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Greetings!
At Home
You Just Never Know What You're Going To Find
April
Welcome to April, a time for fools, foolishness, frolicking and fun.
This month's At Home is designed to test your wits and wisdom. You see, it features many hoaxes, humbugs, bamboozles, forgeries, counterfeits and outright hokum. And one "made-up" falsehood. That's right, we created our own April Fools piece. Your task is to identify it.
Tell us which piece was created from our own special "cloth" and you'll be eligible to win a $25 Target Gift Card.
Please - don't confuse the absolutely true - Aiello specials - featured here this month. They enjoy the benefit of being both true - and valuable - and we encourage you to take full advantage of them.
C'mon, it's April. It's about time you had some fun.
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1957: The BBC show Panorama announced a bumper tree crop of spaghetti for Swiss farmers
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Look - A Fairy
The Cottingley Fairies are a series of five photographs taken by Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths, two young cousins living in Cottingley, near Bradford, England.
The photos depicted the two in various activities with supposed fairies.
Elsie borrowed her father's quarter plate
camera and took photos behind the family house.
When Mr. Wright, upon developing the plates, saw fairies in the pictures, he considered them fake. After the taking of the second picture, he banned Elsie from using the camera again. Her mother, Polly, however was convinced of their authenticity.
In the summer of 1919, the matter became public and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (author of Sherlock Holmes) wrote an article for a leading magazine claiming that they were authentic. Not everyone was taken in by the fraud, as this statement from a leading Doctor at the time attests: "On the evidence I have no hesitation in saying that these photographs could have been `faked'. I criticise the attitude of those who declared there is something supernatural in the circumstances attending to the taking of these pictures because, as a medical man, I believe that the inculcation of such absurd ideas into the minds of children will result in later life in manifestations and nervous disorder and mental disturbances...
For fifty years the girls avoided publicity and the hoax continued to be believed by many. In late 1981 and mid 1982 respectively, Frances Way (née Griffiths) and Elsie Hill (née Wright), who took the photographs admitted that the first four pictures were fakes.
Speaking of the first photograph in particular, Frances has said: "I don't see how people could believe they're real fairies. I could see the backs of them and the hatpins when the photo was being taken." Both of the girls claimed, right up to their deaths, that the fifth photo was, in fact, authentic.
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1985 - SI introduced us to Sidd Finch, he of the 168 mph fastball.
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Good News!
This is no hoax! You can get a brand new furnace - with the purchase of a new air conditioning system from Aiello Home Services - now til the end of April. Don't miss this chance to save up to $3,200!  Get A FREE Furnace With the Purchase of a new Lennox A/C System! A $3,200 Value!  Impossible? Crazy? Fantastic Opportunity? Yes. Yes. Yes! Aiello's Free Furnace Days
are back by popular demand. Choose a Lennox 14ACX through XC21 series air conditioning system and Aiello will provide a new Lennox ML 180 or Goodman GMH80 gas furnace - FREE! All you pay is $995 for installation. That's a savings of up to $3,200! Plus you'll receive FREE Programmable Thermostat FREE Lennox HC 16 Filter - $595 value Get all the details on this limited time offer, call now. 860 288 2567
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2012 - Aiello proposes to build floating heliports in CT River to make it faster to service customers on the CT River.
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Name All Four & Win
Tell us who these fellows are and what they're discussing. Right answer might bring you a $25 Target Gift Card. Last month Mary Louis E-S knew our quiz answer was Meteora Monastery, Greece
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1962 - Nylon stocking covering a TV set gives instant color - in Sweden. What?
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Piltown Man
 The "Piltdown Man" is a famous hoax consisting of fragments of a skull and jawbone collected in 1912 from a gravel pit at Piltdown, a village near Uckfield, East Sussex. The fragments were thought by many experts of the day to be the fossilized remains of a hitherto unknown form of early human.
The Latin name Eoanthropus dawsoni ("Dawson's dawn-man" after the collector Charles Dawson) was given to the specimen.
The Piltdown hoax is perhaps the most famous archaeological hoax in history. It has been prominent for two reasons: the attention paid to the issue of human evolution, and the length of time (more than 40 years) that elapsed from its discovery to its exposure as a forgery.
It was exposed in 1953 as a forgery, consisting of the lower jawbone of an orangutan combined with the skull of a fully developed, modern man.
The identity of the Piltdown forger remains unknown, but suspects have included Dawson, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and Arthur Conan Doyle as well as numerous others.
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1996 - Taco Bell Corp. says they've bought the Liberty Bell and were renaming it. Bad idea.
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Pre-Season A/C Special
April brings the showers and the flowers and the heat! You can see the summer from here, so now is the time to check out your A/C system to make sure that when it's 103 in the shade it's chilling you flawlessly. Call during April and be chillin' all summer long.
$99
Pre-Season Tune-Up
Call Now:
860 288 2567
*Cannot be combined with any other offers, discounts, or coupons. Must schedule in April for appointment before May 9, 2013. Subject to availability
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1977 - The Guardian introduces a new republic, San Serriffe. A series of semi-colon shaped islands.
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1998 - Physicist Mark Boslough reports that Alabama's legislature voted to change value of Pi to "Biblical Value" of 3.0
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Introducing Aiello Energy
Aiello is proud to announce that we have formed Aiello Energy with long-time Aiello employee Dave Arildsen at the helm. Aiello Energy will be conducting Home Energy Audits as part of the UI/CL&P authorized Energize Connecticut program. This service includes a four hour comprehensive energy assessment and will provide a personalized energy review outlining how homeowners use energy and how they can improve their energy use and save money. The audit offers a variety of services including a duct test, installation of low-flow showerheads, wrapping of hot water pipes with foam insulation, installation of up to 40 energy-efficient compact fluorescent light bulbs and much more. The cost, set by the Connecticut Energy Efficiency Fund, is $75 for homes heated with gas or electricity or $99 for homes heated with propane or home heating oil. Leap into spring with this valuable home energy audit. It will open your eyes to the efficiency of your home and help keep those hard earned dollars in your pocket. For details go to www.aielloenergy.com or call to schedule an appointment today.
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1990 - News of the World indicated that the English-French Chunnel project would miss one another by 14 feet due to French engineers insisting on using metric specs.
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A Sweet Idea is Back!
We had such a great time last year with our support of the Girl Scouts with the purchase of 1,000 boxes of cookies - which we gladly delivered to our customers in March and April - we decided to do it again. It is a chance to celebrate all the good things the Girl Scout organization does in building character and self-esteem among young girls and it's also our way of saying, "Thanks" for being an Aiello customer. So make sure to ask your Aiello service technician for a box of your favorites - while they last!
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1978 - Australian millionaire Dick Smith towed an "iceberg from Antarctica" into Sydney harbor. It was covered by all the media - but when it rained it became clear it was made of foam and shaving cream.
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Bananadine
Bananadine is a fictional psychoactive substance which is supposedly extracted from banana peels. A hoax recipe for its "extraction" from banana peel was originally published in the Berkeley Barb in March 1967. It became more widely known when William Powell, believing it to be true, reproduced the method in The Anarchist Cookbook in 1970 under the name "Musa sapientum Bananadine" (referring to the banana's old binomial nomenclature). The original hoax was designed to raise questions about the ethics of making psychoactive drugs illegal and prosecuting those who took them: "what if the common banana contained psychoactive properties, how would the government react?" Researchers at New York University have found that banana peel contains no intoxicating chemicals, and that smoking it produces only a placebo effect. Donovan's hit single "Mellow Yellow" was released a few months prior to the Berkeley Barb article, and in the popular culture of the era, the song was assumed to be about smoking banana peels. |
1987 - Britain's BBC Radio 2 reports Planetary Alignment decreases gravity. People encouraged to experience strange floating sensation by jumping up into the air at exactly 9:47am.
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Special April
Electrical & Plumbing Offers
People seem to love these offers so ...
Pick Any Three Services - One Low Price. Your Choice!
Pick Any 3
Electrical Projects
$349.95*
* Replace GFI outlet
* Reset Breakers & Inspection
* Replace Smoke Detector
* Replace Carbon Monoxide Detector
* Add Surge Protector
* Replace up to 3 Single Pole Switches
* Replace up to 3 Duplex Receptacles (limitations apply)
* Replace ceiling fan (customer supplied)
* Replace light fixture (customer supplied)
* Replace Single Pole Breaker
* Replace 2 - 3-way Switches
* Install a Dimmer Switch
Plus All Packages Include FREE
Whole House Electrical Inspection
Pick Any 3
Plumbing Projects
$399.95*
* Replace Toilet Supply Line & Flapper
* Snake Slow Bath or Kitchen Drain
* Main Line Sewer Snake Maintenance (no clog)
* Camera Inspection for Sewer Main Line
* Replace up to 6 Faucet Aerators
* Replace Plastic "P" Trap under Kitchen or Bath Sink
* Replace Chrome Pop-up Assembly on Sink
* Replace up to 2 Shower Heads (Aiello supplied incl.)
* Replace Standard Kitchen Faucet Cartridge
* Replace Outdoor Spigot (not including ball valve)
* Replace Shut-off Valve for Sink or Toilet
* Replace Standard Ball Valve
Plus All Packages Include FREE
Whole House Plumbing Inspection
Fix those things that need fixing - now!
Call today:
860 288 2567
*Cannot be combined with any other offers, discounts, coupons or price reductions. Must call by 4/15/13 for work to be completed by 5/1/13. Not applicable to previous sales.
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1989 - Richard Branson lands a specially designed hot-air balloon on outskirts of London. Designed to look like a glowing flying saucer it causes a lovely, mild panic.
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OK we've heard of frying fish and flaying fish and we've certainly heard of flying fish. But we've never heard of a school of flying fish until we read about the Exocetidae family of flying fish! Just off the shore of Adelaide, South Australia on a late June day in 1985, a school of thousands of Sailfin flying fish left the water, in unison, presumably to escape from significant predators. The school travelled, in flight, for nearly two full minutes, traveling at more than 40 miles per hour and covered a distance of nearly a quarter mile. Renowned as a delicacy by more than predatory sea creatures, the pink-winged fish had never before been seen to travel, in flight, as a nearly complete school. Two astonished Australian sportsmen, Ron and Gail Bollman of North Adelaide, captured the last few seconds of the flight on shaky 8mm film.
"We were gobsmacked. It was weirdly silent, nearly blocked out the sun. Darndest thing I ever saw, but beautiful and something we'll never forget," said a still shaken Mr. Bollman. Initially the Bollman's sighting was questioned in local news stories until Mitzy "Seawater" Beitz, Associate Fellow in Marine Biology at Flinders University recounted similar sightings in the strait between New Guinea and Darwin, Australia. "It's rare for them to fly that distance and in those waters, but the film seems to suggest they did. I envy the Bollmans for they saw something most of us never will."
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1975 - Australia's The Day Tonight news program revealed that the country would soon be converting to "metric time" with 100 seconds to the minute, 100 minutes to the hour and 20 hour days.
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2002 - Tesco the British grocery chain created a genetically modified "whistling carrot" which, when fully cooked, would whistle like a tea kettle.
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Never Be Powerless Again
Let us install a transfer switch. Simply put a transfer switch allows you to connect your portable generator to the circuit breakers that power your most important electrical equipment: Your refrigerator, heating and cooling systems, kitchen or bedroom lights.
Aiello will install 
a new automatic transfer switch - including 25 foot insulated cord and an outside receptacle (if needed) for $1595* plus tax.
Never be without power again
with this simple addition to your electrical system.
This is a limited time offer so prepare for the next hurricane, ice storm, snow storm, wind storm, deranged squirrel attack and put a transfer switch in place today. You will be very happy you did.
Call: 860-288-2567
$1595 includes transfer switch, wiring and outside receptacle. If circuit breakers are located in the garage, price is only $1295.
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1933 - The Madison (Wisc) Times announced the Wisconsin capitol building lay in ruins following mysterious explosions. Apparently caused by, "large quantities of gas generated through weeks of verbose debate in the Senate and Assembly chambers!"
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The Martians Have Landed!
On a cool Sunday night in October, 1938 millions of people sat around their radios - yes - radios- and listened as Martians landed in New Jersey. (Somehow, it still seems believable). The radio broadcast was the brainchild of Orson Welles, who later became famous for the film, "Citizen Kane." The panic that the broadcast created was real and led to a number of FCC guidelines on broadcast material.
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1986 - The Parisien stunned French citizens when it reported the Eiffel Tower would be moved to the Euro Disney theme park east of Paris.
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Enjoy Your March
Sincerely, Aiello Home Services |
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