> Pets are amazing companions. I encourage you to visit your local
> animal rescue shelter and adopt a pet of your own.

Too dangerous:

https://www.xkcd.com/c231.html

cute. I have a dog (from a rescure home) & a cat. The cat came first and I sometimes wish that I'd just stuck to the cat! It's not much fun taking the dog out for a walk and getting caught in a downpour :(

Off on a tangent: was your site hacked or was it an April Fools joke? If the latter, it had me fooled.

If you came to this entry directly, be sure to visit the main page today, too.

https://www.codinghorror.com/blog/

What's with all the adds Jeff?

Yeah, i thought you had forgotten to renew your domain name and someone managed to stole it or something.

Yup, got me fooled too.

Looks like your new ads are trying to spoof Adblock Plus. When I try to Block Link, it shows something like the Wikipedia address with "/April Fool's Day" tacked on. I had to block all of them with just Block Image.

Sorry to see you had to add ads.

great article as usual. Made my day.

Btw, first ads if seen since using AdBlockPlus.

lol, great prank Jeff :)

It's April 1st folks. You know, "April Fools Day". The ads are obviously a prank.

TMI, not about the cats but about you only vacuuming once a month!

After writing my earlier comment about your ads and Adblock Plus, I got up and performed my morning ablutions. During the process, my brain cell finally fired and I figured out that it was an April Fools joke. But, Jeff, for a joke to be funny, it has to be sprung. Most people will either passively ignore an ad or actively defeat it. Only a very small minority will be "caught" by it. After all, when Bart Simpson put Homer's beer into the paint mixing machine and then put it back in the refrigerator as a prank (darn, that was funny), the resulting nuclear explosion made it obvious that a joke had been sprung. If he had done something with liver or broccoli instead, Homer would have just ignored it and the joke would have fizzled.

Anyway, "ha, ha."

as my wife will want to know, are the cats fixed?

Can't talk now, Mr. Man says I need to buy this miracle belt thingy to tone my abs.

Very funny with the ads. Except i almost bought something. LOL, i just noticed another commenter with the same problem.

It was an obvious April Fool's Joke, because it lacks the <b>trademark, passive agressive bolding</b>.

... you have to be careful with jokes, my first reaction was - crap, he's gone to the dark side, guess I can knock this one off the bookmarks list - I'm out of here.

glad I decided to read the comments, I'd hate to have to give up my daily read :(

adds really are ugly.

--
Dave

were do I go to pick up the plasma I won? mail me the $20 I caught that monkey,I have adopted dog's and a cat and the 8 lbs cat boss's the 165 lbs mastiff and they both go for walks together.

It should have stayed in bed but I just had read your blog now I feel so ashamed?? were are all fixed.Thanks for asking.

Keep up the Great work,

Haha april fools very funny.

You had me for a minute or two with the ads and all.

Wait, it's a joke? But I really do want firm, tight, strong, toned, abs! Where do I send my money?

What? An april fool's prank? You mean those abs aren't yours Jeff??

"as my wife will want to know, are the cats fixed?"

Fixed? They seem to be working just fine to me!

brilliant. simply brilliant.

What, no spyware scan popups? :p

<3 the kitties!

Awww your cats are adorable! I'm not a programmer, but my boyfriend is! He gave me the link to this blog when he saw you were talking about your cats. I Love cats (and all animals, but I find cats suit my personality better!) We also own two cats, both are long haired so I hear ya about vaccuuming! And like Elsie, our Tiana loves to open cupboards, closets, wardropes and hide in them! I laughed when you talked about child locks! We bought them too (but have yet to install them!).

Cute cat! I like this cats. =]
hehe, It's Best April Fool Joke that I seed today.
(Sorry my english, I'm to tired to remember how to spell some words..)

I am an animal lover too, especially cats. I think I love cats the most when they are tenderly cooked in a crock pot, bathed in zesty seasonings and smothered in my favorite barbeque sauce. I guess I would avoid eating them if I had a problem with rodents, because at that point they would be somewhat useful. Other than that, they are pretty much large rats. If I had a choice between eating a cow and a cat, I would probably choose the cat because cattle are SOOO cute!

Sorry Jeff, I read your blog regularly, and the ads not only pissed me off, they were crashing my preferred browser. I figured you were hacked, or were making some sort of traffic point and completely missed the April Fools aspect until reading the comments. Hope you take the ads out of this entry tomorrow.

Haha cice selection ! I think the Condoleza Rice poll tops it all by its absurdity.

yay cat posts.

