Important Announcement

[Killakoala]

Who's Maxwell?

It looks like i missed all the fun

[kipper]

Gary, that's why I posted because I saw Birddog took it to heart. Otherwise I wouldn't have jogged peoples memories

[johndec]

Dear Dr Evil and Mini-Me.....

I've been busy/away a bit lately and haven't had much time to post, but I logged on about 8am and looked at the screen and went WTF!! Next I looked at the calender on the wall and all became clear

Well done boys, it was an absolute classic. The furious indignation was hilarious. Special mention to MCWB, his post out April-fooled the April foolers It sucked me in until wiser heads pointed out the finer points of his post

[Matt. K]

Gary
Sublime. Wicked. Twisted. brilliant. Sucked me in hook, line, etc. Now if only you could redirect Maxwells incoming mail to the forum?

[leek]

I think that once the post has been made, it'll get into the feed, at least for a while: do you see one from Deano at around 1 a.m. this morning?

Gary, Straight after your announcement, I saw:

Hmmmm... Looks like today's the day.....

ROFLMAO (full version)

Which I didn't get at first...

but the one that did it was:

Could this be the result of Mr Stark's wicked sense of humour and the date, perchance?

I didn't see the full job you'd done on the site until I arrived at work... Very well done...

Now that I know that Birdy wasn't in on the joke - I can imagine that he almost had several kittens... I'm amazed that you didn't get a stronger reaction in fact...

A lot of fun...

See everyone tomorrow - same time, same place, same name...

[xorl]

Now if only you could redirect Maxwells incoming mail to the forum?

Nah, I don't think it would be much fun be to read the flood of hate mail they must receive.

[christiand]

I couldn't login until after 13:00.
That wasn't a big deal.
Then I slowly got to read the messages and didn't quickly enough comprehend what was going on.
It was according to my perception quite similar to a crisis; chaos and panic was upon me and others.
I also found out that my blood pressure pills ARE working (just).
How ?, because I'm still here to give you my account.
I wasn't happy to see some (I admit it was only a few but never the less) responses that I believe originated from members being hurt.
These members may have recovered but hurt I believe shouldn't be part of a joke.

These are my 2 cents about ageing two years in one day.

Cheers
CD

[Nnnnsic]

Oh man... has this been a fun day.

I was laughing my arse off the entire morning.

Dad probably wasn't aware of how much I was trying to extend the joke by feigning knowledge and access at the time through the other threads people started about it that I had to lock...

... but it was quite a lot of fun from my point of view.

I apologise to those who got genuinely hurt by what we did. It wasn't our intention to make you think we deserted you...

What we did want to do was... I'm going to be as frank as I can (and since I'm a direct FUDmin, I think I will)... well, our intention plain and simple was to screw with your minds.

And for a lot of people, we did.

I can honestly tell you that it was made all the more better and juicy by people throughout the morning claiming it was a joke and then rolling back over and saying "But wait, is it?"

April Fools Day has a long standing tradition in our home, actually.
Up till this year, every time I've been conscious of an April Fools Day, Dad has honestly tricked me well and truly.

According to Dad, this year I "distracted" him.

In a way, it really does suck for a lot of people who don't like or can't understand the weird and twisted and warped sense of humour that someone from our family tends to possess. Unfortunately, with two of them running this board, I can only give you one piece of advice: get used to it.

We ain't goin' nowhere.

[leek]

In a way, it really does suck for a lot of people who don't like or can't understand the weird and twisted and warped sense of humour that someone from our family tends to possess.

Rest assured - it ain't that weird or twisted a sense of humour... it seems pretty healthy to me... Today was a fabulous effort though...
Well done...

P.S. that was me that rang up the number and hang up... just to see what you had done... (Nice accent!) BTW... I have a great idea for next (or subsequent) year ... I'll share it with you when I see you next...

[Nnnnsic]

Much appreciated.

There was actually a conversation at Birddog's earlier on in the year about possible April Fools jokes. Those who were involved in the conversation... if you still remember what was involved in that conversation... don't tell anyone.

Some of the concepts are already in the pipeline and may pop up in the near future.

That's all I'm saying.

[Greg B]

but the one that did it was:

Could this be the result of Mr Stark's wicked sense of humour and the date, perchance?

Yes, I had just woken up, saw the site and posted that without thinking. Matt C pointed out that it would spoil the fun so I deleted my and his posts straight away, didn't even think about the RSS feeds, nothing I could do anyway.

My immediate reaction was
Gary + Maxwells + 1 April = yeah sure

Anyway, thanks to Matt C, I hate being a spoil sport, and it would have been a shame to miss the indignation.

Gary and Leigh are formidable pranksters.

[MattC]

Greg,

Yep, it was a heap if fun. At one stage there were so many posts being deleted that the thread was changing everytime I hit the refresh button. It was bizarre. I really enjoyed watching those reactions this morning, although some, like Birddog seemed to be genuinely hurt. I have to admit though that it was next to impossible to guess who was playing the game and who was genuine.

