One thing I’ve learned through years of full-contact martial arts is, the best time to punch somebody in the face is when they aren’t expecting to get punched in the face.

Which, in short, is the problem with April Fool’s Day. Because people have their guards up, April Fool’s pranks almost never actually ‘fool’ anybody. And, as a result, most trouble-makers have stopped even really trying, allowing their attempts to veer out of the realm of true pranking, and into the world of satire.

Granted, there’s an excellent array of such April Fool’s Day 2005 satire currently floating the Internets. And, granted, in year’s past, I’ve pepetrated such digital shenanigans myself. But, this year, I’m not pulling anything today. Honest.

I am, however, throwing down an April Fool’s I.O.U.: an obligation to pull a prank, a real prank, later this month. Though the one I have in mind will take place in the real world, over the course of several weeks, I promise I’ll journal it all up online as soon as it’s done. And I promise it’ll be way better than whatever one-page wonder I might have otherwise made out of s-a.com.

This will be good. No fooling.