A happy ending!

January 26, 2009 9:47 AM

Muscle memory finally pays off. MeTa is back!

While mefi was getting a massage, how did you cope?

Twittered Metafilter withdrawal triage recommendations.

posted by carsonb to MetaFilter-Related at 9:47 AM (126 comments total)

I'd reload it.
posted by waraw at 9:48 AM on January 26, 2009 [1 favorite]

I trolled BBQ and sobbed uncontrollably.
posted by Plutor at 9:48 AM on January 26, 2009

My coping mechanism is a longboat and a secret.
posted by cgc373 at 9:50 AM on January 26, 2009 [1 favorite]

I went snowshoeing and nagged cortex to finish the podcast.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 9:52 AM on January 26, 2009

WoOO!
posted by Jofus at 9:52 AM on January 26, 2009

I worked. Some of us have jobs, you know.
posted by ardgedee at 9:53 AM on January 26, 2009

I circumcised my cat, I was so distraught. My female cat.
posted by maxwelton at 9:54 AM on January 26, 2009

Over the last few days, Twitter has proved a more than adequate replacement for MeTa.

Shut it down! SHUT IT ALL DOWN!
posted by Jofus at 9:54 AM on January 26, 2009

I went to MetaChat's IRC and posted this video.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 9:54 AM on January 26, 2009

Working Monday through Friday
Takes up all of my time
If I can get to MeFi on the weekend
Everything will work out just fine
That's when I can go crazy
That's when I can have fun
Time to be with the MeFites
Time to come undone

Where's the MeTa, I want to free my soul
Where's the MeTa, I want to lose control
Where's the MeTa, I want to free my soul
Where's the MeTa, I want to lose control

Then there was the Injection
MeFi wasn't so much fun
MeTa closed for "a massage"
Till pb got the job done
People give me the business
Where can I go to vent spleen?
We were living in chaos
With only blue and the green

(chorus)

Don't want to grow old too fast
Don't want to let the hackers get me down
I've got to find a way to make the MeTa last
And if you'll show me how, I'm ready now
Slow down you post too fast
Gonna make the favorites last
Gonna let my rant hang down
I'm ready now

Where's the MeTa
Where's the MeTa, someone tell me
Where's the MeTa, come on, come on, come on
Where's the MeTa

We can make it all right
We can make you dance, we can make a party last all night
(repeat until end)
posted by pineapple at 9:59 AM on January 26, 2009

So, it looks like we finally made it through together. I guess nothing too bad happened, everybody found a way to cope.

*puts away torch and pitchfork, shreds elaborate diagrams ranking other members by relation to taste of bacon*

Hugs time!
posted by mosessis at 10:01 AM on January 26, 2009 [1 favorite]

What happened to the "What's going on?" thread? It didn't survive the backup?
posted by yhbc at 10:03 AM on January 26, 2009

I logged into my Plastic.com account for the first time in eight years. Then I promptly logged out.
posted by eyeballkid at 10:05 AM on January 26, 2009

I got partly finished editing the podcast.
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:05 AM on January 26, 2009

yhbc, we had to roll the database back to roughly midnight before the hack. So anything posted between midnight and around 7am was lost.
posted by pb (staff) at 10:06 AM on January 26, 2009

Hi, everybody! Nice to see you all.

I uploaded metafilter-is-down-triage-recommendations to Twitter.

And I finally got the front room cleaned out and fir for habitation. If there were any "before" pictures (which there aren't, thank god), they would show no bookshelves and a lot of piles of crap.

I rowed some with some Vikings.

Also, I cried, just a little.
posted by rtha at 10:07 AM on January 26, 2009

What I want to know is who will reimburse me for ~2 days of lost favorites. >=(
posted by Eideteker at 10:07 AM on January 26, 2009 [7 favorites]

Fit, that is, for habitation.
posted by rtha at 10:07 AM on January 26, 2009

Was this one of those 48-hour Swedish massages I've heard so much about? Metatalk seems really relaxed today.
posted by lukemeister at 10:08 AM on January 26, 2009

I'm back. What did I miss?
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 10:09 AM on January 26, 2009

Damn, I just fired off a message to mathowie that would have been better in MetaTalk, had I known it was up. Now I feel bad for cluttering his inbox at this time of crisis.

