Including yesterday:
April first was not merely my biggest day (in terms of blog hits) ever, by a factor of five, but it was also my biggest month. In one day, I beat any previous thirty.
I thank all the commenters for their kind words. I know I am flattered that a handful of people thought it might be possible that I am PZ; I hope he was flattered as well. I also thank the many of you who did know it all along, but who played along anyway just for fun.
I also found out that it makes me very uncomfortable to lie to you. Yes, it was a silly April Fool's prank, but I still apologize to you for abusing your trust, and I hope you can forgive me. And PZ, as well, although, as it turns out, I can't speak for him.
Posts
43 comments:
As I said before, I knew all along!
(/barefaced, pathological liar)
That's why you've got a tentacled cluster. Your graphs are also an excellent example of why people use logs axes for graphing.
Caz fans
Cuttlefish -- I think that ongoing you will be getting more hits...I for one did not know about your blog until yesterday, but I find your poems and verse beautifully insightful and a real pleasure to read. You have a lot of talent.
In retaliation for being tricked I'm adding you to my blogroll.
You both played it excellently!
I feel better knowing I finally managed to get pranked yesterday. April 1st is a lot more fun if someone actually gets one over on ya.
Well done :)
I wasn't sure, but I'm glad it is the way it is. I was having a very difficult time merging my perceptions of the two. It just didn't fit, and I like it better having both a PZ and a Cuttlefish, rather than a mash-up.
I wasn't sure if I should or should not have believed, but in either case I was happy to discover your blog. Your rhymes always make me smile when they show up in PZ's comment threads, so it's great to find more of your words, both poetry and prose :)
You both played it well. I will admit to feeling some relief that you and pz are two different folks.
It was one of the more amusing April Fools jokes on the net.
Also, amusing enough, the Google Word Verification to leave this comment was 'conched'.
Dear DC,
I have to admit that I'm quite relieved. I was convinced it was a prank, but worried it might not be. You see, I love PZ's blog too, but there I'm just one of many, many thousands of readers. Here I feel much more special. I'm happy that your traffic spiked for a day, but I'm (not so) secretly hoping it goes way back down. Sorry about that.
I thought it was brilliant. :)
I'm just too trusting! I believed PZ.
I've occasionally had a mad spike like that: someone Diggs or Stumbles-upon an article, and then suddenly I have 12,000 hits instead of 150 of which I guess 90% are spam crawlers.
Next time, leave through the right window, and it won't bother you at all.
-Standard Curve
I still <3 you, Cuttlefish. :)
I'll flatter you in the other direction: Even though I didn't comment on it at Pharyngula, I never took seriously the idea this might not be a prank, and not because I thought it unlikely you could be PZ. Instead, I thought it unlikely that PZ could be you: Brilliant as he is, I doubted that PZ, his life busy with so many other pursuits and disciplines, could have developed the absolute mastery of so many different verse forms that you display. Lots of people try to comment in verse, but anyone who doesn't really know his/her shit WRT prosody (which is to say, nearly everyone) breaks the form or trips over the scansion at some point. You never do. I'm willing to bet that your real-world "secret identity" -- the Clark Kent to Cuttlefish's Superman -- is someone who writes, or perhaps teaches, "real" poetry.
You'd lose that bet, Bill!
By the time I was back online yesterday, it was pretty much all over. $HERSELF told me on the way home that I absolutely had to read Pharyngula, but I skipped PZ for checking my feeds -- which include you but not him.
I won't claim I seriously knew but the dog that didn't bark got me doubting: no mention at PZ's of a family tragedy. Hard to miss that one.
Besides, I like the world with you in it.
At first I thought how cool to wish
That PZ is the Cuttlefish.
But I decline; it's Nature's trick:
Just look at that there hockey stick!
You'd lose that bet, Bill!
Really? I'm surprised. Of course, it's what you would say, in any case, to throw us bulldogs off the scent! ;^)
But seriously, I hope you'll take my losing bet as the compliment I meant it to be: You really do amaze me.
