Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Fight for a just cause, love your fellow man, live a good life.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

Dear Washington Post, you are the darkness now.

Giving up is unforgivable.

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

Trump’s cabinet: like a magic 8 ball that only gives wrong answers.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

Humiliatingly small and eclipsed by the derision of millions.

Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls 2 years from now.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

Disagreements are healthy; personal attacks are not.

The press swings at every pitch, we don’t have to.

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

The lights are all blinking red.

Text STOP to opt out of updates on war plans.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Welcome To Our Home Away from Home

Welcome To Our Home Away from Home

by | 97 Comments

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Welcome to our little WordPress server that can be a gathering place while the real Balloon Juice is unavailable.

Hopefully the real site will be back soon, or at least soon-ish.  This site is rudimentary – we are not trying to recreate Balloon Juice because we have faith that the site will be back.

We’ve started by creating logins for John and Betty and Anne Laurie, and in the morning I will happily create logins for all front-pagers who are interested.

We want this place to be just comfy enough, but we’re not going to settle in.  We’ll have just a handful of categories: Open Thread, Politics, Respite, Political Action, War in Ukraine, Covid-19, etc.

I miss the front page posts, the comments, and the commenters.  So we’re hoping this temporary site can tide us over!

This is how I’ve been feeling.

How about you guys? What have you been up to?

I get most of my news from Balloon Juice, so fill me in!

Update at 3 am: There is now at least talk from 365 Data Centers about “developing recovery action plans and timetables”.  Finally!  I think it will still be awhile, and it will surely take longer than we would like, but that’s big progress.

Reader Interactions

97Comments

  3. 3.

    Mj_Oregon

    I’m mainly a lurker but this link popped up in my email just before I was shutting down for the night. All I can say is bless you!

  6. 6.

    frosty

    Hi WG! Enjoyed our email conversation. I hope we don’t need this site for very long.

    As for what I’m doing? We’re in the fourth month of our trailer road trip, currently in Patrick’s Point State Park on the northern Calif coast listening to 25 mph winds. Off to see redwoods tomorrow and the next couple of days. Hope everyone’s well!

  8. 8.

    Pete Downunder

    G’day from downunder. Glad to see we have a home away from home. Tomorrow is our federal election (Saturday our time) and with luck we will get rid of the horrible Scott Morrison and his cronies. On Tuesday Mrs Downunder and I are off to Scotland for our first overseas trip in over two years.

  10. 10.

    WaterGirl

    ‘@Pete Downunder

    fingers crossed for good election results and safe travels!

  11. 11.

    Tony Jay

    Ahoy Hoy, Jackals.

    This feels a little bit like meeting your wife in an out-of-town motel you booked under an assumed name. She’s at the bar wearing a wig and you’re an airline pilot on layby. You’re both a bit nervous at first, but after a few drinks you really lean into your characters and it’s all good.

    So, anyway, apologies to Anne-Laurie. She hasn’t said anything but I just KNOW it was the 6000+ word rant about Flobalob and Co I sent to her last Friday that fried the servers.

  12. 12.

    Paul in St. Augustine

    Thanks. You’ve made some tasty lemonade, which will hold us over until things get sorted out.

  17. 17.

    O. Felix Culpa

    Argh. I’ve been on hold for 30+ minutes with Delta Airlines, trying to rebook my flight home, which was delayed due to covid. My service rep just let me know that she’s on hold with Delta Ticketing *Support* (hah!). So my hold is on hold. Hold squared? Despite stiff competition from United and American, Delta wins the title of Worst Airline Ever, hands down.

    As for covid, thanks to having All The Vaccinations and Boosters, I’m fine. My only symptoms were slight fatigue and occasional cough. Those are gone now. My only remaining symptoms are irritation at the airline and a desire to go home. Hopefully to be remedied soon.

  19. 19.

    Grumpy Bunny

    Your first comment has to be manually approved.

    This is a second comment from Grumpy Bunny to make sure this one won’t go into moderation.

  20. 20.

    grandmaBear

    OMG, I was forced to read Daily Kos! Not quite as bad as I remembered, but still! Thank, thank, thank you WG! Hope there’s not a limit on exclamation marks.

  22. 22.

    FelonyGovt

    I’ve missed you all! Thanks for this, WaterGirl! Will try to jump on the Zoom this evening.

  24. 24.

    Rob

    Good morning. A lurker here. I too miss the site, which I use for news, and very rare comments.

  27. 27.

    TxTiger

    I had no idea how much I had come to rely on Balloon-Juice during my day – I missed Anne’s morning & COVID threads while I had my coffee, Betty’s afternoon snark as a quick work break, TaMara’s. Kindness and duck threads, WaterGirl’s community-building, Adam’s Ukraine insights, David’s wonky analyses, and John’s occasional gruff truth-bombs. I am glad to have a way to tell you all how much I rely on you!

