As a followup to my previous post, Shaun HH, the prankster from yesterday sent out another e-mail this afternoon. He told the team that Timbits were again in the kitchen but this time "fer reals". When I went to the kitchen, there was a box (not a plate) of Timbits on the counter. Three hours passed and the box went unopened. What a costly and salty lesson was learned yesterday.

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With the ubiquitous use of the Internet, April Fool's pranks and jokes have found a new life. Why bother to set up a prank that might catch a dozen people locally when you can post a fake news story on a web site and get thousands to fall for it?

So today, I waded through about dozen fake stories on the web. Actually, I found one that I was really, really hoping to be true. The tauntaun sleeping bag is intended to be a joke but I believe the majority of the people who look at would actually buy one if they could.

Anyways, with the stories behind me, I thought another April Fool's was over. Then just after the lunch, there arrived in my inbox a team-wide e-mail. It was short, simple, and to the point:

"Timbits in the kitchen."

The message had come from Shaun HH, one of the concept artists on our team. The e-mail itself was not out of the ordinary. People on our team regularly buy sugary treats to share with the rest of us. I myself have bought dozens upon dozens of Timbits for others, especially during crunch time when it can help keep morale up during a late night.

Now usually, I tend to nearly run to any free offerings of doughnut-related snacks. Just last week, one of our designers, CK bought a box of doughnuts to share and I made sure I got there before the last one was taken. This time, however, I didn't get up to a get Timbit right away. I was very busy getting some stuff done for another designer, so I didn't want to pull myself away from my code.

As I lost myself in my work, I nearly forgot about the Shaun's treats. Well over an hour after his e-mail got sent out, came another team-wide response to his, from Scott, an engineer:

"Ah, you got me! They were covered in salt!"

I made my way over to where the 'bits were. There was a single one left on a paper plate. Upon closer examination, it looked just like a regular Timbit that had been heavily rolled in plain sugar. I've had many of those before and to me, this one didn't look any different. One could not tell by looking that the crystalline material on it was not sugar and in fact, salt.

It was a clever trick that Shaun had pulled on the team. If I were to have just one suggestion, is that he should have kept the Timbits in its usual, more familiar packaging, which is the standard Tim Hortons Timbit box and not the paper plate. That way, the right packaging would not raise anyone's suspicions.

I later found out that Scott was not the only one who fell for it. Others had eaten the salty balls but kept quiet in order to let more people fall Shaun's sodium-based trap. How dastardly!

Watch out next year!

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Even though I paid for my April bus pass at work, I forgot to pick it up before I left this evening. I realized this just as I got onto my bus to go home. I suppose I could have immediately backed out of the bus to go get it. That would mean I'd have to wait another half hour. Instead, I chose to take the $5 loss, which is what it'll cost me tomorrow morning to get to work by paying a one-way cash trip. Was half an hour worth $5? I like to think it was.

In the meantime, look at this video of a dog having some fun with a rock.

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In a previous post, I implored fans to keep watching Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. The Fox show was put in a difficult position by the network in a series of stupid moves. First, there was a two month hiatus where Fox allowed the show to be forgotten by finicky viewers to begin with. Also, Fox moved the show to Friday nights, usually a death sentence for TV shows. My fears have been realized as the show's ratings have dropped considerably since returning from the break.

The outlook for a third season looks bleak but I would ask the show and its viewers to just hold on for a few more weeks. I believe Fox executives would be stupid not to grant the show a third season, even if it were just a limited run of shows to begin next fall. Why? In just over one month, there will be a huge marketing campaign unleashed on the public for a movie called Terminator Salvation. It marks the fourth motion picture in the Terminator film franchise. The role of John Connor is being played by a guy named Christian Bale. You might have seen him last summer in a small independent movie called The Dark Knight.

My point is that the public will be bombarded with images, media, trailers, interviews, comic books, and toys, all having to do with the movie and more importantly the Terminator mythos. That is literally millions of dollars of associated advertising for the show. What show in recent memory gets such a lucky windfall?

I have no doubt that Salvation will be watched by millions of people. It will be a popular film. My hope is that the wide exposure of the film will remind people of the great Terminator mythos and get them looking for more entertainment about that universe. If the show can pick up just a fraction of the people that see the movie then that would be fantastic.

If I were a Fox network exec, I'd already have my prepped my strategy for Sarah Connor. By the time Salvation is out in the theatres, the second season of the show will be already over. I'd re-run the pilot of the show after Salvation is out one week. I'd specifically buy ad time to get commercials for the show to run after Salvation commercials. I'd buy ads in print and other media for the season one Blu-ray release of the show, all coinciding with the release of Salvation. I'd also get the stars of the show in on the premiere of the movie. All I'm asking is one group photo of the cast with Bale.

I'm telling you, not asking you, there are ways to capitalize on a this very rare and special opportunity. Of course, I'm just a regular dude and not a smart TV network executive, so I don't know what Fox has planned. If I were a betting man though, I'd wager they won't do a damn thing to save Sarah Connor.

Is this the end for the Connors? I guess we'll find out in a few short weeks.

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I have filed an income tax return every year since I was 20 years old. When I was just a lad of 19, I worked my very first co-op job which happened to be the first time I made enough money for the federal government to notice.

That year and every year since then, I have received a tax refund. It was easy for me to get refunds as a student since I wasn't making a lot of money and you get a ton of tax credits while you're a student. Now it was also easy for me to get refunds even when I was out of school. Why? Well, to be quite honest, I didn't have a salary that paid me more than $30K a year until I was over the age of thirty.

Now even in the last three years since I've left grad school I've been able to manage small but still appreciable tax refunds. I was kinda expecting the same thing this year but I admit I hadn't been paying attention to how big my deductions were going to be.

So on Saturday, I fired up this year's version of Quicktax and spent less than 15 minutes entering in numbers into boxes as I do every year. When the dust settled, I was shocked. I owed the federal government $65.

I quickly went over the numbers again but there wasn't a whole lot of things I could change. My main deductions came from RRSP contributions and unfortunately, I knew I hadn't misplaced a couple of RRSP receipts. The RRSP optimizer told me how close I had been to breaking even. If I had just bought $170 more in RRSPs I would have broken even. Had I bought just $500 more, I would be getting about $176 back.

Now given my RRSP contribution this year was in the thousands, $500 would have been nothing really and $176 would be miniscule in comparison. Now I understand $65 isn't a whole lot of money but it's the principle, to use a cliche, that matters. The government, for the first time, isn't giving me back some of my money in the spring.

I will consider the $65 the cost of learning a lesson. I knew that my RRSP contribution was slightly lower than in previous years. I also knew I'd been making a small amount more in income that in previous years as well. Those two combined to leave me where I am now. Next year, I'll be better prepared so that the government sends me a cheque once again.

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