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April 27, 2008

Best Of

I don’t know about you, but I love “best of” lists and a recent best of article in our school newspaper, The Daily Gamecock, got me thinking, and disagreeing, about some of their choices for the “best of” Columbia/USC. So, I took it upon myself to come up with some of “Cory’s Best of Columbia/USC” to get you ready for next year when you come to campus, or if you are just coming on a visit this summer. I must warn you, however, that these picks revolve almost entirely around food, and are just a little biased to my personal preferences, but either way I hope you enjoy and can find some of my picks useful.

Best BBQ: Palmetto Pig

I say what better way to start off my list than one of the best things about coming to South Carolina: the Barbeque! Starting with its friendly portions (all you can eat) friendly prices (around 8 dollars) and friendly faces (an always smiling cashier and an owner than bares an uncanny resemblance to former quarterback Terry Bradsahw) and ending with its delicious pulled pork, the best fried chicken I have had…ever, and perfectly breaded hush puppies, “The Pig” is sure to be a hit with you, your friends, and family

Best Pizza: Pop’s/Village Idiot

How appropriate, a “tossup” between two pizza places with great dough (if you have ever seen dough made, just trust me, they toss it up in the air). If I were going on value alone, Village Idiot would run away with its dollar slices during happy hour. The perfectly crisp and light crust is a steal of a bargain five days a week from 4-7 for a dollar a pop (and by pop I mean slice). Oh, yes, Pop’s how could I forget. If pure authentic New York style is what you are going for, you won’t find any better in Columbia than here at Pop’s. While I am not promising New York City perfection, their crust and sauce put it just a step above Village Idiot. It does cost a little more, but you won’t regret it. For an added bonus, try some of their tasty Fried Oreos for dessert!

Best Coffee Shop: Cool Beans

Personally, I don’t drink coffee, but that hasn’t stopped me from going to this local coffee joint located across Sumter Street from the Horseshoe. Cool Beans is a local favorite to catch up with a friend or catch up on that paper you decided to put off until the night before. With a wide selection of coffee and desserts (MY personal reason for going), not to mention a few board games scattered around for a fun distraction, Cool Beans is easily the favorite of USC students.

Best Way to Spend a Thursday Night: Shagging at Jillian’s

Alright, so this category was just slightly biased, but I had to find a way to throw it into my “Best of.” Shagging at Jillian’s is a must for South Carolina natives who know their state dance, or for out of staters like myself who quickly pick up on the fun dance. In addition to the fun and dancing, an added bonus to the Thursday night festivities is the price: FREE. Just show up with you dancing shoes on and go to town!

Best Way to Spend a Saturday in the Fall: Gamecock Football Games!

So these categories just keep getting more and more specific, but I would be remiss if I didn’t throw in the obvious fun of a Carolina football game. I know that for me, the whole atmosphere was something completely new to me, and to be quite honest, I still get goosebumps whenever I hear “2001”, our football team’s introduction song. Starting with tailgating before the game down to the last snap, the entire experience of a game a down at Williams-Brice Stadium is something that you must experience firsthand to really know what I am talking about.

There you have it: a quick overview of my personal “Best Of’s.” If you feel like I left anything off the list you want to see, or if you disagree with one of my picks, please feel free to let me know. It is all about helping y’all see what is good around Columbia. Take care!

April 21, 2008

The Return to State

If you can all remember way back to last spring, I had a post talking about my experience playing in the men’s slowpitch softball tournament in Aiken. If you want a refresher, and a look at an awesome picture of me in a uniform and eye black check it out here http://uscbloggers.com/cory/2007/04/o-for-aiken.html. While I didn’t play well, and our team didn’t “win a single game” I had a blast and was looking forward to getting back and playing again in this year’s tournament in Gaffney, SC. Well, it was a matter of “good news bad news good news” for me. The good news: I was going back to the state tournament. The “bad” news: I wouldn’t be playing. Some more good news though: I was invited by our intramural director to help be one of the four umpires to represent USC at state! This was fine by me. Especially since I had only been umping for the semester they must think I’m doing a pretty good job to want me to go to state.

Alright, so there was more bad news. We had to be there at 8 in the morning, and Gaffney is a solid two-hour drive away. Do the math and we were leaving here at 6 in the AM…on Saturday! No problem for me, sacrifices must be made to do what you enjoy doing, and it was with a happy heart that I was rocked out of bed by my Ipod speakers at 5:15 Saturday morning.

