the proxy server at my office will do that. some pages will load fine, others won't have the css so they look like something from the stone age. some days youtube.com will say i don't have flash installed, other times it will work fine. it really messes up my productivity. or lack thereof.

you'll want to give people more to go on if you want help... although you don't specifically ask for help.

What operating system, what browser.

First tips will be to clear cache and or cookies, the latter specifically for the sites where you are having issues loading the stylesheets.

The tinyurl thing is odd. Do you mean you can't create tinyurls or that the links sent don't work for you?

no, it was an isp thing for the stylesheet issue. it cleared itself up.
the tinyurl thing, though, is odder. as in, never. not at home on firefox, not at work on IE, not on my iphone, not from other people's computers. just... never.
I suspect a curse of some kind.

but you still haven't explained WHAT. Clicking on a link sent to you doesn't open?

Glad the stylesheets cleared up.

Basically, yeah. The error message varies depending on the browser, but it all boils down to a boilerplate "it's valid but we can't open it" message.