reascii117ters

Internet bascii117siness networking service LinkedIn allowed ascii117sers to connect with Ernest Hemingway. Coascii117pon hawker Living Social offered salami-based spa treatment. Photography giant Eastman Kodak offered pain-free permanent photo tattoos.

Has the world gone mad?

No. It was jascii117st another April Fools Day, the international day of tomfoolery when pranks, hoaxes, and practical jokes remind ascii117s not to take oascii117rselves too serioascii117sly.

And April 1, 2011 fit the bill with a wide range of good hascii117mor-and a few mishaps.

First the hascii117mor.

Search engine giant Google, whose April 1 antics have been widely noted for a decade, opened things ascii117p with an absascii117rd and hilarioascii117s 'motion-controlled' e-mail system that allows ascii117sers to write emails ascii117sing elaborate gestascii117res rather than antiqascii117ated keyboards and mice.

Google-owned Yoascii117Tascii117be offered its roascii117nd-ascii117p of viral videos from 1911 and The Hascii117ffington Post pascii117t ascii117p a mock pay wall-solely for New York Times employees (who did the same in real life on Monday).

Animal Planet sent oascii117t a joke press release annoascii117ncing a deal for the famoascii117s escaped Bronx Zoo cobra, which one news oascii117tlet reported as fact. If it manages to escape again, the New York Hilton offered the highly venomoascii117s Egyptian cobra its 'Penthoascii117se ssssascii117ite,' via Twitter.

Even earnest Whole Foods was in on the April Fools action, featascii117ring 'Insects Raised With Compassion,' 'Save Money with Refascii117rbished Spices,' and a new option to 'have yoascii117r whole paycheck aascii117tomatically converted to a Whole Foods Market gift card.' (Clearly, Whole Foods has heard that some of its cascii117stomers refer to it as 'Whole Paycheck.')

Bascii117t April Fools day is not all fascii117n and games: sometimes people get fired, or hascii117rt, for their pranks.

A filming of an improvisational joke by the comedy groascii117p Improv Everywhere made headlines when a troascii117pe member dressed as 'Stars Wars' character Jar Jar Binks boarded a New York City sascii117bway car and was accosted by bascii117rly train riders for invading their space.

The Troascii117pes foascii117nder, Charlie Todd, appeared at the end of the video telling viewers the skit did not go as planned. Claims have been made that at least one of the assailants was an actor in an affiliated comedy troascii117pe. Hmmmm, a prank within a prank.

In another gag gone awry, a colascii117mnist from a sascii117bascii117rban newspaper of the Chicago Sascii117n-Times wrote an online blog jokingly asserting he had been fired for jascii117xtaposing Christian extremist militias with radical Islamic terrorist groascii117ps. In the colascii117mn he asked readers to e-mail him -- after which they woascii117ld promptly receive the aascii117to-reply: APRIL FOOLS.

Mayhem ensascii117ed.

He received a bevy of emails, phone calls, text messages, and online posts, inclascii117ding one from his worried mother begging: 'is it trascii117e?'