On April 1, 2008 you couldn't click on a link without first hitting the mute button.

It was all you could do to protect yourself from the potential minefield of "Rick Rolls" that was the Internet's response to April Fool's. It had been a running gag in the months ahead but the sheer pervasiveness of the meme that day pushed it into the mainstream.

Later that year we'd see a live demonstration at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, leaving many news anchors conused and bewildered as they attempted to figure out what was going on. Thankfully, it was the death knell of the Rick Roll and probably the first paying gig that Mr. Astley had in years.

This year the tricks have been equally uninspired. For the particularly lazy we simply announce in our Facebook status that our ideologies and worldviews have changed to the polar opposite, and that we're now gleefully awaiting the rapture.

The mall was oddly croweded for a ghost town. The weakest shops at the Independence Mall had already disappeared and others were following it. In front of the Best Buy there were plenty of cars but stepping insde there weren't many carrying shopping bags or taking things up to the counter, just browsing.

My younger brother rolled his eyes, he had seen the same behavior when he worked at Circuit City. People thinking about what they might be buying if their credit card limits hadn't been slashed, and if they weren't trying to save up money in case they lost their jobs.

While recently there have been a few sparks of hope, the American economy is still in the doldrums but government wants to fix that.