Now you just need to lolcats them up:
https://engtech.wordpress.com/2007/04/01/how-to-create-lolcats-aka-memecat-aka-kittah-aka-cat-macros/

...so for April Fools you decided to mirror CuteOverload? ;-)

I was expecting some sort of April Fool's joke on my various regular Web sites and Jeff's was the only one that came through for me.

Way to go! This was funny stuff, Jeff; I am amazed at how people's hatred of advertising almost made them miss the joke.

I like some of the articles that you post, however I must remove this site from my favorites, and never again visit. The problem comes from you having far too many adds. Yes I know you want to have the site pay for itself, and maybe make a buck. However there is a huge banner on the left hand side offering me a free tv. It flashes black and white like a strobe, I can't even begin to take any of the information seriously because that makes your site look like total trash. Any site with this many adds I usually disregard as garbage. I suggest you pick and choose who you advertise for, the adds you choose represent who you are, and what you are presenting to the public.

hahahaha!!
Good one! :-)
Man, I hope some of these people realize it was April Fools day... maybe they are playing a joke too! *optimism*

No, you don't understand... have you not been paying attention to his previous few posts about bandwidth... THIS IS REAL!!!! The ads are taking over! *twiddles thumbs while wearing an aluminum hat*

Last night (this morning I guess) after midnight I navigated here and got a 404 not found. I thought that was the joke :)

That's pretty clever. :)

So was the post about the cats true? I used to think cats were attention starved when I was trying to use my computer. Then I had kids...

Proud owner/parent of...

4 shetland sheepdogs - 2 of which are rescues
2 cats
4 guinea pigs - 1 of which is a rescue, and 2 of which were gestating in the rescue when we adopted her
2 turtles
1 toddler boy
1 infant boy

How successful were the adverts? Did you make much money? I'm worried that they could come back!

Fish are the ultimate pet for the truly lazy. Bob and Cornelius Maximus Wilmington the 4th, our goldfish, rock!

People seem to have to have missed the joke.

Look at the screenshot, and check out the last add for Dice.

There's an assignment being done in the if statement!! It means that the salary will always suck! Hilarious! :)

kitties!!! kawaii!!!

do cats cause malfunction in pc's? 'cuz i heard their fur can damage some parts of the pc's...

Was I the only one who saw the site hacked?
When I went to the /blog url I got a 404 - File Not Found. Going straight to the codinghorror url took me to what looked like a server setup website (all the links worked to setup screens) and in the middle of the screen was a login box that said something like:

Username: h*a*c*k*e*d
Server: Choose a better password :)

I thought this was the april fool but there's been no mention of it at all? I'm in the UK and it was around 10am - Midday (ish) that the site was like this.

Get a Roomba for the hair :-)

You know, I didn't even care that it was April Fool's Day until about ten o'clock at night, and then I realized that I'd completely forgotten about it. I had like ten opportunities to royally prank someone. Oh well.

Your cats are beautiful! Thanks for sharing.

And the joke with advertising was cool too.

I can't overestimate how much ad-killers of the firewall and browser help! Sometimes for special very rare occasions I switch them off, and when I forget to switch them back on and go to the web, it's a real shock!

Hey, great cats! But, where's your CueCat?

I do have a USB CueCat as well.. :)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CueCat

Jeff,

Great April Fools. I will admit I was gulled for a bit by it [though without the advertising which would have set me right].

Your post is my cats to a "T", btw. Cats are definitely A+ for coders, IMO.

.. now back to software engineering, please. =)

I missed this on April Fool's day, sadly, but I'm glad it's stayed in the archive - the text was beautifully done in terms of the 'oh no cat post' style and more importantly your furry friends are damn cute - geeks and cats seem to be a common thing and given there're four resident here I'm glad for a chance to see your pets.

Maybe we should start a 'pictures only' cat post meme or something :)

Hey Jeff,

My wife and I rescued a kitty from Snowflake in Raleigh, too. She's a 15-lb beast, though.

-N

my cat lost 9057141436

Wow!! Your cats are really beautiful!!... I remember when I had my first litter of four kittens [they were 4 days old, more or less] and the older kitty [Dora] had such a loud Prrr that she didn't let my sister sleep until the little kitty did it first! The funniest is that she used to sleep in my face, next to my ear, but i got used to easily and generaly sleep before her [I'm talking about Dora, not of my sister! hahaha].

Now I have two little kitties and they have a "normal" Prrr... But you must see them!! They have to be stick together all the time! they can't be separated!

By the way. Take care of them.

Nice story.

Have a Nice day!!!! [Greetings from Mexico, huhuhu]

I hate cats.