Yes, it was an April Fool’s joke. I’m surprised it fooled so many people for so long. Believe it or not, GreyStork and I weren’t in cahoots—he saw an opportunity to get in on the gag and did so, and it helped boost the illusion of reality by suggesting that there was a security hole in Poseidon.

Sadly, this caused Matt and Felicity to worry about the safety of their own server. To be safe, Matt took Felicity’s and Lillis’s Poseidon blogs down until I admitted it was a joke. But everyone was a good sport, and Felicity even played along, claiming that Matt had found and fixed the vulnerability, thus explaining her site’s reappearance. Today really is wonko.com’s fifth birthday, though. I promise.

It was all in good fun, and hopefully nobody got embarrassed. The universe did even out my indulgence with some good old-fashioned karmic retribution, so hopefully the following account of my day will please those of you who fell for the gag.

I rode the light-rail to work again today (still no car). Shortly after noon, the dealership called and said my car was back from the body shop, but they were still waiting on a part for something or other, so they’d need to keep it yet another day. This was inconvenient, to say the least, because I needed my car in order to get to Matt and Felicity’s house to play Exalted.

So I bought a bike.

I’d been meaning to buy a bike anyway, and there’s a good bike shop across the parking lot from where I work, so I went and bought one. This was a fun experience, since I know nothing at all about bikes except what I learned when I was a kid, which was that the pedals make you go forward and the brakes make you stop, and falling off usually hurts.

“I need a bike,” I said.

“You’ve come to the right place,” they said.

I came across as a complete mark, no doubt, since I know nothing about bikes and I don’t tend to be picky when I shop. I bought a nice bike, lights, a helmet, and a lock. Then I rode it to Matt and Felicity’s house and was reminded of how little physical activity I’ve done in the past few years.

But wait, there’s more! In between buying a bike and riding it to M & F’s, my boss’s laptop decided to throw a hard drive. Just in time for his big business trip on Monday. So there was much diagnosing of problems and calling of tech support and arranging for a new hard drive to be sent (IBM’s phone support isn’t that bad, thankfully, and they didn’t seem to be in India.). Tomorrow will be spent recovering data and rigging up my laptop as a replacement for the trip.

My legs are sore, my back is sore, my arms are sore, my hands are full of hate (as usual), and I’m crazy tired, but I’m happy. The day may not have been wholly enjoyable, but it was interesting at least, and that’s a big change for me. Also, Matt’s Exalted session was extra fun and Felicity made pancakes and fruit salad and there was real maple syrup.