Theo's Guide to Living Dangerously

About that time Karantsalis was conducting his first political campaign for Miami Springs City Council. He didn't do too well, but before the election was over, he did manage to confuse scores of people for no apparent reason. The Miami Herald coverage of the situation gives perhaps the best snapshot of the April Fools' Day prank:

April 1, 2001: "A Miami Springs City Council candidate identified as the alleged purchaser of four other candidates' Websites is now pointing the finger at a sheik in Yemen as the culprit. Theo Karantsalis, 39, who is running in Tuesday's city council election, said he was on the lookout for Sheik Yurbooty, who he said purchased the Websites bearing the names of other candidates.... But a company official at register.com said that it was Karantsalis who bought the Websites.... Register.com's Web page showed that Yiannis Stookis bought the domain names for Websites bearing the names of candidates Leah Orr, Helen Gannon, Jim Caudle, and Richard Wheeler for $35 each. Stookis had created an automatic link from those pages to Karantsalis' Web page. The link would later lead to obscure Web pages about toilets, Alzheimer's disease, and panhandlers, and then back to register.com." Next to a photo of Karantsalis was a mug shot identified as that of Sheik Yurbooty, whom the Herald helpfully pointed out "bears a striking resemblance to Karantsalis."

On April 24, 2001, Karantsalis sued register.com in small-claims court, seeking damages because the company released confidential information to the public. Later, register.com wrote to Karantsalis stating the company could not find any register.com employee who had spoken to the Herald. The small-claims suit was settled for the amount of Karantsalis's campaign expenses, "a few thousand dollars."