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You are here: Home / z-Retired Categories / Site Maintenance / Site Rebuild Update

Site Rebuild Update

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Hey all, I just wanted to keep you abreast of the changes that will be coming soon to Balloon Juice. As you all recall, we had a fundraiser in January for a site rebuild, and we were planning on doing it sometime in February. Unfortunately, the process was held up when our web designer was diagnosed with breast cancer during the first week in February, but she is felling better despite having some tumors removed and the unpleasantness of chemo (holy loads of understatements, Batman). I told her to just smoke pot and drink milkshakes, but I am not a doctor, even though I did major in street pharmacology in the 80’s.

In the interim, Mistermix set us up on a new server that is much, much faster and more reliable (so good that DougJ hasn’t sent me a passive-aggressive and snide email about server performance in two months), so we have spent the last couple of weeks just working on site stability (which is pretty damned solid- I am now the most unstable portion of our site, although I’m not really that unstable- I’ve been like this for decades). I am and always will be a “dance with the girl that brung you” kind of guy (that’s just kind of how I roll- I think loyalty is a severely unappreciated and under-utilized trait these days), so we just waited until our web designer felt better, and she has informed me she will be doing the rebuild over the next couple of days.

Our plan is for her to make the design changes and then test drive them over the next couple of days on Mistermix’s personal server, and when everything is kosher, port it over to go live. Then we will go through the painful process of you degenerate bastards bitching about everything because it “isn’t the same,” and after a couple of days of that and us tweaking things, I will lose patience after a couple scotches and just tell each and every one of you to go fuck yourselves.

The point of this post is that I wanted to keep you all up to date on what is going on, because I think it is my duty to be a good steward of your hard earned money when you choose to donate to things like a site rebuild, so that is what is going on. If you were wondering why the rebuild had not happened yet, it was because of the factors listed above.

And that is all I have to say about that.

Reader Interactions

90Comments

  3. 3.

    trollhattan

    I will lose patience after a couple scotches and just tell each and every one of you to go fuck yourselves.

    Said the masochist to the sadist: “Beat me!.”
    Said the sadist to the masochist: “No.”

    The Balloon Juice Dance.

    Also, too, thanks for der Uppdating.

  4. 4.

    JPL

    Please don’t post to reddit anymore. Your site doesn’t like the new visitors and crashes. Thank you.
    Also, should we have a fundraiser for the site rebuilder to pay for extra treatment costs?

  5. 5.

    Cassidy

    In seriousness, if I can make a small request. Can we have a back to top button on the mobile site at the bottom of the comments? There is one at the bottom of each post, but when the threads get really long it would be nice.

  8. 8.

    jl

    I can’t access the food pictured on the blog. I’ve already complained about this earlier today and it’s still not fixed (!!!)

  9. 9.

    PurpleGirl

    Thanks for the rebuild update.

    Please tell our web designer that she has the good thoughts and well wishes of the Balloon Juice commentariat. I’m sure I do speak for all the readers and commentors in saying that. I (we) hope that she feels progressively better every day.

  10. 10.

    Baud

    after a couple of days of that and us tweaking things, I will lose patience after a couple scotches and just tell each and every one of you to go fuck yourselves

    Like you can go two days without telling us to go fuck ourselves.

  11. 11.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    Whatever.

    Every year you have a fund raiser to rebuild the site (which looks the same every fucking time, BTW) and you wind up with a bunch of really good liquor, food, parties and trips.

  13. 13.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @Cassidy:

    In seriousness, if I can make a small request. Can we have a back to top button on the mobile site at the bottom of the comments? There is one at the bottom of each post, but when the threads get really long it would be nice.

    And a refresh button at the bottom.

  21. 21.

    kdaug

    Tiny thing, really, but.. you know what I miss? An actual timestamp on the front page posts. Used to have it, but now it’s just the date. I know what fucking day it is, but it was nice knowing just how late John was up or how early Anne Laurie was.

  23. 23.

    James Hare

    Posts like this make me feel guilty for not having enough money to donate. The right attitude by far.

  25. 25.

    Redshift

    Preemptive complaint about not being able to find my favorite feature that I never mentioned before, even though it’s still there.

