Two letters (RL)

[thistlechaser]

Dear tree outside my window,

Yes, you're very pretty. You're not even fully in bloom yet and you're dropping pretty little pink and purple flowers all over the place. It makes even my driveway look festive.



Problem is, you and all your flowering friends are killing my allergies. My sinuses have been throbbing for days. My face hurts. My eyes burn. I haven't been able to breathe through my nose for a week.

Stop it, or I'll task our scientists with finding a way to neuter trees, then you'll have no pollen to spread and won't be able to make new baby trees. Our scientists are better than yours, so don't think we can't do it.

Snifflingly,
Thistle

---

Dear kamalloy,

LJ hates you or it hates me, or perhaps it hates both of us. Maybe the site is threatened by the idea of us being friends. For more than a year now, I haven't been able to leave a comment on your posts. I get a "Error 500! Sorry, the service is currently unavailable due to technical issues." error every single time. It's only your LJ, no one else's. It happens both at home and at work, so I don't think it's caused by something on my end.

I hope you've been able to see all the comments I've left for you in my head.

Frustrated,
Thistle

Comments

[silly-walnut.livejournal.com]

oh that's a pretty tree.

and I feel you on the sinus pain.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

It is! I like the tree a lot! I just wish it would stop tossing its pollen into the air.

[silly-walnut.livejournal.com]

Sagebrush season is coming up here. I've got loads of decongestants and generic zyrtec waiting because I can tell it's coming... allergies suck.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Yep. As warm as this 'winter' has been, things are really starting to bloom here, too. My pills are all lined up next to my keyboard, waiting to be taken. :/

[kamalloy.livejournal.com]

LJ has discovered our evil plans and is trying to thwart them!

Or something. That's so weird. I'll have to look into it. I've only disabled comments from anonymous posters, so you should definitely be able to post.

Anyhow, what did you want to tell me?

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

The paladin/grammar idea made me snicker!

... Sigh. I just went to your main LJ page so I could look through your previous posts and tell you what I would have commented on them, but...

Error 500!

Sorry, the service is currently unavailable due to technical issues. The page you requested is not available. Frank has been chewing on the wires again

SURPRISE

I wonder if you're the only person of all my LJ friends on a certain server and my server doesn't like talking to yours?

Edit: A quick googling tells me "This error can only be resolved by fixes to the Web server software. It is not a client-side problem. It is up to the operators of the Web server site to locate and analyse the logs which should give further information about the error." So... some issue with LJ itself. I'm not really all that surprised.

[kamalloy.livejournal.com]

Huh, I may be the only one on a particular server. There used to be a way to find out where you were hosted, but I don't remember what it was and it may no longer be valid.

Can you see comments other people post on my entries via your friends page?

I'm glad I amused you, at least. ^^

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Nope. I found your post on my friends list again, and when I clicked the comment link (http://kamalloy.livejournal.com/331780.html?style=mine#comments) I get the same:

Error 500!

Sorry, the service is currently unavailable due to technical issues. The page you requested is not available. Frank has been chewing on the wires again.


Know what? I really hate that goat. I always have. I wish LJ had some other mascot.

Edit: As a test, I removed the ?style=mine bit, but it still fails.

[kamalloy.livejournal.com]

Ragh, so basically you can only see my entries via your friends list, but anything that involves direct interaction with my journal is a no-go. :/

I will check LJ tech support. I am skeptical of how much good it will do, but I will at least try.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I haven't had good luck with them at all. I hope you have better! :)

[gconnor.livejournal.com]

In case it helps, I also get error 500 when going to any url starting with http://kamalloy.livejournal.com/

Error 500 has to do with cache or proxy usually... most likely LJ has some cache or relay that catches the request and passes it along, but the layer that is supposed to optimize is instead screwing things up. Definitely LJ's problem and tech support should fix it. Be persistent.

[gconnor.livejournal.com]

More info, after logging out I can see http://kamalloy.livejournal.com/ just fine. I know that paid/permanent users get redirected to dedicated servers so their requests are less likely to be delayed by heavy traffic. But, in this case it probably means that paid/permanent users are directed to a separate server that is somehow wedged or crippled.

Tell tech support that at least two paid users are blocked by Frank's 500 error, and logging out shows the page, but without any locked content and without ability to comment, of course.

If they can't figure it out from there, they should pass it along to someone who can. Definitely an LJ server-side issue.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Huh, interesting! Thanks for testing this out.

[prettyredeyes.livejournal.com]

Interestingly, as I was reading your letter to the tree I just got to the scene with Treebeard in The Two Towers.

Treebeard sez that his methods (i.e. rock throwing and general angry!tree nastiness) may be better than your scientists.

Jus' sayin'. I am but the messenger.

Quietly, my sinuses also wish the trees would not be so.. so.. sexy. QQPOLLENQQ.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Rock beats scientist, yes. :/

You win this time, Treebeard, but next time I have to sneeze, I'm going to face you!

[firebyrd.livejournal.com]

While I do not have allergies I do currently have a sinus infection so I sympathize. Damn all those trees having sex.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Someone needs to teach these trees about safe sex.

And hope you feel better, soon! Those are rough.

[jadall.livejournal.com]

We could always kill it with some of my snow. :| You know, the foot of it that landed on my lawn today and stuff. /no sympathy

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I snickered out loud RL. :) It's dark out, but I'm thinking about opening another window, because my apartment is way too hot with only one open.

:D :D

[jadall.livejournal.com]

>8( BEST LOCK THAT WINDOW, FLOWERCHILD.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

You know, it is starting to get cool enough! I guess I'll close it now.

Better luck next time, SPY!

[gconnor.livejournal.com]

mmm, tree sex!

also, try logging out and then commenting. if it works, not much of a solution, but it could help the techdrones figure out the issue.