Evil Penevil

Just to make things clear- both April 1 Stickman columns were deliberate pranks on his part. He posted the columns in the April 1 tradition of fake news. Evil

Some years ago, when April 1 last fell on a Sunday, Stickman had an article about the Thai government forbidding foreigners to take Thai women back to their hotel rooms. Many, many of his readers as well as posters on the various boards were fooled. Some posters with a sense of humor "doubled down" on the Stickman article and claimed to have seen the official announcement of the hotel ban, which lent credibility to the Stickman report. One explanation of why so many were (are?) gullible is that Stickman's column and the boards are widely read internationally and April 1 is not a big thing in some countries. A lot of people outside the English-speaking countries are unaware of the April 1 tradition of fake stories in the media. Evil

If you come across posts about bars closing; prices for anything soaring or plummeting; the Thai government changing rules for foreign visitors; etc., ask yourself: what's the date today? Don't feel bad if you fall for it, every year thousands do. There have been years when millions have believed April Fools' stories. Remember, too, that some members only post wind-ups, no matter what the date Evil April Fools' Day seems like the perfect time for pranks. For big-name brands, the holiday presents an opportunity to have some fun – or to tarnish their image. Still, companies often feel compelled to make their own mark on the day despite infamous instances where April Fools' fakeries have flopped – or worse, backfired. April Fools' Day can give companies and brands an "opportunity to connect with their customers through humor – a great way to show your brand’s personality and fun side. And if done well, it can create a very memorable moment for the brand," Rebecca Rosborough, global chief commercial officer for online brand management platform Frontify, told USA TODAY in the past. "However, it is often hard to do it in a way that will resonate with everyone and not offend anyone," she said. Most April Fools' Day announcements are harmless and simply result in the company or brand getting some attention. A 2022 example of one that did more, Rosborough said, was 7-Eleven's introduction of the Tiny Gulp, a serving of "just 0.7 ounces, it's the perfect little sip," the company said on social media. "While the bit was clearly just for fun, it served to reinforce one of the brand’s iconic offerings," the Big Gulp, Rosborough said. LINK to videos Not all April Fools' go so well. Here's a few examples. Elon Musk: Telsa goes 'bankrupt' Tesla faced a string of bad news including the March 2018 fatal crash involving a Model X SUV driver. It didn't help when Elon Musk tweeted about Tesla going bankrupt. The prank "backfired immediately, causing the stock to drop 7%," Rosborough said. "And although he tried to inject humor in the way he phrased it, his 'Easter Eggs' pun wildly misfired." What might Musk have planned for this year remains to be seen. Last year, Tesla posted on X, the social network Musk bought in April 2022 when it was called Twitter, a 38-second crash test video in which the company's Cybertruck never actually crashed. That led some who have been waiting for the vehicle to arrive to complain in comments, "Yeah, if you could stop teasing the Tesla community and I, that’d be great.” Volkswagen gets a new name – not Ahead of April Fools' Day 2021, German automaker Volkswagen published on its website what was thought to be a draft press release about plans to change the name of its American division to "Voltswagen," the swapping out of the "k" for a "t" as a commitment to electric vehicles. While some Volkswagen officials in Germany were telling The Wall Street Journal the announcement was an early April Fools' Day joke, other officials maintained the change was legit. After the company's stock began to rise, and VW's communications teams and journalists wasted a lot of time, the company confessed the whole thing really was a joke. Volkswagen's prank is an example of one that truly went too far, said Columbia Business School professor and corporate strategy expert Rita McGrath, who talked to USA TODAY in 2022 for a story about April Fools' pranks. "(It) was a mistake," she said. Target limits self-checkout to 10 items or less: What shoppers need to knowIKEA slashes prices on products as transportation and materials costs easeBabies R Us opening shops inside about 200 Kohl's stores across the countryWalmart expands same-day delivery hours: You can get products as early as 6 a.m.Get your 'regency' on: Bath & Body Works unveils new 'Bridgerton' themed collection The Taco Liberty Bell: April Fools' prank rang true, for awhile Taco Bell cooked up an April Fools' surprise in 1996 running full-page advertisements in The Philadelphia Inquirer and other newspapers including The New York Times and USA TODAY about its purchase of the Liberty Bell – and renaming it "the Taco Liberty Bell" – to "help the national debt." Members of Congress called the National Park Service to confirm the deal was not real, The Washington Post reported. The park service held an impromptu press conference to deny the deal, too. After Taco Bell admitted the whole thing was a hoax, the company offered to donate $50,000 towards preservation of the bell. The hijinks paid off. The free publicity generated by the incident was worth $25 million in advertising and sales at Taco Bell increased by $500,000 and $600,000, on April 1 and April 2, compared to the prior week, according to the Chicago Tribune, which also ran the ad. Google: April Fools' Day email 'Mic Drop' Historically, Google had been an active participant in April Fools' pranks until the 2020 with the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic, tech news site 9to5Google noted. The company may have wished it hadn't introduced a new Gmail feature called the Mic Drop in 2016. The feature made "it easier to have the last word on any email," Google said, by adding a GIF of a yellow animated minion (from the animated "Despicable Me" and "Minion" movies) dropping a microphone. But a bug added the Mic Drop to many emails unintentionally and it had to be turned off. "We love April Fools jokes at Google, and we regret that this joke missed the mark and disappointed you," the company said at the time. Richard Branson's UFO landed ... with a thud for police The billionaire and founder of The Virgin Group, who in 2021 got to travel into space, has enjoyed April Fools' pranks for years, too. His most famous one: the 1989 flying of a "UFO," actually a hot air balloon with flashing lights, over London. Police were mobilized and the army had been alerted, Branson said in a blog post from 2021. When it landed – the day before April Fools' Day because of weather, The Christian Science Monitor reported – a door opened and someone wearing an E.T. costume walked out. "The police surrounded us and then sent one lone policeman with his truncheon across the field to greet the alien," Branson wrote. Initially, "the police didn’t see the funny side of it and threatened to arrest us for wasting their time," Branson wrote. "Thankfully, they soon joined in the fun and left with smiles on their faces." Follow Mike Snider on X and Threads: @mikesnider & mikegsnider.

