Holy crap, I crashed TCD

DJ gives TCD’s “system overload” a thumbs up

I didn’t think much of it when I got the email Tuesday afternoon that TCD was having site problems.

“Just an FYI that our server is being a little wonky right now,” said our intrepid managing editor Erin. “Eh, that happens,” I thought to myself, and went about the rest of my workday, heading to the monthly staff meeting after.

At the meeting, our dazzling publisher Jon Anne let us know that we apparently were having site issues because one of our stories got posted on Metafilter, and the resulting traffic was too much for our server to take. But it got straightened out, so yay! Jon Anne didn’t know yet which article had been posted, because the root of the issue had been discovered just as she was leaving the office.

Curious, I whipped out my Google Phone and fired up the browser. There, on the Metafilter front page, was a link to my piece on Johnny D, West Allis’ worst comedian, from last Friday! Holy crap! I made Metafilter! …Aaaaaaand broke ThirdCoastDigest! Aww. Our little website that could hit the big time. (And apparently the site couldn’t deal, or so we thought. But never mind that now.)

What’s that? The FRONT PAGE? Oh my!

Looks like my friend Emily in Chicago showed the article to her boyfriend, who got a kick out of it and posted it to the MF, where it ended up sparking a conversation about stand-up comedy and the broken personalities who attempt it—which, I must say, was pretty darn cool! There were also some well-spoken critiques of the piece, as well as one person accusing me apparently of wanting to be Chuck Klosterman, ouch, but I suppose it’s valid. (But hey—my review of Chinese Democracy was way better than his.)

But anyway, consider this a public thanks to Emily’s boyfriend for giving me the closest thing to internet fame I’ve experienced to date. You’re a champ, sir. And on behalf of ThirdCoast Digest, we’re sorry for the inconvenience—I guess we’re just TOO DAMN ENTERTAINING.

Dear readers,

Though we all raised our glasses to our very own Cultural Zero (and the now-infamous Johnny D) in honor of his extremely popular column, it should be noted that high traffic was not the only cause for TCD’s…um, hiccup.

We’ve been doing a little Spring cleaning here at TCD, reformatting our homepage and streamlining our look to make the site better, faster and easier to use. We deleted thousands of posts and simultaneously received a record amount of traffic and comments. As in, they happened on the same day. At some point on Wednesday afternoon, our server momentarily tapped out for a much-needed breather.

But now we’re back on our feet and stretching our hamstrings in preparation for a jam-packed Spring coverage season. Stay tuned- it’s going to be great.

In the meantime, thanks for being our friend. We like you. And definitely, three cheers for DJ!

Love,

Third Coast Digest