Anyway, I noticed that the official RSS feeds were not updating properly. If you read the site through a feed reader like I do, you can still get your fix -- just use Feedburner's feeds:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/Metafilter
http://feeds.feedburner.com/AskMetafilter
http://feeds.feedburner.com/MetaTalk

Those are all I know of -- there may be others for the other subsites.
posted by Rhaomi at 10:10 AM on January 26, 2009

Yay!
posted by typewriter at 10:11 AM on January 26, 2009

CPB,

Everyone with user numbers above 52373 has been laid off. Turns out the site was running on worthless credit default swaps.
posted by lukemeister at 10:11 AM on January 26, 2009 [7 favorites]

Coped? Pretty much the moment MetaFilter went down I started vomiting and promptly spewed out my dinner, lunch, bile, stomach lining and finally my will to live. After a night-and-then-some of that I mostly slept for the next 24 hours.

Some of you may conclude that I contracted the stomach bug that's going aroun but the more perceptive of you can only deduce that I have become symbiotically linked to MetaFilter to such a degree that when MetaFilter ails, I spew.
posted by Kattullus at 10:11 AM on January 26, 2009 [1 favorite]

I had some friends from Boston visiting London and spent the weekend showing them around.
posted by vacapinta at 10:12 AM on January 26, 2009

The metafilter-is-down-triage-recommendations finally let me add a bunch of metafilter users because they were all in one place.

Is there a Mefi twitter index anywhere? I think that would be easier than browsing user pages to see if they have an account.
posted by hellojed at 10:12 AM on January 26, 2009

I got some more writing done than normal. We can't have that, now, can we?
posted by Bookhouse at 10:13 AM on January 26, 2009

*flags vacapinta's weekend activities as contrary to the Metafilter ethos*
posted by lukemeister at 10:13 AM on January 26, 2009

I bet pb needs a massage after all this.
posted by desjardins at 10:13 AM on January 26, 2009

I got sooooooo much stuff down around the house, it's ridiculous.
posted by Astro Zombie at 10:14 AM on January 26, 2009

*heads behind the bar and starts squeezing limes* Okay, mathowie, cortex, and jessamyn, how do you like your daquiris? Gimme a sec and I'll set you up, because you've earned this.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:15 AM on January 26, 2009 [1 favorite]

So anything posted between midnight and around 7am was lost.

Someone needs to repost that "essence of owning a guitar" post that got deleted by a mod anyway right before the downtime. That thread was awesome.

Thanks to the staff for getting everything back up so quick considering the amount of work that was involved, I'm sure it wasn't a fun weekend. I was like a junkie who'd boiled his last cottons toward the end there.
posted by DecemberBoy at 10:16 AM on January 26, 2009

The Metafilter Social Explorer lets you search for everyone that has twitter listed in their profile.
posted by mosessis at 10:17 AM on January 26, 2009

Someone needs to repost that "essence of owning a guitar" post that got deleted by a mod anyway right before the downtime. That thread was awesome.


I deleted that and wondered what had happened to it later. An extremely bizarre post.
posted by vacapinta at 10:21 AM on January 26, 2009

Where's the backup? Where's the backup?!
posted by EarBucket at 10:21 AM on January 26, 2009

EmpressCallipygos: "*heads behind the bar and starts squeezing limes* Okay, mathowie, cortex, and jessamyn, how do you like your daquiris? Gimme a sec and I'll set you up, because you've earned this."

Either you forgot pb -- the guy who probably has done the most work getting things back up -- or you know that (like all good coders) he prefers a pint of cheap whiskey straight up after a long weekend.
posted by Plutor at 10:22 AM on January 26, 2009 [2 favorites]

Yeah, Matt and pb have done the heavy lifting here as far as the rollback and patching. Me and Jessamyn have been pretty much doing what we can in support mode.

That said, I'd accept in place of a daquiri a collection of covers of Laurie Anderson's O Superman.
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:24 AM on January 26, 2009

Three Cheers for pb!

