I’m usually very keen on practical jokes. My adolescent friends and I were 9th degree ninja master pranksters. And so every year around April 1st, I amplify my spider sense and stay alert for potential threats. I’m usually very good. No one has been able to pull a fast one on me in years. When I got through yesterday, I thought I was in the clear. Ha! The only thing that was clear today was my false sense of security. The “punk” or “pwnage” came from the place I least expected.
To be fair, I don’t think I was punked that hard. Until this moment no one knew. Not even the prankster. After all, if a prank happens in the woods and no one is there to laugh, did it really happen? In my case it wasn’t the woods, but the interwebz. I’ll explain. For many years, it has been the practice of many popular blogs to post April Fools articles on that special day of the year. The authors cook up an extraordinary yet plausible story and fools like my believe it. But thank goodness I caught myself before actually reposting this as a legitimate story here.
The photog blog Nikon Rumors is one of my favorite sources for juicy information on upcoming gear. They’re like Car & Driver with all their secret sources and espionage, but for Nikon equipment. They’re pretty much the authority on credible Nikon information that hasn’t been publicly released. That being said, I totally bought into their recent post on a breakthrough new lens system called NIKKORNER. The silly name should have tipped me off, but a) NIKKOR is already the name for Nikon lenses, so I quickly dismissed it as a cute pun, and b) I was mesmerized by the [now clearly photoshopped] picture of this lens that looks like something out of Super Mario Bros.
What made the story stick for me, was the intended application. Apparently, there are already guns that shoot around corners, equipped with small cameras and LCD screens. Nikon Rumors suggested the existing cameras on these guns were inferior and that Nikon would be coming to the rescue with the new NIKKORNER system.
I swear I almost reposted this. I even began trying to think of a headline like, “Does YOUR Camera Shoot Around Corners?” Good thing I glanced at the “NIKKORNER” name again and the spidey sense went off. I was like, “wait a minute…. Damn You, Nikon Rumors Guy!!”