  26. 26.

    jl

    Also, new pet videos on demand 24/7 would be nice. I can’t see why that would be so hard.

  30. 30.

    ? Martin

    @John Cole: Done with c#nt punting? Damn, I thought that one had some legs.

    Wellness wishes to your designer. Health first, design later.

  31. 31.

    Gex

    My best to your designer. Glad to hear she made it through chemo.

    I almost entirely agree on the loyalty thing. My only reservation is remembering how much it was overly emphasized by Shrub.

  32. 32.

    mistermix

    I have the latest version of the mobile plugin working on my test server. Once we’re sure it works on here I’ll add the tweaks requested above.

  34. 34.

    scav

    @Redshift: Well, my Tardis is going to let me complain about site features present when I never even visited the site being poorly implemented in the next release + 2. She’s a smart girl, I’ve no idea what’s she going on about.

  35. 35.

    YellowJournalism

    . Then we will go through the painful process of you degenerate bastards bitching about everything because it “isn’t the same,” and after a couple of days of that and us tweaking things, I will lose patience after a couple scotches and just tell each and every one of you to go fuck yourselves.

    You light up my life.

  40. 40.

    amk

    And best wishes to your web designer girl. Plenty of greens, fruits and carrot juice. That’s how my sis got through sucky chemo and she is well now.

  41. 41.

    NotMax

    @jl

    The food (and booze) access is in the hyper-ultra-premium, red carpet, invitation-only, triple-gated members area, right next to the ‘click for full body massage’ option.

  42. 42.

    p.a.

    @Redshirt: I was an installer for NYNEX/BellAtlantic when Al Gore first invented the inter tubes. We had a pat answer to customer complaints: “We guarantee you a voice-quality line only.”

  43. 43.

    Anya

    I somehow can’t picture DougJ being passive aggressive.

    OT – Where’s Sarah, Proud and Tall? Peggy Noonen’s latest “did you notice Obama is not like the other white presidents” inanity demands the SPT treatment.

  44. 44.

    Jebediah

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Good thoughts and get well soon vibes for your web designer. Fuck cancer.

    Second this. My wife is six years clear of breast cancer. It was grueling and scary and yes, fuck cancer.

  46. 46.

    eemom

    Ah, this is precisely the kind of post I had in mind. Vintage Cole. Thanx Cole, ya done good.

    Now back to the suckdom of this fucking profession I am fucked up enough to be in.

  50. 50.

    jl

    @jeffreyw: You, buddy, are building up some bad bad karma. May you have a thousand reincarnations as a cute little hamburger bun nibbling green sprouts on the prairies, only to be slaughtered for burgers!

    And dayumm, I am not a standard hamburger person, but that is some fine burger pic! I need one now!

    (Second request today, when will the heinous Cole fix it?)

  51. 51.

    RSR

    I am going to send this to some buddies who just re-launched a dormant blog after a multi-year hiatus. I think they will appreciate your post-scotch attitude, Mr. Cole.

  54. 54.

    Redshirt

    @p.a.: I know how to wire phone systems, what with the line tracing and punch tools and what not. Dial up internet is the best internet. 28.8K or Fight!

  55. 55.

    MD Rackham

    @p.a.: And now you can get broadband, but can no longer get a voice quality line.

    We’ve gone from Sprint boasting that you can “hear a pin drop” over their connections to just accepting noise, phase errors, clipped syllables, and every other type of distortion imaginable, not to mention dropped calls. And everyone just accepts it. Cellular or VOIP, it’s all crap now.

    Signed,

    A grumpy old man who worked on digital telephony when quality mattered

  56. 56.

    Scotty

    We don’t care what the site looks like. Just keep coming with the intelligent discussion that reinforces that I’m not the only person who is 100% correct about everything. I don’t want to feel too smart.

  57. 57.

    Southern Beale

    So, OT but you won’t believe this. Alberto Gonzalez of the Bush Administration AG Alberto Gonzalez lives in Nashville now, he’s got a gig at Belmont University. And today his wife tried to get a ticket fixed at my husband’s office, apparently she parked in a handicapped spot but forgot the handicapped placard. She referred to her husband as “a politician.” LOL. Didn’t exactly pull a Reese Witherspoon but almost!