I was so upset that I had nothing to distract me from schoolwork that I actually did my schoolwork. For shame...
posted by schyler523 at 10:24 AM on January 26, 2009

I went on a friend-adding binge for everyone who participated in the MWTR twitter thing. I feel like the most popular no-name mefite now.
posted by sambosambo at 10:25 AM on January 26, 2009

Yeah, cortex and jessamyn had the internet version of a snow day, I reckon. pb needs booze and food! And accolades, many many accolades!
posted by rtha at 10:27 AM on January 26, 2009

I had no idea the Metafilter withdrawal triage recommendations thing was going to turn into such a meme when I started it. I was just goofing around to chase back the shadows of despair a bit is all. And thinking about scotch.
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:28 AM on January 26, 2009

Did we learn our lesson?
posted by chillmost at 10:28 AM on January 26, 2009

Hooray! I missed you all.
posted by flatluigi at 10:28 AM on January 26, 2009

*deep breath* This is hard *sob* Since I bought my iPhone *sniff* I realise I have been contributing less around the place *sigh* It's just hard with the little key board, ya know, it just becomes easier to say nothing, to do nothing, to be a selfish taker of things here. *cries*

Things are going to change now *wipes tears* I promise.

I'm so sorry.
posted by Samuel Farrow at 10:29 AM on January 26, 2009 [1 favorite]

What did I do during the downtime? Someone sneezed on me and I got fat.
posted by found missing at 10:29 AM on January 26, 2009 [2 favorites]

Me and Jessamyn have been pretty much doing what we can in support mood

Going for ice cream runs and gentle words of encouragement?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:30 AM on January 26, 2009 [1 favorite]

I was on a business trip with bonus social time so kept trucking on that...along with tossing in some triage recommendations.

The quick turnaround on this really impressed me - especially the clear communication and ease of accessing the status. Thank you, MetaFilter muckety-mucks (++pb).
posted by batmonkey at 10:32 AM on January 26, 2009

Going for ice cream runs and gentle words of encouragement?

emptying the piss bucket and keeping away the little ones.
posted by sambosambo at 10:32 AM on January 26, 2009

I could only find the one, cortex: David Bowie live w/ Laurie Anderson. Sorry.
posted by carsonb at 10:33 AM on January 26, 2009 [1 favorite]

Kattullus: I got wicked ill at the same exact moment. Though that may have more to do with the fact that we are long lost twins. Mon semblable! Mon brer!

I'm feeling much better now thank you.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 10:33 AM on January 26, 2009 [1 favorite]

Going for ice cream runs and gentle words of encouragement?

It's negative three degrees here. Ice cream? Part fo the weirdness was not knowing when the site would be up, so alternating between "hey it's still down, more blueberry muffinz plz" and "better click reload in case it becomes a goatse-and-lulz-factory bcause I've grown complacent." was what I did a lot of Saturday and Sunday.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 10:34 AM on January 26, 2009 [2 favorites]

Up here at -40, the flurry (equivalent to the DQ Blizzard) remains a popular confection.
posted by ODiV at 10:38 AM on January 26, 2009

M.A.N.D.Y. & Booka Shade, O Superman with remixes.
posted by carsonb at 10:38 AM on January 26, 2009 [1 favorite]

So, SQL-Injection was the how, but what was the payload for the attack? It seems more likely to be coincidence, but the machine I surf mefi on at home, started suffering strange problems around the time this all was going down.
posted by nomisxid at 10:39 AM on January 26, 2009

*shoots daquiri to PB instead* Sorry, man, I didn't catch your name at first, I'm terrible with names. *sends down a whiskey chaser, and sends second drink to mathowie as well*

*flings limeade to cortex* ...Working on the CD for you. That'll hold you over.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:39 AM on January 26, 2009

goatse-and-lulz-factory closes. Thousands unemployed. Where's your Obama, now?!
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 10:42 AM on January 26, 2009 [3 favorites]

Re: Laurie Anderson - a friend went to this concert here in NYC just after September 11. He said that the crowd was absolutely stunned when she did "O Superman."
posted by GrammarMoses at 10:46 AM on January 26, 2009

I can hear you. I can hear you. The rest of the world hears you. And the people who knocked this site down will hear all of us soon.
posted by gman at 10:47 AM on January 26, 2009

Welcome back, everyone! '-- DROP TABLE USERS
posted by 0xFCAF at 10:48 AM on January 26, 2009 [8 favorites]

Oh, and that was worse than a temporary ban.
posted by gman at 10:48 AM on January 26, 2009

Ice cream?

