Okay, so I know it’s an April Fool’s joke…but it’s a pretty good one-

Google had this linked on their homepage today.

Apparently, Google labs developed the first AI that can reply to your emails for you, and will bring together all Google products under one furry fist.

And furry, I say, because the AI is calling itself CADIE, and CADIE’s avatar is a panda.

If you click through to CADIE’s homepage you get exactly what I’d expect from a AI made to take the aggregate of the interwebs, distill it, and throw it back up at us-

Pandas, tiled backgrounds, typos, and a disturbingly infectious soundtrack.  EVEN BETTER- there’s CADIE’s youtube channel where Google’s new Master Control has been making pronouncements for the last couple of days.  Best yet was CADIE’s mash-up of the powering down of the HAL 9000 from 2001 and Roy Batty’s end monologue from BLADE RUNNER.  Special shout out to Tad Zonday!

Pretty damn funny.  Now, I know it’s a calculated act by Google to try to be funny and engender more good will from their users…but it doesn’t mean it isn’t good.

That combined with the constant ads from ABC Pest and Lawn on AM590 here in Austin today- with them promising to get rid of Austin’s ‘Sasquatch problem’ and to ‘release them back to Oklahoma’ and Car and Driver’s online report that the Obama Administration is requiring GM to pull out of NASCAR if they want to take any more government money…it’s been a pretty good day here in Nakatomi land.

Hmm…at least I think that NASCAR thing was a fake…that’s actually a pretty good idea.  Why am I spending my money for Ford to keep the mullet-bedecked entertained?

-alex fugazi