I went to high school in Park Forest and university in Evanston. Did you recognize the Easter Bunny? Hint: it's a dumb bunny. Evil

I'd only want cream filling in the first one! Speaking of cream filling, the latest U.K. export to the U.S. is deep-fried Cadbury filled eggs. Cadbury eggs have been an Easter favorite of mine since I was a kid. But deep-fried??? No, thank you! Evil

Which do you prefer? or ?

Maybe, maybe not. The U.S. has a "fair use" exception to copyright protection that allows portions of a copyrighted work to be used without permission under certain circumstances. It's complicated and Johnny Somali and Jino would have to first request that YouTube and X take down the videos with the alleged infringements, but it's not at all certain YouTube and X would comply. YouTube and X could claim fair use regarding the copyrighted video footage. The creators could then bring a civil suit against the creators of the vids containing the alleged infringements, but it's very unlikely creators like J and J would do so or that they would prevail in court if they did. For more information, take a look at 17 U.S. Code § 107 - Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use. A Google search for "fair use" will turn up hundreds of articles and thousands of comments on fair use. Evil

Not really. I didn't link to videos with Johnny Somali or Jino as the creators and they can't earn money unless they are the creators. I linked to clips on X and YouTube that excerpted some of the worst parts of J and J's live streams. These clips don't register as "views" for J or J. The creators of those clips could potentially earn money, but they are so small-scale they don't meet the criteria for money-earning status. The poster of the Osaka video clip on YouTube is called Green Cyclist and has only 157 subscribers and 11 videos on his channel. Because of the extreme nature of Johnny and Jino's live streams, they are allowed on only one platform, Kick. Unless a member of Thailand-247 watches the live streams on KIck, there's no possibility for them to earn money. One could possibly argue that excerpt clips such as I posted can indirectly help creators like Johnny and Jino by spreading their "fame," but I doubt any Thailand-247 member will head to Kick and pay to watch their live streams. Evil

For anyone who's bothered by the Pattaya vloggers, get a load of these guys. The idiot in the video is named Jino, the sidekick and cameraman of the infamous livestreamer Johnny Somali (real name Ismael Ramsey Khalid). Jino was on Khao San Road in Bangkok and had been provoking the hell out of Thais, yelling that he wanted to fight and then kicked over something (unclear what) to emphasis his point. He changed his tune quickly when the door staff at a nightspot and a bunch of other Thais seemed more than ready to give him a fight. Jino apologized profusely and offered to pay for any damage. That's the definition of a total loss of face, but it's not something Jino is smart enough to understand. He did post later on the Net that he couldn't "troll" in Thailand because the locals turned against him so quickly and overwhelmingly. Johnny Somali caused a lot of uproar in Japan for provoking Japanese people in even a worse manner. Do a search for "Johnny Somali Japan" for the details. But Johnny not only got his ass kicked, he was arrested, fined, sentenced to six months in jail and deported from Japan. He then went to Israel, where locals also, shall we say, confronted him physically. The knockout punch comes at about 1.30 in the clip below. These guys make the Pattaya vloggers look like third graders. Evil

One more Russian Tourist Allegedly Assaults Pregnant Shopkeeper in Koh Phangan After Refusing to Remove Her Shoes Surat Thani— On March 18th, 2024, Thai social media posted a story of a Russian female tourist allegedly kicking an 8-month pregnant shopkeeper after refusing to take her shoes off at Koh Phangan, Surat Thani. At 1:00 PM, Koh Phangan police received a report from Mrs. Satika, a pregnant 34-year-old shopkeeper at a natural products store in Koh Phangan that she allegedly was physically assaulted by a foreign tourist.