You're dead to me.

FYI, the metatagger link is broken, no hurry obviously.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:49 AM on January 26, 2009

Jesus fuck, I didn't realize how much time I spent reading MeTa until it went down and I was command-R'ing Twitter every thirty seconds.
posted by middleclasstool at 10:55 AM on January 26, 2009

I spent a lot of the down-time photographing scantily-clad women.
posted by pjern at 10:57 AM on January 26, 2009

So hold me mefi
In your blue arms
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:57 AM on January 26, 2009

Oh, oh, oh! Forgot to mention that the reason I was checking as often as I could while on said trip with said social whirlwind was because I was desperate to see updates to the CD Swap reminder/results thread, which is now conveniently linked here for those who have missed out on chiming in and didn't want to dig through back entries.
posted by batmonkey at 10:59 AM on January 26, 2009

Brandon,

Weren't you supposed to get started having Obama's babies?
posted by lukemeister at 11:00 AM on January 26, 2009

... or you know that (like all good coders) he prefers a pint of cheap whiskey straight up after a long weekend.

Is there another way to use this site or AMIDOINGTHISWRONG!?!
posted by joe lisboa at 11:01 AM on January 26, 2009

After a year and a half of daily lurking I finally decide to pony up the $5 and the thing breaks within twenty-four hours so I spent the weekend thinking my very bad karma was so very bad it actually managed to kill all of Meta, and entertained paranoid fantasies of the MeFi militia finding the last user to join and lynching them.

BTW Hi, everyone I'm happy to be here.
posted by Bango Skank at 11:02 AM on January 26, 2009 [14 favorites]

What's odd is that when Metafilter is down, my computer just becomes less interesting to me. I look at other websites, sure, but they all seemed oddly pointless without Metafilter around. I lost interest and went for a walk.

Thus forgetting to do some work I was supposed to do over the weekend. So yes, I finally have proof that Metafilter makes me more productive.
posted by roll truck roll at 11:04 AM on January 26, 2009 [1 favorite]

Welcome, Bango. Apology accepted for breaking the place.
posted by joe lisboa at 11:06 AM on January 26, 2009 [1 favorite]

I thought I broke you
My crazy life happening
But I did unpack
posted by -t at 11:11 AM on January 26, 2009 [1 favorite]

I was noticing some odd things happening if I tried adding a tag to an existing post, is that a known issue?
posted by Artw at 11:12 AM on January 26, 2009

Weren't you supposed to get started having Obama's babies?

YOU ARE NOT MY DOCTOR.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:13 AM on January 26, 2009 [2 favorites]

The Goatse-and-lulz-factory...thats a horrible restaurant. Such skimpy portions
posted by ShawnString at 11:24 AM on January 26, 2009 [1 favorite]

I relapsed.
posted by Devils Slide at 11:24 AM on January 26, 2009

So, SQL-Injection was the how, but what was the payload for the attack? It seems more likely to be coincidence, but the machine I surf mefi on at home, started suffering strange problems around the time this all was going down.

It just inserted a script link into every possible database field it could, and all the script did was go through several convoluted steps to eventually redirect you to some page hawking something (I never actually saw what it did, I was using FF/NoScript). It was like the advertising equivalent of breaking into your house, tying you to a chair and forcing you to listen to a timeshare presentation (pretty sure I stole this description from someone in the original thread). Not destructive to individual users, but destructive to the site since it overwrote everything after the first 30 characters in each field. It basically destroyed Projects, Music and Jobs, which is probably why those sites are not back online yet.

What I want to know is who could this sort of "advertising" possibly work on? I mean, spam is one thing, but is anyone going to say to themselves, "Hey, I seem to have been redirected to some site hawking penis pills. Gee, I wasn't thinking about it, but I sure could use some penis pills!"?
posted by DecemberBoy at 11:27 AM on January 26, 2009 [3 favorites]

After a year and a half of daily lurking I finally decide to pony up the $5 and the thing breaks within twenty-four hours so I spent the weekend thinking my very bad karma was so very bad it actually managed to kill all of Meta, and

By Thor you buffoon, stop talking lest you break it again!