The drive was not too bad, and to my excitement, my friend Chad from my Co-ed softball team (and fellow Arizonan) was coming up to umpire as well. Anyways, we arrived at 8 and went through an umpire meeting and let me tell you the tournament directors were adamant about proper umpiring. I think I learned more in that 30-minute session than I have in the entire semester here at USC. This statement is not a knock on our intramural softball, but a credit to the directors and their passion and knowledge of the sport.

Pool play for the 8 team tournament began promptly at 10 AM with teams from colleges all over the state. Chad and I worked as a crew for three games in the morning. I was on the bases for the first and third games, and was behind the plate for the second game, a real exciting affair between Presbyterian College and Winthrop, culminating with a thrilling come from behind win by Winthrop in the last inning.

The afternoon saw us get split up and I worked two of the single elimination rounds, including the semi-final game between Presbyterian and a team from right here at USC. The championship game was between a loaded Lander team and our USC squad and who was behind calling balls and strikes? Why, yours truly of course! I will be honest and say it was not by best game behind the dish, but it didn’t matter too much as the powerful Lander squad run ruled our boys in the 5th inning.

With that last run crossing home, the day was done. Not bad if I do say so myself. I got the opportunity to umpire six games, gain some experience, and be a part of the state tournament. We finally arrived back in Columbia at 8 in the evening, and I promptly showered and was out cold. After a long day of umpiring I was finally showered, in bed, and as was repeated often during Saturday’s tournament, “safe” at home! Take care!

April 20, 2008

Battle On

Last Monday, the battle began, and no I am not taking abut the battle against finals. No I am talking about the annual battle of the classes in the college of pharmacy. The annual tilt pitted me and my P 1’s against the P2’s and P3’s in a daily “theme” war culminating with the much-anticipated “Spring Games” on Friday. It was a chance for us all to show some spirit and have some fun along the way.

As I mentioned above, each day last week was a “theme” day. Monday was pajama day, and I obliged by wearing my Carolina PJ bottoms to class. Tuesday was Favorite Sports Team Day, which was not hard for me at all. A Cubs jersey and hat took care of my daily spirit. Wednesday was when things started to get real interesting, as our theme was Tacky Day. Seeing as how I am pretty much the world’s sharpest dresser, wearing something tacky was just not going to be able to happen. However, thanks to a little creativity, some masking tape, and a box of thumbtacks, I had my tacky outfit: a simple t-shirt and shorts, complete with that box of tacks taped onto my arm. Thursday was especially fun because it was hat day. For me, hat day is usually every day so I needed to bring my best. Lucky for me I just happened to have a sombrero hanging around (don’t ask me why) and I walked into class complete with a big ol’ sombrero! It was a good thing the people sitting behind me are sort of tall, and were sort of absent, or else they would have had a pretty rough time seeing the front of class.

All of this brings me to Friday, which was class color day. For the P1’s, we had to wear red, which was no problem. The really big deal on Friday was our class picnic, complete with the “spring games,” a competition between the classes. The P2’s were bragging pretty hard since they were the defending champs. I had high hopes for our P1 squad, but after a weak showing in the hoola hoop contest (with no help from me!), an embarrassing exit from the tug of war (you should see the SIZE of those P2’s!), and a heartbreaking loss in our volleyball match, it didn’t take a pharmacist to be able to count our chances of winning as pretty much nothing.

In the end, our class did bring up last place, but most importantly, we all enjoyed ourselves. While there was definitely some good natured ribbing going on, it was all in the spirit of fun and after a long year, or in the case of the P3’s three long years, of pharmacy school, it was great to get out and enjoy ourselves before we jump headfirst into finals. Despite the good fun, I would have liked to have brought home the win, and mark my words, we will be gunning for those P2’s next year! Take care!

April 16, 2008

Nuclear Fun

You are reading that title correctly my loyal blog followers. I had the chance to work in a NUCLEAR lab Tuesday. I must make a couple of things clear, this “nuclear” lab was really just our compounding lab that was set up with 20 stations simulating some situations and information from a nuclear pharmacy lab, and when I say I “worked” I had to do a lab worksheet. Those are just small details, the point is I get to tell you about my nuclear lab experience, but first a little background information.