  59. 59.

    Ruckus

    @Redshirt:
    28.8?
    Back in my day we used to have to walk uphill both ways in the snow, in July to use a 9600 dial up. That’s some speed there. You sure the electrons can survive that speed?

  63. 63.

    Ruckus

    Best health to your designer. Breast cancer is beatable, mum did so and lived another 45 years cancer free. Her best friend brought martinis to the recovery room to celebrate, maybe that’s what did it. Living well, but not lavishly.

  67. 67.

    Ruckus

    @Redshirt:
    I haven’t been able to afford a new clue for some time. Can I get a good used one at a thrift shop?

    And the horn on my Road Runner quit working some time ago.

  68. 68.

    gbear

    I hope the new design includes some bright, seizure-inducing colors. This blue and white shit is so antiseptic.

  70. 70.

    Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)

    @Narcissus: I would say LMGTFY, but for that one, you’re on your own. Rule 34 isn’t a rule for nothing.

    Also, Cole, I wish you’d have mentioned the cancer thing earlier. Now I feel like a heel for asking why the site hadn’t been upgraded for so long.

    Fuck cancer.

  71. 71.

    gnomedad

    @Anya:

    OT – Where’s Sarah, Proud and Tall? Peggy Noonen’s latest “did you notice Obama is not like the other white presidents” inanity demands the SPT treatment.

    Saw this at LGF. Per Nooners:

    What was nice was that all of them—the Bush family, the Carters and Clintons—seemed like the old days. “The way we were.” They were full of endurance, stamina, effort. Also flaws, frailty, mess. But they weren’t … black creepy.

    If Michelle made some fatuous remarks about New Orleans refugees, Malia and Sasha got drunk, and Barack got a BJ in the oval, then we could finally impeach him be comfortable with them.

  72. 72.

    Scamp Dog

    @Ruckus: The first time I bought a modem, I went with the new, fancy, high speed 300 baud modem. Leaving you in the dust, 110 baud modem users!

  73. 73.

    gnomedad

    Good on the idea of a collection for the webmistress.

    Also, too, I’d enjoy seeing the guy with the megaphone again. Maybe Cole can pose for it.

  74. 74.

    mclaren

    You obviously need some new features on this site.

    [1] SmearBot 2000. Auto-detect links to reputable news sources like the AP wire service or the New York Times and automatically label anyone who uses them as a “firebagger” and “insane” and “in need of therapy.”

    [2] Make sure a bot constantly checks for anyone posting amendments from the constitution — automatically label someone like that a “troll” and ban them.

    [3] Do an automated name-check for any of the journalists or commentators warning about creeping fascism in America and do a find-and-replace on their names to change them to “Naomi Wolf the grifter” and “Glenn Greenwald the psycho scammer” and “Mait Taibbi the well-known moocher and liar.”

    [4] Search for Obama’s name and delete any uncomplimentary language that occurs in close proximity. For example, if the site software detects someone posting a comment like “Obama’s Pakistan drone strikes continue to murder innocent children,” automatically detect this offensive language and change it to “Obama’s Pakistan defense measures continue to keep Americans safe by killing terrorists before they can strike our vulnerable Circle K convenience stores and White Castle burger restaurants.”

  75. 75.

    Soonergrunt

    @Ruckus: But with a couple of tricks with memory registers, you could turn that into a 1200-baud modem, and save about $300 over buying a “real” 1200-baud modem.
    That was the shit.
    Funny thing–websites with discussion threads don’t act much differently than those old BBS’s did when I was a kid.
    Of course. Mom doesn’t beat the shit out of me when she sees the phone bill anymore, either.

  76. 76.

    mclaren

    @gnomedad:

    Webmistress.

    Now why does that put me in mind of some woman wearing a leather corset and carrying a cattle prod and a laptop…?

    “The webmistress is not PLEASED with little Johnny Cole. We’re going to have to have some corporal punishment!”

  77. 77.