Seriously, welcome!
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 11:28 AM on January 26, 2009

I played so much Left 4 Dead that I keep hearing the witch crying when I'm at work. :(
posted by cowbellemoo at 11:33 AM on January 26, 2009 [3 favorites]

Cause when MeFi is gone, there's always MeTa.
And when MeTa is gone, there's always IRC.
And when IRC is gone, there's always Twitter. Hi Twitter!
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 11:34 AM on January 26, 2009 [3 favorites]

Looks like I get to blame apple for my video problems, not our evil haxor underlords. Good to know using a Mac doesn't give me a false sense of security after all =p
posted by nomisxid at 11:40 AM on January 26, 2009

Part fo the weirdness was not knowing when the site would be up, so alternating between "hey it's still down, more blueberry muffinz plz" and "better click reload in case it becomes a goatse-and-lulz-factory bcause I've grown complacent." was what I did a lot of Saturday and Sunday.

In honor of this special occasion:

Metafilter: better click reload in case it becomes a goatse-and-lulz-factory
posted by Greg Nog at 11:42 AM on January 26, 2009

I discovered I have an eight year old daughter living with me that can walk and talk.
posted by Sailormom at 11:43 AM on January 26, 2009 [14 favorites]

to eventually redirect you to some page hawking something

Well, it sounds like there may have been some kind of hidden-iframe-bearing-malware payload at the final destination as well, though it's possible that the execution of that part of the plan was as broken/inept as the injection broadside at mefi itself. I didn't go looking so I can't say for sure.

Here's some more bloggish speculation on the details.
posted by cortex (staff) at 11:45 AM on January 26, 2009 [1 favorite]

I watched a lot of C-SPAN and brushed my cat.

I am leading the most boring life ever.

But I have an extremely glossy and contented cat.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 11:50 AM on January 26, 2009 [6 favorites]

I finally learned how to get on IRC. I went house shopping. I became ever-more irritable.
posted by Stewriffic at 11:56 AM on January 26, 2009

The only slightly positive thing I can see from this is the complete disappearance of my first deleted FPP. So my record is (technically) perfect. I'm five for five!

But seriously, thanks to pb & matt for getting the site up again. Like the old song says, "Don't know what you got 'til it's gone."
posted by theroadahead at 12:04 PM on January 26, 2009

I suffered a ginormous cold/flu thing this weekend. Am I a voodoo doll for metafilter or vice versa?
posted by exogenous at 12:09 PM on January 26, 2009

yhbc: What happened to the "What's going on?" thread? It didn't survive the backup?

I've still got that page, I think.


lukemeister: Everyone with user numbers above 52373 has been laid off. Turns out the site was running on worthless credit default swaps.

Sheeeeeeit.


Anyone who's looking for a disappeared post, go check Google Reader. It should still have 'em.
posted by Pronoiac at 12:17 PM on January 26, 2009

Oh, & nomisxid, go do a thorough malware check. The site was spreading malware for a couple of hours.
posted by Pronoiac at 12:18 PM on January 26, 2009

I moved furniture, did laundry, and read Obsidian Wings and the twitter triage recommendations. I played Planarity obsessively.
posted by cybercoitus interruptus at 12:24 PM on January 26, 2009 [1 favorite]

Gimme the links, boys, and free my soul
I wanna get lost in your snark and troll
And Drift Away-aay!
posted by SPrintF at 12:35 PM on January 26, 2009 [2 favorites]

I got to hold and play with my 9 day old niece, I saw I got along pretty well without metafilter.
posted by lilkeith07 at 12:42 PM on January 26, 2009

You know who else rewrote their site in .net...
posted by Artw at 12:44 PM on January 26, 2009

I had noticed that my profile was corrupted, but I thought I must have been keylogged and lost control over the account -- I was most surprised when I was still able to change my password. It never even occurred to me to say anything to the site staff about it. I thought it was something on my end.

Basically, every field in my profile was overwritten after about half a line. I'd lost my shortcuts to the old comment browsing history, and had just gotten those repaired and put back into the profile when the whole site went away.

