Fool.

(Tangentially speaking, I post a lot about library patrons, and that suddenly struck me as weird.)

I'm gullible. April Fool's is not a good holiday for gullible people. I have to give props to Google for pulling another number this year.

Last year, they had a link on the log-in page to some new feature of Gmail--you can print all of your e-mails for free! How? Well, it's paid for by the ads that are on the back of the paper.

It sounded totally legitimate to me and I was excited to utilize this service, until the next day there was some kind of retraction and I realized I'd had the wool pulled over my eyes. (Is that the right expression?)

Then this year, there's this thing called "Gmail Custom Time." Here's what it says on the sign-in page:

Pre-date your messages
You tell us what time you would have wanted your email sent, and we'll take care of the rest. Need an email to arrive 6 hours ago? No problem.

Mark as read or unread
Take sending emails to the past one step further. We let you make emails look like they've been read all along.

Make them count
Use your custom time stamped messages wisely -- each Gmail user gets ten per year.

Worry less
Forget your finance reports. Forget your anniversary. We'll make it look like you remembered.


I was almost fooled again, but looking into it a little more, I realized it was obviously a joke. Of course it's a joke. But really, they probably could've done the same thing they did last year and I would've believed it again. Or at least, almost believed it.