    Ruckus

    @Scamp Dog:
    Yes I had one of those. And a 2700 and a 5400 and a 9600 and…
    Also had a teletype machine that made punched tape. In the 70s. Replaced that with an Apple II. That had a tape punch through a serial port. I even sold communications and production software and hardware for industrial uses. But that’s in the wayback machine.

  78. 78.

    Maude

    @Narcissus:
    #58
    I have a land line. I have no problems talking on the phone. I have an old Western Electric touch tone phone. Got two of them at a garage sale. They will outlast me.
    I will always keep a land line.

  79. 79.

    Scamp Dog

    @Ruckus: Those were the days! We managed to get one of those teletype with punched tape reader/writer machines at my high school, junior year, which would have been the 76-77 school year. We thought they were the bomb, little suspecting they were soon-to-be-obsolete cast-offs.

  80. 80.

    dance around in your bones

    Very sorry to hear about webmistress’ bout with breast cancer. My sister beat it, so – go girl!

    JC, I also majored in street pharmacology in the 70’s, and I second your advice.

    Last thing – PLEASE bring back the old header with the dude with the megaphone and cane and the balloon floating away – please, please, pretty please? It made the site so unique. Also the big fat grey curvy numbers and the comments centered in the middle.

    May the FSM bless us in the upgrade with the noodley goodness. Ramen!

  81. 81.

    lojasmo

    Mom died of esophogeal cancer. Gma died of brain cancer. Aunt died of breast cancer.

    Fuck cancer.

    In before Cornerstone calls me a bad person for hating cancer.

    Fucking stalker.

  82. 82.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    @Narcissus:

    I imagine it’s much like a pushmi-pullyu. :)

    Best wishes to the lady who is soon going to be the focus of a lot of anger for screwing everything up here.

    ;)

  83. 83.

    Ruckus

    @Scamp Dog:
    We had gotten rid of ours by then. I still remember how much fun it was to have to splice a reel of tape because one line was wrong, which made the entire reel unusable. Of course white out hadn’t been invented yet.

    @lojasmo:
    Agree on fuck cancer. Between immediate family, aunts/uncles/cousins about 25% of them are gone due to cancer. And I went through a 4 month period about 15 years ago when the Drs thought I had prostate cancer. That was fun.

  84. 84.

    Anne Laurie

    @Southern Beale:

    Alberto Gonzalez of the Bush Administration AG Alberto Gonzalez lives in Nashville now, he’s got a gig at Belmont University. And today his wife tried to get a ticket fixed at my husband’s office, apparently she parked in a handicapped spot but forgot the handicapped placard. She referred to her husband as “a politician.”

    Tennessee hands out handicap placards to individuals who’ve had their ethical compass / sense of human empathy surgically removed?

  85. 85.

    Ruckus

    @Anne Laurie:
    How can someone with a genetic defect-lack of ethical compass/sense of empathy, have it surgically removed? I mean it has to be a genetic defect, how could anyone with one make the decision to have it removed? Maybe the parents had it removed at a young age, but then I’d still go with genetics. The parents had the defect which allowed them to think having one is wrong and had it removed. Which is almost like not getting the gene in the first place in that the parents would have been responsible, therefore genetics.

  86. 86.

    Rook

    Let me just get it out of the way before it all goes to hell and you get yourself worked up over that couple of scotches: You’re a dumb fuck Cole. What where you thinking doing another god damned rebuild? Typical loser liberal, got to change things that aren’t broken. Will you never learn? /end really poor humor.

    There John, now if I miss your meltdown I at least have my response already posted.

    Oh, and good luck with the rebuild. Looking forward to see the new design. And read all the bitching.

  87. 87.

    pete

    Back to work, web mistress — no more pot for you. /gop

    Seriously, I hope you feel better, and I hope the constructive mental effort helps you feel better.

  88. 88.

    Comrade Mary

    @Jebediah: Sneaking in here after a night in the town to add my good wishes for your kickass web designer. She’s done good work every time and I look forward to what she’ll make once she gets back.

  90. 90.

    Tonal Crow

    Please fix the “spam” filter once and for all. I really hate it when my messages just vanish into the ether with no explanation.

    (The things that trip it for me are the proper spelling of words containing the root “sockialis”, too many links (more than 3 or so), and something else that I haven’t been able to pin down).

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