Oh, I am indeed flattered! But I would never guess a versifier to be a real-world poet, simply because real-world poets these days don't deal in rhyme and meter very much. Or at least my kind.
because real-world poets these days don't deal in rhyme and meter very much
Frankly, that's what turns me off to most modern poetry. I find rhyme and meter necessary to my enjoyment of a poem. Keep up the good work!
Congrats on the awesome traffic.
Kriss
real-world poets these days don't deal in rhyme and meter very much
'Tis a conundrum: "Real" don't much want to traffic in rhyme and meter (nevermind specific forms such as double-dactyls and such), and hardly anybody else knows how to. One way or the other, you're an outlier... but then, the author of this blog would be an outlier in any case. ;^)
BTW, my praise of you no doubt needs to be extended to some very good, and inspirational, English teacher in your past.
Urrk!
In my last,
..."Real" don't much...
should obviously have been:
..."Real" poets don't much...
[sigh]
Well played. I'm glad to have found your site, and I think I'll keep visiting.
Who cares who yo are? I came here from Pharyngula, found Mikado-meets-xkcd and fell in love.
Thank you for existing.
Beloved Cuttlefish, beauteous Cuttlefish, You are the Goddess of Poetry. Long may your skilled tentacles write wisdom for us.
Well shoot. Wish I could say that I knew all along. I suspected from the beginning, but in the end I let myself get fooled. It was funny to imagine PZ being embarrassed to reveal his creative and poetic side, hiding behind a pseudonym, donning a beret and typing away at some haiku or iambic pentameter.
It was a well executed April Fool's prank. I wasn't sure to feel about it yesterday. Today, I'm glad to have the Cuttlefish back.
This was quite possibly the best prank on the intertoobz. No guilt! Just sit back and enjoy the satisfaction of a prank well pranked. And thanks for all the fun!
I will never forgive you and will never ever visit your blog.
Not ever.
Well the joke's on you, 'cause now I'm going to keep reading your blog! Bwahaha!
Curses! Foiled again!
And I'd have made it, too, if it weren't for those meddling kids!
I blame pz. I actually added you to my daily reads now :)
Nice hoax, and well executed, except you caused me to unleash my inner doggerelist (twice), which may not have been a completely good thing. So today, whilst mowing the lawn (and with no particular reason to be thinking of this particular internet legend), I'd come up with ...
At Duke there's a student
(Behaviour imprudent)
Whose extracurricular activities
Now typed-up in Pow'rpoint
(With headings in bold font!)
Attest to libido that's eager to please!
You say it's immoral?
Well with that, I'd quarrel!
[something something mutter mutter, it goes on ...]
Are you happy now? ARE YOU HAPPY NOW??!
I blame being raised on Dr Suess, Tennyson, and Walter de la Mare ... oh, and you ... *scowl*.
You'll both still get my traffic, though. ;-)
I should probably explain that "imprudent" was sending the .ppt to friends. The internetz are leaky, after all ....
I am de-lurking to say this has to be the best resolution of an April Fool's prank ever.
I am very, very glad you are not P.Z. because, nice as he is (I've met him) I would really prefer you to be someone else! That way, there is another awesome person out there I have yet to meet…
Keep on doing what you do so brilliantly! ^_^
I love ya both, but you have very different ways of using language. Words are a writer's fingerprints, and I thought the whole thing was implausible before the first response to him reminded me of the date. Nevertheless, it was clever with you playing along. Was that part worked out in advance, or did you see his post and decide to run with it?
btw, I'm surprised you have low traffic; I think of you as the poet laureate of science and secular progressives.
Nevermind my question-- I read further down the comments on Pharyngula and see you delved into the development of the prank.
Top. Stuff.
I'll just re-adjust everything I thought I knew about everything. Again.
De-lurking to say that I, too, loved this prank. I had a blast reading the comments at both sites and watching the debate unfold as to whether it was a joke or not. Great job!
Rikitiki said:
Oh, fish of cuttle, digital,
I love to read your rhymes:
So humourously critical
And trenchant to our times.
'Tis quite uncommon nowadays
To read such metered poems,
So, keep it up you scalawag
And we'll not far off roam.
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