Remember a few years ago when computers used to shut down just to provoke us? I'm assuming your computer has gotten better. I know mine has.

I've seen clips of guys (from the '90's I assume) freaking out and trashing their monitors. It's like you're the king, and your messenger shows up during a crucial battle in World War -7, and he says, "We're losing!" And you say, "Execute the traitor!" It's not the messenger's fault… just like it's not the monitor's fault…

Anyway, I found a couple variations of a YTMND that seemed interesting, and they fit right in with this topic. The first one is the original. I think it's based on an old TV commercial. Make sure your volume isn't too high…

Mad Dad

Here's the second variant. I thought this version was outrageous:

Tech Support Is Not The Answer

You can see the father sulking over the computer on the right as the camera moves left to show the girl. So then when the father shows up from the left, it's like a completely different guy! Could he have called PC Express, and gotten the typically horrible service that many (most? [all?]) customers receive? Assuming the answer is yes, then he must have been so infuriated that he dedicated the rest of his life to inventing time travel.

Years later, at age 79, he's finally perfected his technology. He returns to the time after he got the run-around over the phone, and just after his younger self decided to invent time travel. Old version guy gives the technology to fed up young version guy.

Fed up young version guy then time jumps back to the moment just before his daughter originally suggested to her imaginary friend that her "Daddy needs to call PC Express." She goes ahead and delivers her suggestion. Fed up young version guy loses it and smacks his daughter with the keyboard. Her head falls off easily. …Too easily.

Fed up young version guy didn't manage to prevent the girl from sharing her idea, but he did uncover the sinister truth. That she is a robot infiltrator sent by PC Express! Fed up young version guy teams up with his slightly younger (and slightly less fed up) counterpart, and they use the power of time travel to erase PC Express from existence. (I've never heard of it, have you?)

The only evidence of these events are the two YTMNDs and a small handful of other web media…

Ok, I guess my going along with the prank and entertaining the notion that the situation was serious could be construed as idiotic. I'm a goober. I fell for it, ah ha ha ha ha!!!

But now I'm pretty sure that I know the truth.

The site had looked like this.

But it turns out the owner has made it a tradition of pranking users every April 1st. In 2006, he made the site look like Google had bought it and merged it with Blogger, creating a new blogging platform called "yspace." In 2005, he pretended YTMND's main rival site, ebaumsworld.com, had bought YTMND and taken over, creating YTMNDworld.

So even after yearly pranks and fooling all his regulars, he still fooled at least one new person in 2008. Me!

I checked the Internet Archive of YTMND hoping to find some evidence of past shenanigans, like maybe last year's version of the prank, but alas, success was not within my grasp. The latest April 1 version of the site is listed from 2005, and when I clicked the link it displays the message that there has been a "File Location Error." Rip-off!! Oh well…

I don't really think the site is dead. The cover page I saw earlier said the reason behind the abrupt closure was foreseen by many of the regulars, and wasn't worth explaining. I think that's just an excuse not to come up with a real explanation, which would surely be shared in the event of real closure.

But I guess this speculation is exactly what the creator wanted to happen on April 1st!

Ok, maybe I jumped the gun earlier posting about the face value of the ytmnd situation. Maybe it really isn't gone for good! Here's what might be the case: It's an April Fool's Day prank. I'll be some of you are saying, "duh!" Yeah well, what about this? What if the real prank is that there is no prank?

And YTMND is dead for serious?!

I think it is a distinct possibility.

AAH!! No more YTMND! Sure, I just started mentioning it, but if you visit the homepage, you'll see that the site is closing. Or could this be some kind of…………prank? I guess we'll never know for sure, because the world ends at midnight!

***Update: It looks like the cover page that was up earlier has been taken down, but the official news of the site still says everything's over. So I guess that's it…

I recently visited YTMND.com, and I wanted to share a few politically-themed creations with you. These are my favorites:

(OK) Hillary cant stop Barack - He's a Rock

(WILD) Hillary's a Maniac - A Crazy Dance

(AWESOME) Race to the White House - Obama vs. McCain

And this one I just think is nuts:

The Democratic Destruction - The Last Crusade

Did you see Obama's face at the end? That was unreal!