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After a tough, rain-soaked beginning of the week, we are basking in a sun-filled Friday. And, let’s face it. After a busy week, sometimes it’s tough to focus on business at hand on a Friday such as today. Well fret no more. Friday’s Food for Thought post will help you pass the time and hopefully enlighten and entertain you. And if your boss asks what you are working on, you can say “I’m catching up on industry news on got geoint?” Trust us. It works every time. And, since we all do such highly serious/important work, sometimes its OK to have a little fun. So, this week’s post is all about April Fool’s Day with a sprinkle fun. Happy Friday.

Top 100 April Fool’s Hoaxes of All Time
Do you all remember back in 1996 when the Taco Bell Corporation announced it had bought the Liberty Bell and was renaming it the Taco Liberty Bell. Hundreds of outraged citizens called the National Historic Park in Philadelphia where the bell was housed to express their anger. A most hilarious and brilliant hoax pulled off by the marketing team at Taco Bell. And, in 1992, NPR ran a story saying that Nixon would run for President. Comedian Rich Little impersonated Nixon in an on-air interview. Needless to say, people were outraged. Again, brilliant. Check out all 100 top April Fool’s Day hoaxes from the Museum of Hoaxes web site here.

April Fools’ Day history? Be Wary of Those Who Say They Know
Here’s no joke: Nobody knows the origins of April Fools’ Day. Some speculate that Europe’s switch from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian in the 1500s, which changed New Year’s Day from late March to Jan. 1, created an easy opportunity to play a prank on the forgetful. But that wouldn’t explain why April Fools’ Day is mentioned even earlier in writing, in Chaucer’s 14th-century “Canterbury Tales.” Other theories abound, but every year the people want to know: What is the history of April Fools’ Day? And every year the media respond: We don’t fully know. One year, a reporter from the Associated Press pushed so hard for an answer that he fell victim to one of the bigger April Fools’ Day pranks in American history. Read the full Christian Science Monitor story here.

April Fool! Google Calls Itself ‘Topeka’ for Day
For a month, Topeka was Google. For a day — April Fools’ Day — Google was Topeka. In a nod to the Kansas capital, which unofficially changed its name to Google, Kan., for a month in a bid to become a test site for the company’s planned super-fast fiber optic network, the popular search engine changed its name Thursday to Topeka. Visitors to the company’s home page, were greeted by the name “Topeka” in Google’s familiar multicolor typeface. Below it was a link to a lengthy blog posting by Google Inc. Chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt explaining the move. Topeka, Schmidt said, took its name from the Kansa Indians as “a good place to dig for potatoes” along the banks of the Kansas River. Funny stuff. Read the full AP article here.

Six April Fools’ Day Launches That Were Real
Every year the tech world trips over itself to create a myriad fake products for user chuckles and some easy press. There’s also a very small percentage of companies that decide to launch real products. We’ve rounded up six of those sites and services below, as well as some honorable April Fools’ Day-related news events. Check out the full CNET article here.

Def Leppard’s “Foolin”
While racking our brains to find a song about being “fooled,” the best choice was Def Leppard’s “Foolin.” It’s pure 80′s mainstream metal cheese. “Is anybody out there?” Why, yes, we are out here (us got geoint? readers) and this song is no joke. Just “foolin.” Enjoy!

Tags: April Fool's Day, Def Leppard, Def Leppard Foolin, Foolin, Friday's Food for Thought, GEOINT, geospatial intelligence, Google Named Topeka, got geoint?, Taco Bell, Taco Liberty Bell, United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation