2010-01-15T00:16:42Z2010-01-15T00:16:42ZLife imitates comedy2010-01-15T00:16:42Z<p>Back in my misspent college years, one of my few student activities was working on the student newspaper at Rose-Hulman, the <a href="http://www.rose-hulman.edu/thorn/"><cite>Rose Thorn</cite></a>. Out of boredom—and frankly a frequent lack of real advertising, since we typically gave a local pizza chain a quarter-page ad in exchange for sustenance for the staff, accounting for a sizable chunk of our income—the various people involved in production would frequently insert fake classified ads into the publication. One creation I was personally proud of was a bogus ad for an emerging spring break destination—the various and sundry republics of the former Soviet Union, complete with a fake telephone number (1–8xx-FUN-IN-CIS) to obtain further details. Presumably—hopefully!—the IQs of our readers were sufficiently high that nobody was actually being bothered by obnoxious phone calls looking for information on these exciting tour packages.</p>
<p>Fast forward a decade and a half, and now <a href="http://drezner.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/01/14/your_spring_break_travel_plans_are_solved" title="Your spring break travel plans are solved!! | Daniel W. Drezner">the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea may be getting in on the act for real</a>. Frankly I think my fake ads may have turned out to have been more effective in drumming up interest in unorthodox Spring Break destinations. And whatever you do, don”t stay at the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryugyong_Hotel">Ryugyong</a> even if the doctored pictures in the brochure look nice.</p>
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