Some other instances: Another even more serious assault by a Swiss man on a frail Thai woman as Uli Fehr has his visa revoked American Fugitive Arrested in Pattaya for Allegedly Running Illegal Property Business in Phuket and Surat Thani Frenchman’s trial unveils multi-million euro Rolex replica ring Cash and carry con: Middle Eastern man caught stealing from Ang Thong store Bangkok Cops probe groping incident by foreigners on Khaosan Road Nanny-napped: Israeli woman detained in Thailand for unauthorised nursery NORWEGIAN AND KAZAKH WOMEN GET CAUGHT DRIVING TAXIS IN THAILAND

I thought the same. Grabbing a cop's gun can have fatal consequences in almost every country with armed police. Evil

Another incident in Phuket. That's heavy duty stuff- disarming a Thai cop and taking his gun, which apparently fired without harming anyone. READ MORE

This is one of my favorite YouTube channels. Would anyone like to be a cop in the U.S. these days?

Israeli flight from Thailand faced attack by 'hostile elements' This is the second time such an incident has occurred in the past week, according to the report. By JERUSALEM POST STAFF FEBRUARY 18, 2024 15:31 Updated: FEBRUARY 18, 2024 22:08 "Hostile elements" attempted to take over the communication network of an El Al plane flying from Phuket to Ben-Gurion Airport on Saturday night and divert it from its destination, Israel's national airline confirmed on Sunday. The plane reached its destination safely. This is the second time such an incident has occurred in the past week, according to a KAN Reshet B report. (Note- KAN Reshet B is the Israeli national radio broadcaster). The incident took place over an area where the Iran-backed Houthis are active, although sources in Somalia told KAN that a group in the de-facto state Somaliland, which recently signed an agreement with Ethiopia, is responsible for the attempted attack. Crew noticed the attack and thwarted it During the incident, instructions were given to the crew that were different from their set route, raising concerns that someone was trying to damage the plane or lead it to dangerous areas, maybe even to conduct a kidnapping. (READ MORE)

I think I saw its grandfather a few years ago.

This was one of my younger sister's favorite toys in the late 1950s- the original Mr. Potato Head. My parents thought it was wrong to waste real food as a toy, so my sister mostly used apples and oranges which she would eat after using them instead of a potato. The Hungarian version is still sold today. Evil

When I was six, Davey Crockett was a huge craze in the U.S. The most exciting Christmas gifts I ever got were a coonskin cap and long rifle. After that, I definitely fell into the model-building category. From the time I was seven or eight, almost all my toys were kits- cars, planes, ships, space ships, figures. whatever could be glued together and painted. My specialty was balsa airplanes that could be flown. I, too, continued with model-building in adulthood, especially during the times I was laid up with injuries. It was a great way to pass the time. My nephew was a Star Wars fanatic back when the first film came out in 1978. For his birthday, I bought him a set of all the Star Wars figures available at the time. Since he already had most of them, my sister, a thrifty woman, held them back so they could later be sold in their original packaging. Forty-six years on, he still has them in mint condition in the original packaging along with the receipt. Their value at auction has been estimated between $5,000 and $10,000, depending where they would be sold. Collectors outside the U.S. tend to pay more. He kept the figures with which he played heavily and even they are worth between $5 and $20 each in worn condition. Evil

When I lived in an apartment building in NYC, a resident went over his sixth floor balcony. Everyone's first thought was it had been suicide, but the police investigation determined it was an accident. The guy had been very drunk and leaned over the balcony railing to shout at someone on the sidewalk below. He lost his balance and fell to his death. No doubt there are balcony jumpers in Pattaya, but accidental falls probably play a bigger role than a lot of people think. What doesn't make sense to me is why anyone would choose jumping from a height as their method of suicide. Should I ever decide to close the curtain myself, I'd swallow enough sleeping pills to get the job done. Less painful and messy than a balcony jump. Evil

Just to add one more example- the photo below was reduced to 960 x 640 in the Paint app that's included in Windows. The file size is 1.7MB, which is down considerably from the 18.4MB of the original but still much bigger than the 312KB of the PhotoShop reduction. In terms of viewing photos on Thailand-247, the quality doesn't appear to suffer much from extreme reductions in file size. Evil

A photo's file size is important if you plan to print it or display it on a large screen. A large size preserves detail and sharpness. However, for viewing on a Web forum, the photo can be reduced significantly because the human eye can't distinguish a difference at Web resolution. The top photo had a file size of 18.4MB and a pixel size of 3100 x 2071. The same photo below, reduced with PhotoShop's "Save for Web" function, is 312KB with pixel dimensions of 960 x 640. Anyone see much difference? Evil

And I even hope all of Pattaya's Che- I mean Scrooges- get their usual Gabenezar special on Christmas Day, a bowl of gruel and crust of bread. For those guys who have been naughty in a bad way, cheating and abusing Thai girls, I hope Krampus gets them. No KFC for the worst of them. If you don't know about the legend of Krampus, it's worth Googling. Santa Penevil

Steak, baked potato an asparagus with a candy cane for dessert.

Another option for those who don't want turkey. The Beefeater has three sittings on Dec. 24 and Dec. 25: 5.00 p.m., 7.00 p.m. and 9.00 p.m.