The world of nuclear pharmacy was new to me before we learned more about it this week, but it is quite interesting. The vast majority is used for diagnostics such as finding out where an infection is deep in your intestine, or for locating a tumor growth. It involves using radioactive tagged drugs that adhere to the “bad” tissue, and using special imagery that picks up the “radioactive markers” in your body.

Very brief and slight boring and confusing background information aside, I was ready to play around with some radioactive material! Not so fast there hot shot, there would be no actual use of radioactivity, but some “fill in”materials designed to simulate actual “nuclear” pharmacy. This particular aspect was fine by me because while I usually leave compounding lab in a glowing mood, I didn’t want to literally leave “glowing” if you get my drift.

The 20 stations in lab consisted of everything from the ever pressing and important radioactive safety to filling orders behind a lead screen, and wrapping pigs. Yes, I said wrapping pigs, but it has nothing to do with what those folks on a farm do. It actually means taking an order that has been placed in a lead safety container, and covering it with a cellophane wrapper that is tamper evident. No slop, no smell, and definitely no actual pigs.

My only problem with the lab experience was how the pharmacist pronounced the world “nuclear” in nuclear pharmacy. If I remember one thing from physics class, it was that our teacher insisted upon our learning of radioactivity that we pronounce “nuclear” correctly. Our pharmacist pronounced it “new-q-ler”. Incorrect. The way it is spelled as well as pronounced “new-cle-er.” If anything it made me feel a little better about all of the other stuff I didn’t know about what we were learning, but I still knew how to pronounce “nuclear.”

By the end of the day I had gained a new appreciation of the exciting world of nuclear pharmacy, gotten a little smarter, remembered the correct pronunciation of “nuclear” and had a new “glow” as I left. All right that last part wasn’t true, but I still really enjoyed the new lab experience. Hopefully you got to learn a little something new about the cutting edge world of nuclear pharmacy, not to mention how to pronounce it correctly. That is all for now folks, that compounding lab’s final is coming up next week and 11 labs won’t learn themselves. Take care!

April 15, 2008

It's Greek To Me

So my last post seemed pretty fun, I mean a night out with my pharmacy school friends. However, the weekend kept getting better as my parents and aunt and uncle made the trek into Columbia! What was the special occasion? Initially when the word came a few weeks ago, I didn’t really know what the hubbub was about. My mom called me and said I had been inducted into something called “Phi Beta Kappa.” In all honesty I didn’t know what it was, and really didn’t plan on joining. I have gotten a lot of offers from Honor Societies that are nothing more than a “paper mill” that give you a certificate and not much else. I enjoy groups like Alpha Lambda Delta, my freshman honor society, because we actually DO things such as community service and other events, so the idea of joining a group that wasn’t worth much didn’t really appeal to me.

When I told my mom I wasn’t really interested she was quite surprised. Didn’t I know that this was the most prestigious honor society? Didn’t I? Well, I didn’t, but was quickly educated. Next up was getting all registered for the induction, which was on Saturday. I had to fill out some forms and make my RSVP for any guests. Initially I had none, and that was not going to be a huge deal. Things changed rather quickly however.

I guess my parents were proud or something, and they really wanted to see my induction. My aunt and uncle were pretty proud of their nephew and wanted a chance to see me get inducted as well. So they changed their minds about coming after I had already sent in my RSVP, but with a quick phone call and a kind word from the head of PBK here at USC, all was set: the family was coming up to see me inducted.

I can’t say the weather was the best on Saturday, but it really had no bearing on the ceremony that was held inside the Russell House ballroom. I just wanted to sneak in a quick weather word, sorry. In any case, with all of us students decked out in shirts, ties, jackets, and dresses (for the record, I was in the shirt and tie, in case you had any doubts) were a part of a lovely ceremony which was followed by a nice reception and LOTS of picture taking, including one with Spurrier! Yes, with former USC PBK president Dr. John Spurrier. Who were you thinking of?

After induction, the five of us enjoyed a fine dinner down in Harbison at the Copper River Grill (I HIGHLY recommend) . Sunday my dad and I got to play a round of gold, and then my mother joined the two of us as well some friends of mine at Yesterday’s for dinner. Monday, my folks and I took a look at my apartment for next year, grabbed some gear at the bookstore, and went our separate ways. While I will be seeing them again in a mere three weeks, it was most certainly a pleasure getting a chance for them to come and sneak in a visit, as I haven’t seen them since January.