The whole thing started for me prior to the page coming up. I had been doing some substantial work on my router/firewall configuration during the night and could not figure out why my system was trying to resolve maxwell.d70users. I thought that I seriously screwed something up. When I finally managed to load the page it took about 10 minutes. The tell was the old Maxwell page - the one that they took down a few months ago - and the fact that it was April 1 of course.

On a side note, there has been a flurry of activity online concerning the d50 and d70s. I could not help but wonder if it was more of the same because all of those info sources were posted last night.

My congratulations to Gary and Leigh.

Cheers

Matt

[Nnnnsic]

Actually Matt, that page was based off of the current Maxwell page... I know this because I only did it this week.

[sheepie]

I gotta say well done guys - you got me well and truly. As I said, last time I go posting anything when I'm still half asleep (which makes me wonder whether I should be posting now!).

What does disappoint (and worry) me a little, is the number of posts which - rather than being concerned about Birddogs reaction from a point of view of a valuable member of this community - seemed to be more concerned about the potential loss of 'special prices' he has been able to bring us.

I hope these posts were simply poorly worded, rather than being a reflection of people's true feelings.

My first response when I read Birddogs reaction was (and I guess this is the main reason I posted at that time) that it would be a great shame if he felt so disappointed in the decision that he would loose interest. He is so much more to this forum than simply a middle man obtaining good prices.

Anyway, that's my five cents worth (NZ$0.05 of course, which apart from being worth less than AUD$0.05, is about to be redundant - does that make my opinion redundant? hrmmmm ).

Again, well done Gary and Leigh - will be on the lookout for this in the future (you'll still get me then though - guarantee it!).

[leek]

What does disappoint (and worry) me a little, is the number of posts which - rather than being concerned about Birddogs reaction from a point of view of a valuable member of this community - seemed to be more concerned about the potential loss of 'special prices' he has been able to bring us.

I hope these posts were simply poorly worded, rather than being a reflection of people's true feelings.

My first response when I read Birddogs reaction was (and I guess this is the main reason I posted at that time) that it would be a great shame if he felt so disappointed in the decision that he would loose interest. He is so much more to this forum than simply a middle man obtaining good prices.

Hi Leon,

I noticed something similar this morning and was also quite disappointed at first, but think that it was more a reaction to the (apparent) commercial arrangement that Gary & Leigh had struck with Maxwell's rather than any other intent...

The message that was being spread seemed to contradict / preclude the sort of unending personal service / import / discount / knowledge-based arrangements that have been achieved for the current forum members by Birddog...

I'm sure that if the April 1st story had proven to be true... we (including BD) would all be elsewhere by now (or very soon)...
If d70users.com had indeed become maxwell.d70users.com, we wouldn't have valued him or his dear family any less and would be still acting as a true community...

[birddog114]

Yes, it was hurt very much! It touched my nerves
Once I lived and giving all of my efforts to build a better community which I think a safe and enjoying spot for all friends and comrades to join and sharing our interest, but suddenly it felt off the track and gone into the hands of the big fat cat, what was my thought, and here were my first words before I typed and submitted:
"Damm it! happenned again, It's Mourning April!" " The Betrayal"

The April months brought back to me many memories which 30 years ago I and many of my colleagues, comrades lost all their earning and saving, which were built up by us, the young generation at that time.
The cause was the betrayal of politicians, I was 24 at that time and was captured since Xmas after my A/C was hit by SA-7 HeatSeeker shoulder launch missile in an support operation to the ground troop.

Good works Gary & Leigh!

[Raydar]

Well done Gary!!!!
That's about all I can say

Cheers
Ray

[SoCal Steve]

I have to say that Gary did a bang up job carrying out this April Fool's Day prank.

The Maxwells homepage for the forum was VERY convincing! and actually pretty damn attractive. I bought into it and was just keeping my fingers and toes crossed that the newcomers that would inevitably flood the group would act in an appropriate manner and not foul the air in here! Note to Gary: You might want to keep that new look. It was pretty nice.

I agree completely with the signature line of one of the members that states something like 'He who learns to laugh at himself will be constantly amused.' Bring on the funny!

[Nnnnsic]

This thread has been nominated by me as the best all time thread.

[boxerboy]

I was at work watching the goings on, but was in a situation where I couldn't post my thoughts . I've got to say they weren't too complimentary. It took quite a while for me to twig to what was going on, so I was FOOLED there for a while. Birddog's post was priceless. Well done Gary and Leigh, it appears you can fool most of the people some of the time!

Cheers
Peter

[Deano]

I agree with the person who talked (typed?) about a roller coaster ride of emotion. I went back to read the thread from the beginning and started with a chuckle at MCWB's effort and then a tear when I read Birddog's heart felt reaction.

Well done guys.

Cheers
Dean

[sheepie]

Do we all think Gary should now change the message on the main page???

I've had enough of being reminded of this, and Maxwells might come along one day and actually believe what's written!

[MHD]

YES

[christiand]

Ja, ganz bestimmt !

yes, indeed !

Cheers
CD

[gstark]

You mean I've got to think of something new to replace it with then?

Damn!

Give me a few hours to come with something appropriate then.