Thanks everyone, the fools who fell for it and the fools who didn’t, for playing along with Banana Jr’s and my April Fool’s gag this year. When I finished my draft of the fake newsletter, I read it first to my roommate and she was skeptical that I had gone too over the top. That is until I pulled up a random Match to the Flame post from Tom’s blog and read it aloud.
She agreed it was closeish enough to maybe fool people on first glance. Like a stunt double. And Banana Jr’s great narrative and staging provided the heart pounding action to hopefully keep readers from focusing too hard on the fact that The Rock in that short scene has a less pointy head that usual.
As Epicus put in in the comments a few days ago “No one else writes like BatHam writes, and I don’t think anyone could, no matter how hard they tried.”
The newsletter had a combination of made up and real facts. So I want a few solid clarifications before any of these made up facts in the post morph, through the power of Poe’s Law, into Batiuk trivia canon.
Batiuk HAS told us we’re getting a Blue Bombers and Wedding storyline in the future. We are assuming Pete and Mindy are finally getting married, but that HASN’T been officially confirmed.
Batiuk HAS NOT ever mentioned his son Brian getting or being married. That was all made up for the fake newsletter. Maybe Brian is single. Maybe Tom is keeping his son’s personal life completely private.
Batiuk HAS battled prostate cancer twice both in 2002-03 and 2011-12. It seems to have, thankfully, been caught early enough both times.
One thing Alexa Vortuba in the comments reminded me is that while I really DON’T want a sappy and preachy year long ‘Jeff’s Story’ pooly collaged together from old strips, stock photos, and clip art, prostate cancer is serious business.
Older gent commenters and lurkers reading this, please. I know it’s an uncomfortable meme, but make sure you get checked out. I watched Ryne Sandberg toss out the ceremonial first pitch for the Cubs today, and knowing it might be his last one, and knowing he’s about my Dad’s age, and knowing that my Dad is going to be stubbornly impossible to drag in for a test. It about brought me to tears.
On happier notes. We’ve got so many adorable widdle baby steak nuggets running around we really can’t keep track of them.
Son of Stuck Funky 
