The second of April is here, and none too soon. For those of you who may have logged on in the last 24 hours, things might have seemed a little bit weird. All of a sudden my blog went all red, and all wrong and well, evil. A friend of mine thought for a moment it had been hacked. For April Fools 2008, this was The EXPELLED Mind.

First, I had to design a suitable theme for the occasion. This took about an hour last night, and when midnight rolled around it came into play. In this theme, the honeybee was gone and replaced with a wasp, the corn turned blood-red, and the green leaves on the left made ripples in reddened water. Font colors, links, everything turned evil. I even figured out how to make a special rotating image appear on the left, without having to redo everything when I was done. Only this new image, and that of my evil counterpart appeared. You can go see what it all looked like by clicking on the “Theme Switcher” below the left sidebar, switch it to Damnation. Cool, huh?

Next, I had to get the ball rolling: I’ve EXPELLED Myself! It seemed that some science bloggers had simultaneously decided to reject science and embrace ignorance, woo, or what-have-you. There was also a tendency to pretend that Darwinism = Nazism with a Ben Stein’s Expelled focus. (1) (2)

Next, I supposedly get a note from an interested party who would like to run the blog in my stead: Post-Expulsion, stay tuned…

In a parody of William Dembki’s temporary blogging cessation after the Dover case went sour, I decided I would allow the third party, none other than Evil J. Klone (my late-late-born genetic twin), be my “Blog Czar”: Expelled, the end of an Era.

Evil J. Klone delivered with a manifesto about science: A New Era for Science. I objected to his suggestion of bringing someone else into the situation. Cue the Star Wars reference.

An hour and fifteen minutes later, Evil has contacted the biggest science blog troll of all time, DaveScot, who helps manage things at Uncommon Descent (A perfect match): Welcome, DaveScot. My objections fall on deaf ears.

Finally, DaveScot swoops in and lays down a list of insane blog rules, taken from his moderating behaviors over at Uncommon Descent: Sit Down and Shut Up. I’m ignored, and then disemvoweled while Evil J. Klone and DaveScot start licking their chops at the remains of my domain. So I whip out my secret weapon. Grabbing the Red Phone, I call PZ Myers to handle the situation. Apparently, he has a knack for hacking phone systems with secret codes, and now, billboards and a bit of time travel. In no time flat, PZ wiped them clean from my site, no harm done. The only evidence left of his activities was a squidly likeness of him.

It was fun, I hope you enjoyed it, and I’ll see you next year.

A few more good ones:

Dembski to join ScienceBlogs.

On to Better Things.

Characters involved in this series are imitated, some way better than others.