Lady of the lake

Being that the sun saw fit to shine on Madison today, I decided that a good photo walk was in order. Frankly, I've been neglecting my poor Nikon for far too long, and the city in winter offers plenty of picturesque scenes to be captured, especially if a person knows where to look.

A little bird told me that Lady Liberty had just risen again on Lake Mendota. This has become a sort of annual tradition, started way back in the prehistory of 1979 when the now infamous Pail and Shovel Party won a spot in student government. I'm not sure if the old gal has gone up every year since then, edit: Letter From Here has the correct story on this.

Sure enough, when I walked out onto the snowy, quiet UW Terrace earlier today, there was the head of Lady Liberty sunk up to her nose in the icy surface of Lake Mendota. She wasn't quite finished, but I took her portrait anyway.

(you can see the rest of the set at my Flickr page)

Happy Julian New Year, all you April Fools!

Don't forget to vote today!

The origin of April Fools Day is somewhat shrouded in complexity and mystery, but the general idea seems to come from very old celebrations of the vernal equinox. Back in the bad ol' days, the coming of spring also marked the start of a new year according to the Julian calendar. When various nations began to officially mark the new year on January 1st, instead (especially so when the Gregorian calendar was instituted in 1582), those people who continued to celebrate on/around the first of April began to be referred to as "April Fools." Pranks were played, and a new tradition was born.

Some pretty amazing jokes have come of April Fools' past, including a few that swept up significantly large numbers of poor, gullible souls who believed them to be true.

Two of my favorite pranks of years past:
The Independence of the Island Nation of San Serriffe
Spaghetti Trees

Current (awesome) online pranks:
Youtube wants you to roll with Rick (click on any of the Featured Videos)
Google and Virgin want to settle on Mars
dane101.com, now a wholly owned subsidiary of Myspace.com (this one is just plain mean)

Found any others? Let me know!

And be sure to thoroughly investigate all milk cartons before drinking and salt shaker tops before pouring. C'mon, don't be a foo'.

EDIT TO ADD: Just noticed good old madison.com is getting in on the action, and in a predictably Wisconsin-ish manner.

The Badger Herald is up to their old tricks, breaking out the Dirty Bird for another run.