Poor PB. His fingers must be bleeding by now.

Yeoman work on having the backup, by the way, and having it be so current. You guys are ON TOP of shit around here. Very nicely done.
posted by Malor at 12:58 PM on January 26, 2009

I went outside! I felt like Columbus discovering a whole new world.
posted by Cranberry at 1:04 PM on January 26, 2009 [1 favorite]

Actually, I pestered pb about comments not loading. He deserves a GOLD STAR for tolerance as well as dedication to the rescue of MetaFilter.
posted by Cranberry at 1:06 PM on January 26, 2009

I managed to get myself re-addicted to Civ IV. I'll make the bastards pay who got me hooked again.

After one more turn.
posted by Johnny Assay at 1:11 PM on January 26, 2009 [4 favorites]

I rediscovered my long lost love for Harvey Birdman Attorney at Law

"happy ending"

I just got that.
posted by SheMulp AKA Plus 1 at 1:37 PM on January 26, 2009 [1 favorite]

Ahhhhhhhhhh.....

Best. Weekend. Ever.
posted by Meta Filter at 1:49 PM on January 26, 2009 [1 favorite]

I used the downtime to finish up the last six pages of the first draft of the novel I've been working on.

Honestly? If metafilter hadn't gone down, those six pages probably would have taken two weeks to write instead of twelve hours. I'd been really, really dragging my feet, and my metafilter addiction hasn't been helping anything.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 1:50 PM on January 26, 2009 [1 favorite]

Thirding the recommendation to scan your computer. I just did epic battle with a nefarious supervillain of a virus and won... but at what cost?

Also, I place the blame for these trouble at the feet of PresiDON'T N0000bama. The virus was roused when I rebooted my laptop in order to watch part of his inaugural address for an assignment, and the last trojan I rooted out at the end of the day was of the strain BHO.HEZ.

Impeach!
posted by Rhaomi at 1:53 PM on January 26, 2009

It was like the advertising equivalent of breaking into your house, tying you to a chair and forcing you to listen to a timeshare presentation (pretty sure I stole this description from someone in the original thread).

And then when you try to leave they steal your clothes and make you wear a sandwich board? I think it was EmpressCallipygos, I remember favoriting it.

I suppose I'd better favorite one of her other comments instead to keep the numbers up. If the favorite counts are depleted than the terrorists script kiddies have won!

I would also like to state for the record that my comments in the missing threads were awesome. If they weren't lost forever, you would have all favorited the hell out of them.
posted by the latin mouse at 1:55 PM on January 26, 2009

I went to In-N-Out to get footage of burger wrapping (lost post). Got a kid in a stormtrooper hoodie, got caught filming, got dude to give me a demo... In-N-Out (warning 96MB and 14MB videos)
posted by zengargoyle at 1:59 PM on January 26, 2009

update (4:07pm Pacific): The slog continues

Just for the record, I had nothing to do with this.
posted by slogger at 1:59 PM on January 26, 2009 [1 favorite]

So hold me mefi
In your blue arms

Your best-of-the-web arms
Your over-thought-bean arms
In your electronic arms
posted by trip and a half at 2:42 PM on January 26, 2009 [1 favorite]

Podkilling spree in Eve.

God I love my Phobos.

(This comment is bait for Kattilus)
posted by rodgerd at 2:49 PM on January 26, 2009

ZenGargoyle, no animal fries? Now I'm stuck between a wicked craving and the soul crushing feeling of seeing In-N-Out fries without grilled onions and thousand island and cheese and...BBLAARGGHH!

Why doesn't In-N-Out open a store in the Midwest?
posted by schyler523 at 2:52 PM on January 26, 2009

*stumbles blinking into the sunshine, raises gaunt face to sun*
posted by popechunk at 2:53 PM on January 26, 2009 [2 favorites]

Me and Jessamyn have been pretty much doing what we can in support mood

Brandon Blatcher : Going for ice cream runs and gentle words of encouragement?

Providing suppressing fire so Matt and pb can initiate a bounding overwatch to the exfil point.

Obviously.
posted by quin at 2:57 PM on January 26, 2009

That's just silly, quin.