Well, such ends my fun-filled weekend, complete with a lesson in the Greek alphabet. I know now that Phi Beta Kappa stands for something pretty important, and that I am part of it now. I hope you had as much fun reading this as I had, well, having fun this weekend. As for now, I must be off to complete oh so many tasks before finals begin to rear their ugly head. Take care!

April 14, 2008

Pharmacy Break

I must begin by apologizing about my recent lack of activity, but this weekend was pretty, as they say, “chocked full of goodness” and I simply did not have the time to put together any blogs. Have no fear though, I am back and have some fun stuff for you. I think I will go ahead and write chronologically over the next two posts. Enjoy!

As I may have alluded to once or twice (please soak in that understatement) pharmacy school is not the easiest endeavor I, or my 109 peers, have undertaken. As such, when we have the opportunity for a break, we make the most of it. Lucky for us, we are in a streak where we have no tests until finals begin, and the free time fun continued as the fine folks at Walgreen’s wanted to reward us for our hard work this year and throw us an “almost end of the year banquet.” When Elliot (our class president) and I got wind of this, we were excited to have the chance to put together our party.

We needed to pick a venue and take care of the logistics, and after some searching the greater Columbia area, we decided upon MacDougal’s, a restaurant located in the Vista. The entire upper floor was reserved just for us pharmies, and we had an unlimited buffet of quesadillas, chicken fingers, and nachos. On top of that, Elliot and our class treasurer/secretary Doni got a couple of cakes decorated in a way that only us pharmacy students could appreciate.

So, this past Friday all of the spread was set up, along with a pool table and all that was missing was our classmates. Not to worry, as right around the 7 o’clock hour our class started drifting in. By 8, we must have had 60 or 70 people upstairs, which is a solid turnout considering all of the other commitments our classmates have in their hectic lives.

I think that the best part of the night was just getting a chance to relax, let our metaphorical hair down and have a chance to socialize outside of the classroom setting. At least I know that I had a chance to visit with classmates I may not have normally chatted with because they sit far away in class (it sounds silly, but a few rows can seem like an eternity away) or maybe they don’t have “perfect attendance.” In any case, between the food, the pool games, and the relaxing social atmosphere, Elliot and I agreed that it was our most successful social event of the year.

Personally, I think it may have been the most fun I have had all semester, outside of studying for all those Medchem tests (insert a sarcastic wink). I hope that we can enjoy ourselves and continue to have outings like that throughout the rest of our time here at the South Carolina College of Pharmacy. I mean, this semester we have gone out to Wild Wings, spent the day running at the Cooper River Run in Charleston, had the banquet, and I believe there is still more to come. More to come Cory you ask? You are darn right, and you better keep it dialed right here for the next week’s worth of news. Take care!

April 10, 2008

Trivia Challenge!

What am I to do with myself? I mean, I don’t have any more tests*. If I am not spending all my nights tucked away at the library or Barnes and Noble Café in the bookstore, where will I be? I mean, some nights I have to umpire, and some nights I have intramurals, but what about those midweek nights with nothing to do but stare at the Cubs game on my computer and slowly weep away my poor team’s struggles? Well, if it was Wednesday night, like last night, I could scoot on over to Jillian’s in the Vista for some trivia!

Ah yes, I am a “smart” guy, why not put it to good use, and enjoy some time with a few friends? What a grand idea! So, that is what myself and three other of my pharmacy school kinfolk did last night. We went to Jillian’s to test our brain’s with some trivia, not to mention get away from the rigors of school and recent posting of our MedChem grades.

Wednesday nights Jillian’s, normally known for its Thursday night shagging, hosts trivia. The way it all works is that you sit together with a team, and first come up with an original and funny name. Our crew was known as “The Drug Dealers, no, really, it’s ok we are in pharmacy school.” What it lacked in being quick and easy to say it more than made up for in hilarity and an accurate description of our team.

I will admit my expectations were high, and we were all in it to win it. None of us had ever been on a winning trivia squad, and we all had a thirst for trivia victory glory. The rounds consisted of 3 questions called out over the restaurant speakers, and responded to by writing our answer on a sheet of paper. There were 6 rounds along with a halftime and final round.