  28. 28.

    Spanky

    I didn’t want to lard up WG’s inbox during the outage so I kept my withdrawal to myself. So many many thanks for McGuyvering this little Camp Balloon-Juice.

  29. 29.

    leeleeFL

    Thanks for this, WG! I have been jonesing something chronic! Hope we can get back to normal soon! I miss you all so much! My little island of sane!

  30. 30.

    BC in Illinois

    Great!
    Thank you.

    BC in Illinois
    [Now in St. Louis]
    (Actually in Tennessee, on my way to the Outer Banks of North Carolina)
    [to see one-year-old birthday party of youngest grandson}

  32. 32.

    EarthWindandFire

    Good to see everyone! During our hiatus, I took a weekend trip to Lexington KY to see my mom and finally got over my fear of Twitter. So great to see AL’s update this morning – thank you all!

  33. 33.

    mali muso

    Omg, I have missed this watering hole! Even though I’m an infrequent commenter, I read along all the time. First place I check in the morning and last at night. Thanks to WG for coming up with this solution to tide us over.

  34. 34.

    Mike Field

    My only question is who in the Cloud Company do I sue for mental duress for this? Talk about painful withdrawal. Especially the first couple of days when there was nuthin. Thank you for this and I hope no one in BJ management was too put out by having to deal with this.

  35. 35.

    Violet

    I’m mostly a lurker but I’ve missed this community so much even though it’s a one-sided relationship. Thank you Water Girl and thank you, John Cole.

  36. 36.

    Nancy

    I am so happy to see “proof of life” as they say. Happy to know that this site exists. I have to second TxTiger’s list.
    Balloon Juice is my first, second, and continual check in online.

  37. 37.

    planetjanet

    Thank you for the respite. I have missed you all so much. I have been trying follow jackals on twitter. I will need this community as I plow through a really rough week ahead. I am tackling a major renovation project at my Mom’s home, something that may help her live at home longer, or not. But I basically have to move her and most of her stuff out for a few days. Breathe in, breathe out. See you after the first day’s clean out.

  40. 40.

    phdesmond

    wrote a poem:

    Ten Dead in Buffalo

    They would have liked
    to have lived
    longer.

  41. 41.

    Auntie Anne

    I too joined Twitter to try to follow some of you guys, but good grief, I’ve missed BJ. Will try to pop on the Zoom for a bit . . . Thank you, WG for setting up this site, the email list, the Zooms, etc.

  44. 44.

    SuzieC

    So happy to see this sub while waiting for the Real Balloon Juice to return. Thank you Watergirl.

  47. 47.

    japa21

    Whew. Withdrawal was killing me. As usual, John may be the blog-father, but WG is the real power behind the throne.

    Any word on a judicial election in Kentucky?

  48. 48.

    Argiope

    I feel like the dog in all those Happy Reunion with Their Human videos!! Thank you, thank you, WG and all, for making this little no tell motel possible while we wait to get back home.

    Greetings from my temporary city, the one with the big shoulders, the player with railroads, where I’m conferencing (is that a word?) this week. Got here by Amtrak. Sec Pete has GOT to fix it. It’s like Greyhound but with more legroom and less reliability. Nothing says “the freight trains all get to boss me” like a 3:29 AM departure time that is delayed until 4:56. At least the app kept me updated on the rolling delays as I stood on a dark platform.

  50. 50.

    Josie

    I too in desperation got acquainted with Twitter. There is no comparison. Thank you, WaterGirl, for throwing this together. You are the best.

  51. 51.

    sphex

    Thank you so much, Watergirl, for this site! I mostly lurk, but sorely missed Balloon Juice and all of you!

  52. 52.

    White & Gold Purgatorian

    Thank you, Watergirl, for this temporary site. I’ve missed the news, snark, commentary, and especially the COVID-19 and Ukraine updates. Since the site went down I’ve been wondering if raising all that money for democratic causes might have attracted the wrong sort of attention. Sort of “Nice blog you’ve got there. Be a shame if something happened to it.”

  54. 54.

    mali muso

    ‘@Dorothy A Winsor, thanks for that morning cheer! It definitely brought a smile to my face.

  55. 55.

    kalakal

    This is a welcome sight and a great relief
    Thank you so much Watergirl for this and the updates.

  56. 56.

    prostratedragon

    Been noticing lately how much son clave is in baroque (and other classical) music. These kids sure get it!

  59. 59.

    debbie

    ‘@DAW: I don’t know how many times I watched that last night! Vivaldi’s one of my favorites. Such joy in their playing!

  60. 60.

    EmanG

    I had no idea how much I missed this place. Thanks WaterGirl for setting this up, we appreciate you a great deal.