Though jessamyn does have a good cover for travel, pb is the only usual field agent, though I have suspicions about vacapinta. The others are too recognizable & their online absence would be too conspicuous.

mathowie: [sounding official] Uh, everything's under control. Situation normal.
Voice: What happened?
mathowie: [getting nervous] Uh, we had a slight weapons malfunction, but uh... everything's perfectly all right now. We're fine. We're all fine here now, thank you. How are you?
Voice: ... Wait a minute. This is mathowie, isn't it? WHAT. THE. FUCK. MATT? No one said there was going to be a meetup on the Death Star!
posted by Pronoiac at 3:10 PM on January 26, 2009

I went to the Waffle House and got hash browns scattered, smothered and covered.
posted by The Straightener at 3:11 PM on January 26, 2009

I used the time I'd set aside for backtagging to swim, do an unprecedented fuckton of work on my part-time research, and figure out where an art project is going.

Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeit.
posted by carbide at 3:18 PM on January 26, 2009

I was disproportionately proud of starting the "wtf is happening to my profile and what's this javascript?" thread that descended into MAN THE LIFEBOATS at about 60 posts per minute by the end.
posted by Shepherd at 3:19 PM on January 26, 2009

I told you I would have my revenge.
posted by Paphnuty at 4:14 PM on January 26, 2009 [3 favorites]

I tracked down boxxy.
posted by Elmore at 4:17 PM on January 26, 2009

I played D&D. (akshully, I had no idea this was going on until this morning, because I was, well, playing D&D...and doing laundry.)
posted by epersonae at 4:43 PM on January 26, 2009

I considered writing a song, but didn't get around to it until the site was back up.

Music's back, btw.
posted by cortex (staff) at 5:41 PM on January 26, 2009

I created a Twitter account. Then I twittered?... tweeted?... twatted? Then I baked some bread.
posted by the littlest brussels sprout at 5:54 PM on January 26, 2009

M.A.N.D.Y. & Booka Shade, O Superman with remixes.

Wow, so they did this in SongSmith, right? Way to take the best 10 minutes in modern music and turn it into an hour of synthoid drivel.
posted by DarkForest at 6:06 PM on January 26, 2009

Don't despair, DarkForest, not even Garfield can dim the quality of Laurie Anderson.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 6:40 PM on January 26, 2009

Deprived of AskMe, I cleaned my house.

I'm just glad the massage had a happy ending.
posted by MonkeyToes at 6:41 PM on January 26, 2009

I've posted the "What's going on?" / "wtf is happening to my profile and what's this javascript?" thread on my server. I've removed the saved .js files. Images & CSS are still there, just because.
posted by Pronoiac at 7:36 PM on January 26, 2009 [3 favorites]

Thanks Pronoiac!

(also, do you know you have 7 MeMails? :) )

(also also, it's like getting a glimpse into some sort of alternate reality where the apocalypse is happening)
posted by Kattullus at 9:10 PM on January 26, 2009 [1 favorite]

I've read 'em all, see, I like reading mail so I got my MefiMail in my Gmail so I can read my mail while I read my mail.

"Apocalyptic" works - watching a worsening slow-motion trainwreck without actually being able to do anything about it or warn people away. Wondering how to track down phone numbers because if nothing changes... gah.

I've put up 17267.html with timestamps linked properly, for easier quoting, e.g.:

EmpressCallipygos - This would be the equivalent of someone breaking into your house, physically lifting you up, and carrying you to the store/product/service they're advertising and forcing you to listen to a pitch about it, and when you try to leave they make you wear a sandwichboard.

posted by Pronoiac at 11:57 PM on January 26, 2009

schyler523, I went for bum standard for filming purposes. Double, no tomato, fries, shake. Wouldn't want to go confusing people... it's like 4 blocks away and we have another in town, it's not like I don't eat there a lot.

M.A.N.D.Y. & Booka Shade, O Superman with remixes... I enjoyed, fan since Home Of The Brave back in the late 80s. I've hallucinated Laurie Anderson.
posted by zengargoyle at 1:02 AM on January 27, 2009

....Now that pronoiac has featured my words above, I'm only hoping that I actually got that right...
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:02 AM on January 27, 2009