In the interest of time I will just say that we came out hot, and in all told we only missed 3 of the possible 18 total questions ranging from history, to football, and our personal specialty, science. In fact, we were so on our game that going into he last question we held a one-point lead. The final round was a wager of 1 to 15 points depending upon how confident you were in your answer, as an incorrect response would cause a deduction in your wager amount from your point total.

The topic of the final round was football. Normally not too difficult, but one must remember we were a team of “sciency” pharmacy school students. The challenge was to list all 7 Super Bowl champions since the year 2000. Now, for fun you go ahead and try to figure it out (NO GOOGLING DO IT ON YOUR OWN) and try to be the first person to post the correct answer in the comment section, just for a little added fun and competition.

In any case, we were able to confidently arrive at our answer to wager the full 15 points. When we were announced as winner, the “trivia master” didn’t have time to get our whole name out before Ryan was up to collect our prize (thanks in large part to our long name and Ryan’s total lack for speed). Oh ya, I completely forgot to tell you the first place prize: $100! Split four ways into $25 apiece is not a bad for two hours “work.”

So, our first Jillian’s trivia foray was a success and who knows, we might start doing that full time as there is trivia nearly every night at one of the establishments with a in the Vista or down in 5 Points. Regardless of the trivia venue, fun is bound to be found and knowledge will be at a premium. Until next time, I need to figure out how to put this prize money to good use, and don’t forget to come up with that trivia answer! Take care!

*Of course I have more tests, just none until finals. It was a nice thought for a second though

April 06, 2008

A Bridge Too Far

What time did you get up on Saturday? 9, 10 o’clock. Maybe you got up really early, like at 8. Myself, I wanted an early start, so I set the ol’ alarm for 3:45. That is 3:45 AM in case you were wondering. Why such an early start? I needed to get up and going to drive down to Charleston for the 31st annual Cooper River Bridge Run.

So, with barely four hours of sleep under my droopy eyes I drove over to Chad’s apartment and he, his wife and I made the drive down to Charleston. Normally I wouldn’t be getting up that early to run 10k, but this was a special event because for the second year in a row the College of Pharmacy has run as a group, complete with our own t-shirts and post-run party at none other than the Dean’s house!

All of us pharmacy school members met at Dean DiPiro’s house and headed over to the start the run at around 7 in the morning. Once we got there, it was a sight to see around 40,000 other runners, joggers, and walkers, many dressed up in costumes from a banana to a wedding cake! At 8 the race officially began, and with little room to maneuver we were forced to walk for a bit, but then were able to jog it out for about a half mile. At that point a few (untamed) members of our group didn’t want to run, so for the sake of fun (and the fact that certain members had the car keys) we walked the majority of the race, which was alright with me too. The views were breathtaking, especially once on the bridge.

The race ended as we ran along King Street, flanked by all sorts of restaurants tempting me with their aromas, but there would time for eating at the Dean’s house. Once we had finished and gotten back to our car, we drove back to the Dean DiPiro’s house for some relaxation and tasty food!

The spread was fantastic, from burgers to barbeque and all sorts of goodies in between. I think I broke more of a sweat pounding down the food than I did walking the race, but the important thing is that I broke a sweat. Aside from the tasty food, it was fun to see other pharmacy schoolers out of the school element just relaxing and enjoying themselves. It was a fantastic way to socialize, and to top it off several of our professors made the trip to run and over to the Dean’s house. Seeing our Patho teacher just schmoozing around and not teaching us the repertory system was a nice change of pace.

At the end of the day, the rumored rain had held off, we had enjoyed a fun race, and gotten to enjoy ourselves at the Dean’s house. Not to mention we got back to Columbia almost twelve hours to the minute after I had woken up that morning. All in a day’s fun I guess. In any case, I am already looking forward to next year, and (certain members) of our group are determined to run the whole race next year. I can’t wait! Take care!

April 04, 2008

Just Doing My Job

I guess I just should have known better. I guess I could have just let it slide. I could have ignored it, but then I guess I wouldn’t have been doing my job. Maybe I got what I deserved. What is it that I deserved? Well, I am getting into my experience last night umpiring slow pitch softball. However, it was not just ANY slow pitch softball game, it was the first round of the men’s playoffs and from my experience, I know tensions can get tight and emotions can run high. The most important part for me as an umpire is to make sure the game is played fairly so that the skill and play of the two teams determines the winter.

