm sorry.

Second, I haven't had that much free time in recent weeks anyway and what has been available has been dedicated to a couple of projects I haven't been able to discuss. Unfortunately, it's also meant I've spent a lot less time with friends and family (my backlog of owed visits to my mother is now approaching double digits) and even less time doing other things I enjoy: going to movies and the theatre, vegging in front of the TiVo, dancing at clubs or between the sheets with old and new acquaintances. I haven't been able to EFT-up properly. I even had to forego one of my greatest annual pleasures, namely chumming around with a lot of folks I usually get to see lots of during SXSW in Austin, since a big chunk of my time in Texas was spent in my hotel hunched over a laptop or in meetings when I'd much rather have been swilling Shiner and shooting the shit with Canadians and Californians. Once more, I'm sorry.

There's a big change coming to my life and I finally get to share the good news, appropriately on April 1, with you, dear readers, and with my closest friends as well. So tomorrow, rather than coming here to check out my poor attempts at Photoshoppery and wordplay, I hope you'll stop by to see what's next in store. Call it "Plan B". Call it a reach for the stars. Call it anything you like, except leaping before I look. I've spent the past three months looking and looking and looking some more, and I've never been more ready for a jump in my life.

It's no joke, life. And that's the funniest thing of all. Stay tuned.

(As for that cryptic blind item on Page Six a few weeks ago a few of you puzzled out and have been e-mailing me about? No comment. If Choire Sicha, of all people, missed its significance, I can't help you.)

Comments:

<< Back to Must See HTTP://