  61. 61.

    Layer8Problem

    Well this is encouraging. @WaterGirl, how much work is it to spin one of these up? Lots of configuration?

  64. 64.

    Zelma

    I was so excited when I saw that we have a temporary home. Like everyone else I discovered exactly how much I depend on BJ and how much time I spend here. Like others, I was forced to head for Kos and Twitter. I discovered that BJ is irreplaceable. Thank you Water Girl for taking care of us and finding us temporary shelter.

  65. 65.

    WaterGirl

    ‘@Zelma

    Yeah, someone else told me they had resorted to Kos, so I knew we had to do something! :-)

    Well, that, and that it had been 6 days. I couldn’t bear the idea of going into a second week.

  67. 67.

    Almost Retired

    Woo Hoo, Balloon-Juice is back, sort of, in temporary form. that’ll fix the temporary surge in my productivity at work that started last Saturday morning!

  68. 68.

    KSinMA

    Thank you, WG, for this home away from home! I missed you all!

    @Dorothy A Winsor, what a great performance!

  70. 70.

    persistentillusion

    So happy to see y’all! It was a very long and aimless 6 days, not knowing how everyone was holding up and not knowing what was actually going on in the world.

  72. 72.

    Chip Daniels

    Good to see this up.
    I assumed the old one went down due to somebody mopping naked in the middle of the night.

  73. 73.

    dnfree

    Somehow I have to think that the “365” in the name implied continuous availability. I wonder how things will shake out for the company once access is restored. I’ve never heard of an outage of a hosting company lasting this long, but that may be because any previous outages didn’t involve any site I followed so closely. Thanks, WaterGirl, for setting this up, and thanks to some of the regulars for jumping in.

  74. 74.

    JR in WV

    It’s supposed to be in the 90s here today — too much like August!!

    Thanks for this site, WG, so proud of your indomitable spirit which created this Emergency Balloon Juice recovery center! Couldn’t believe how much I missed B-J when it went away. And fuck whoever hacked the cloud services with a rusty rake!!!

    Somehow this web page knows my nym!?!

  75. 75.

    Another Scott

    Thanks for all your efforts, WG. It must be very frustrating for all you front pagers and JC.

    I would not want to be a tech at 365DC while this is going on!!1

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  77. 77.

    Tim C.

    I’m thinking of this as a camping trip. Like we are living in John’s Subaru in the middle of a field.

  78. 78.

    Windpond

    At least my addiction has been identified – it’s Balloon-Juice with Adam Silverman’s excellent posting on the Ukraine war, the atmosphere at this site no matter where it’s hosted. I am a daily lurker and was close to requiring an intervention. Thanks for this interim fix.

  79. 79.

    Cowgirl in the Sandi

    ‘@TxTiger I feel the same way – so much to miss and I didn’t realize how much until this freeze out. Thanks to Watergirl for giving us a campsite again. Now who has the Hershey Bars and marshmallows?

  82. 82.

    henqiguai

    Aw’right, Cole, I’ll spring for the darned subscription! Now turn site back on…

  84. 84.

    LNNVA

    Thank dog you are doing this. Although I rarely comment, I read you every day, often several times. I particularly am missing updates on the war in Ukraine that Adam provided every night. Hopefully, everything will be back to normal (?) soon.

  85. 85.

    BellyCat

    Per Cole’s Twitter feed during our staycation please confirm that somebody in our legal flying wedge filed suit against those devious bastards at LGM over this. Heads on pikes! //

  86. 86.

    johnnybuck

    Since 2008, I’ve read Balloon Juice several times, every day. This has been like losing a family member. So glad y’all put this up

  87. 87.

    Heidi Mom

    Thank you, WaterGirl! I felt as though half the people I know in the world had suddenly gone missing. Good to be back with everyone.

  92. 92.

    Asparagus Aspersions

    Oh thank goodness this satellite site is here. I didn’t realize how much I relied on BJ being around until it was offline, and my hopes rose and fell each morning as I clicked on the site. I don’t comment too often, but read it faithfully daily, as well as nearly all the comments. So nice to see everyone’s nyms again!

  93. 93.

    WaterGirl

    It’s good to see that people are still finding our little home away from home.

  95. 95.

    WaterGirl

    ‘@tybee

    355 Data Centers is still not providing a date. Our site host expects a phone call today where he will hear a plan and a timeframe.

    We shall see.

  96. 96.

    WaterGirl

    Update as of 7:30 pm on 5/23:

    More word salad.

    355 Data Centers is still not providing a date.

    We did not hear a plan or a timeframe today.

  97. 97.

    tybee

    promises promises. I, too, have misled (lied) to principals about restoration times….political expediencies ya know.

Comments are closed.