Reporter: I'm here with Professor Ernest Grimm, the world famous archeologist who has made what is perhaps the most significant discovery of our 50th century. Professor, would you please explain what you found.

Professor Grimm: I'd be glad to. Here you see a petrified specimen of the race that once inhabited this land during the Google dynasty. Now, we were sure that some kind of catastrophic event ended their civilization. A solar flare melting all the credit cards or a fatal disease like hiccups. We just didn't know.

Reporter: But you've solved it.

Professor Grimm: Yes I have. You see, this specimen here was coming out of a server room with a backup of the Internet in his hands. Luckily, the Outdoor Computer Museum in Antarctica is in possession of a working Windows PC, the only one in existence, reconstructed from pieces dug up where the Pacific Ocean used to be. The point is, we could read the backup.

Reporter: Were there problems translating it?

Professor Grimm: Actually not. The backup was in English, one of the simpler languages of that era, spoken universally by all primates. It doesn't present a problem to us. But I digress. You see, you have to understand about this race. They thrived on humor. It was their nourishment. It kept them alive. Gave them hope, something to laugh for, as one of their ancient sayings goes.

Reporter: And this backup proves that the humor ran out?

Professor Grimm: Yes it does. As we know, the ancient God of Comedy was Retarius, who channeled his humor to the masses by use of a blog. But one day he closed the blog and that was the end. With all the humor gone, everyone instantaneously turned to stone.

Story #189

Note: retarius.blogspot.com is one of my favorite blogs, because it's brilliant and it makes me laugh. Every time. On March 31st Retarius announced that he would stop blogging. It wasn't an April Fool's joke. This story was written as part of the tribute organized by Deryke of deryke.blogspot.com. Fortunately Retarius has reconsidered his decision, thereby averting a catastrophe of proportions we can only begin to imagine.