This “making it fair” business brings me to the controversial moment last night. In our intramural league, the bats are provided. However, if you want to spend money on your own, it is no problem…as long as it is an “ASA certified” bat. Now, I will admit we didn’t exactly do a spot on job checking bats at the beginning of the season, but a lot had to do with our lack of an illegal bat list and apathy on the part of some of the umpires/supervisors. This was the playoffs though. And this was Cory Jenks. The game was going to be played fairly under my watch.

So, as the players checked in I asked if they were using their own bats, which they were. I checked them against the illegal bat list, and lo and behold they were illegal! Well, I guess these big hitters didn’t like when I told them that they couldn’t use the bats most of them used all season because they were pretty irked, and they let me hear it. I explained that some umpires didn’t check as thoroughly during the season, but that I check and this was the PLAYOFFS, and we want it to be FAIR. So, they used the bats provided, but I still think they wanted some retaliation if only because of what happened to me during the game.

Anyways, with “bat-gate” out of the way, I took my place behind home plate and play began. It must have been the first inning when a batter took a mighty hack and fouled the ball right back at my head! Lucky for me I have cheetah-like reflexes and was able to dodge the laser beam of a ball. I dusted my self off with no problem and we kept on playing. No big deal, no one hurt, and I didn’t think too much of it.

Two innings later, another batter and another foul shot right back at me. This time I got my head down but put my arm up and the ball dealt a glancing blow. At this point I remarked, “I guess you guys are really angry I wouldn’t let you use those bats?” I then jokingly suggested to our supervisor that intramural sports invest in a mask. Everyone got a chuckle and play resumed with no problems. In fact, one of the guys on the team “Lumber Company” who I know offered his catcher’s mask that he was carrying in his bag. I thanked him but said that I should be all right. As they say, those were some “famous last words” from yours truly.

As luck would have it, that same guy who offered the mask came up in a key situation with men on base and was really looking to lay into one. He laid into that pitch all right, and it came right back at my ol’ noggin. Another dive (I had a dodgeball game earlier in the day and that must have got me warmed up for these foul balls) and another dust off as I had to dive and hit the dirt, but I was all right. Maybe he was trying to tell me something when he offered up the mask?

In any case, the game continued on with minimal controversy and minimal harm to any umpires. I know that those guys were in no way trying, or were they even good enough to foul it back at me on purpose, but I enjoyed the irony of the situation as made the trek back up from the softball field. Is there a lesson in this story? There sure is: you can hit as many foul balls back at me as you want, but if I am umpiring your game, I am going to make you play by the rules. That’s all for now, I have to get outta here, I think there is still some dust left on me from last night. Take care and keep your eye on the ball!

April 01, 2008

What a Knight

At long last the search for Carolina’s new basketball coach to replace Dave Odom has come to an end and I couldn’t be more excited about the pickup. His name: the one and the only *BOBBY KNIGHT. Yes, THAT Bobby Knight. USC could not have picked a more storied coach to come and take over the program.

You really cannot go wrong with a man with such a basketball resume, and to his credit, Knight, who was thought to have softened in a his recent years promises to come back more energetic and invigorated than ever before. While I was watching the press conference, Knight said, “I am here to take charge of USC basketball. I plan on coming in here and throwing chairs and taking names, this is MY team now!” A red faced Knight then amused me and the rest of the crowd watching by grinding the microphone into dust. He then proceeded to our amusement and horror to challenge football coach Steve Spurrier, who was there to support his fellow coach, to a wrestling match on the press conference stage screaming, “I’M THE HEAD BALLCOACH HERE NOW!”

Yes, it seems like the “old” Bobby Knight is back, and as a Carolina basketball fan I cant wait to see him storming up and down the sidelines, screaming at officials, and brining home a championship to the Colonial Center. I think I speak for most Gamecock fans when I say I cant wait for next year’s basketball season!

*April Fools! This story is actually partly true. We did actually hire a new basketball coach, Western Kentucky’s Darrin Horn. He took the Hilltopper’s to the Sweet Sixteen this year, and I am STILL very excited for basketball season next year! Take Care and enjoy your April Fool’s Day!