Who needs a drink ?!

... I do.
I went out and celebrated the many things that make this day special - see previous post.
It was a good evening, the bar was fun, bumped into Ivo van Leeuwen who was drunk as hell and ended up getting escorted outside by a security guard (even though I thought he was being quite well-behaved, well, considering it's Ivo), plenty of new unknown faces around with a little sprinkling of familiar faces. The girl I can't seem to stop loving was there - she will still remain unnamed here, because I really don't want her to ever figure out what I feel for her, but I'm pretty sure I brought her up before, so I'm re-mentioning her now - and she wore the site's shirt, first edition. That's right, MY site (well, OUR site by now since there's 9 people involved, but still - I founded the whole thing so it will remain my pet project until it's fully out of my hands ;>) on HER body - and all that on the two year anniversary of the URL. Good stuff.
Somehow though, I felt like not sticking around long. I went home rather early - considering it's me - and on my way home I felt empty and sad. Even semi-composed a lil' rock song that will never get written down or performed.
And so I get home, I decide to quickly check up on the site before I go to bed...

AND EVERYTHING'S GONE.

Protagonist.nl is gone, Probeersel.com's gone, the webmail, the control panel, even FTP access, all gone. From the looks of it the server(s) tipped over, but needless to say, I'm not happy. Just when I spent most of the day coding an automated solution to the new T-shirt competition, and it all seemed to work fine and whatever, wham, all gone. I can't help but wonder if my crappy coding is yet again to blame. It kinda wouldn't surprise me, although any of the other times, protagonist didn't vanish along with it. Nor did webmail and with a little effort I could usually still establish a very sluggish and minimal FTP connection to fix the problem - it would usually take me some 40 minutes just to delete the perl script that caused the ruckus, but still, you could tell that a connection, slow as it was and with the amount of time-outs it gave, was still possible. This time, it seems like nothing can connect. Everything's down and gone. NOOOO !

I should have just started publishing a magazine. And kept the whole thing offline. Shouldn't I ? This web site stuff is such a damn pain in the ass, I swear. Time and time again I can't help but wonder what the hell I've gotten myself into...

On top of this joyful news, all week I've been having trouble with my kneecap. Every time I sit up, knees bent, after a while - 15 minutes will usually suffice - my knee starts to feel pressure, like it's gonna explode or at least pop. It's very painful and annoying, especially if you commute a lot or sit in front of computers a lot and stretching your leg isn't much of an option. I had it happening in the bar earlier as well, and as I type this, my left leg's stretched out again because it just came back AGAIN. I'd go see a doctor if I had the damn time - and wasn't concerned with the fact that doctor visits cost me money I likely won't have.
Life is great....

On a slightly positive note, not to finish this post on too negative a tone, the only big obstacle between me and Viktor going on the trip I won in the lottery in about a week and a half from now, was that the cats need a sitter for those four days. We found one ! He's a reasonably trustable friend from the bar, and generally a cool guy, and he didn't mind. So that's great news - I actually get to go on vacation soon ! Sure, it's only four days, but that's four days more than I've had off since November !
I can really use a vacation. I seriously can't wait.

Ok, folks, wish me luck on trying to get the site back online. I'll do all I can. And pray that it wasn't our fault.
*Sigh* If only comics weren't so damn important to me. I might have even told that girl at some point in the years I've known her how I feel. And lord only knows what could have happened. Instead, I'm sitting up, tired as a dog, at 2 30 on a Saturday night, trying frantically to connect to a webserver. If alternative realities exist, I sure hope another me is happy living with that girl, somewhere. I envy him.