March 2004 Archives

I've been fooling around in the kitchen the past few days and I've come up with what I think is the jackpot of all burgers. I'm sure I probably subconsciously ripped this off from some diner somewhere, so don't even start with the "I've seen this before" comments. Before I came up with it, I hadn't; so it's fresh to me.

Here's the recipe:

Ingredients

Burger - Enough to fill you up - Beef works well, but I'm sure any dead animal will work as well.
Green Peppers, diced - about 1/4 cup per burger - available diced and frozen.
Onions, diced - about 1/4 cup per burger - also available diced and frozen.
Chipotle Cheddar cheese - since I haven't been able to find this in slices, I cut pieces off the side of a 8oz block.
Sourdough Bread, sliced - I'll let you figure this one out.
Your Favorite Beer - 1 bottle, size unimportant - a cola can be substituted for those on the wagon.
Honey Mustard
Spices of Choice, to taste

1. Roll your meat so to form patties the size you desire. Take in mind of the fat content of the meat you're using as the burger will shrink accordingly. If you bought frozen pre-made burgers, remove them from the freezer.

2. Put your burgers, two (2) at a time, in a large skillet on medium-high heat. Cover.

3. Open beer, take a drink.

4. Toast four (4) pieces of bread. A toaster oven comes in handy here as you can fit all four slices at once. A conventional toaster will do if it has to, though.

5. Flip burgers, add pre-measured green peppers and onions, recover.

6. Using a sharp knife, a cutting board and extreme caution, slice off enough cheese off the block to cover two pieces of bread. Eat a few pieces of cheese.

7. Realize that Chipotle is just smoked jalapenos and that the cheese is spicy. Take three large gulps of beer.

8. Uncover burgers and stir around peppers and onions. Flip if needed. Leave uncovered.

9. Place bread in two rows of two. On the bottom halves cover with the Chipotle cheddar cheese. On the top halves drizzle with honey mustard. This will give it a sweet tinge.

10. Continue to stir the peppers and onions and flipping the burger while taking regular schwigs of your beer. Season with whatever spices you can find that might taste good. By the time your beer is done, the burgers will be finished.

11. Place a burger on each piece of bread on top of the cheese. Pile an even amount of peppers on top of each burger. Top the burger off with the other piece of bread, preferrably honey mustard side down.

12. Find another beer. Enjoy!

Tomorrow, the vegitarian version...

And it doesn't seem like I'm the only one who thinks so. Fortunately I moved Brokedown Palace to a completely different service, because as of right now Dot5 is down. Yes, I have started the process of transferring my domain, but that takes 7-10 days to take effect -- with Dot5 down in the meantime that means no redirect from the old blog address (blog.phishvt.com) and no e-mail for me or the few other people that use that server.

I'm not talking a small few-hour outage here, either. Not that it would be acceptable if it was, but as a network professional I know that things do happen. I noticed it at first this morning when I woke up and tried to check my e-mail at 6:00am. "Host Not Found" error. I dismissed it at that point and went back to bed, as I really don't feel too well today and had decided to stay home from work. My first thoughts were that Dot5 had finally cancelled my account, after battling them about it for almost a week now; but then I remembered, web hosting is a subscription, so to speak. Just because I cancel now doesn't mean I loose my service -- only when the subscription runs out will my service be ceased.

After some consideration I decided that I wanted to complain to Dot5 again, not that any complaining had done any good in the past week. Their live support is a joke, always telling me to write e-mail to their support department. Support e-mails are ignored and never answered, and if they were they were form letters that didn't even address the issues. Anyway, I go to Dot5hosting.com to harass their live support a bit and guess what? Dot5's own website is down, too.

I did some poking around online and found that Dot5 has been down since sometime last night. The last e-mail I got was at 9:50pm, so it must have been after that. What I found in my pokings about Dot5 blew my mind. I don't think I was unable to find a single good review.

Below are links to a few of the reviews I found:

Web Hosting Jury - dot5hosting.com review

Web Hosting Ratings - dot5hosting.com review

Host-Dir - dot5hosting.com review

WebHostingTalk Forums - "Another disgruntled Dot5 customer"

There are more, but if you read any of those you'll get a good idea of how things are going. The funny thing is, and I'll back this up too, it seems that many people didn't have any problems with Dot5 until the last six months. It's sad how something can go to shit so quickly.

All and all I'm glad I'm taking my service somewhere else. I just wish I had my e-mail in the meantime.

I've switched my hosting company, and registered a new domain name. My new domain name and web address is www.themickeyzone.com, please update your bookmarks accordingly. Going to blog.phishvt.com will redirect you here, I plan on keeping the redirect active indefinitely, as I still own phishvt.com.

I had mentioned my previous entry that I was switching from Dot5Hosting to EHostPros, because of some major troubles with Dot5Hosting. Well, the troubles with Dot5 haven't ended, in fact they've become worse. My issues continue to go unresolved, and the customer support at Dot5 have neglected to answer an e-mail from me. It's going on 55 hours since I had any correspondance from them. Needless to say, I'm a bit peeved.

So I sign up for an account at EHostPros and put in for the transfer of my domain, phishvt.com. The account was set up and I was just waiting for the transfer to take effect when I read in EHostPros support documentation that MoveableType is BANNED on their servers. For those of you that don't know, MoveableType is the content management system I use for Brokedown Palace. So I needed to find a new webhost.

I decide I'll keep phishvt.com where it is, and just look for a service that I can concentrate as my "personal" webspace. I found that Total Choice Hosting was a MoveableType friendly host, and signed up with them.

So now I have a perminent home for Brokedown Palace and plenty of webspace and bandwidth to play with. Stay tuned for more enhancements and cool stuff, and remember that comments are always welcome!

Today I put in the request to transfer my domain from Dot5 Hosting to Ehostpros. I have been with Dot5 Hosting for a long time and even as a long time customer, I don't feel they've treated me right. Before now the issues had been minor, outages much past the acceptable length and support issues that take days to resolve.

When web hosting prices dropped and I found myself paying twice as much for a plan that has less features than the current one, I asked for a plan change. I was told "those prices are for new customers only". Again, I know how much trouble it can be to transfer an entire domain I let it pass.

Today was the straw that broke the camel's back. I get an e-mail saying that I have a balance with them, and that if I don't pay it in 24 hours they're going to shut down my account. Now, I was pretty sure I didn't have a balance -- I'd been paying a monthly fee every month for years.

I went online and found the charges from Dot5 Hosting, every month on the 26th, including February 2004, January 2004, Decemeber 2003... and so on. The 26th hasn't yet happened this month. Now if they've been autochargine my account every month, how can I be behind on my payments?

So I went to EhostPros, which my friends had found out about and we use for another site we do. (More on that site at a later date). I signed up for an account there that gives me MORE options for LESS of a price and started the transfer of my domain.

I then sent a letter to Dot5, telling them that they are wrong, and to cancel my account and stop charging my credit card. That I was taking my business somewhere else. A few hours later I received a reply stating that they'd do anything to keep my business. Joke's on them.

So that being said, there may be some downtime on both my blog and my e-mail. If you need to get ahold of me in the next week, please at the very least, cc: mickeyATsoxphan.com, so I'll be able to get your e-mail. My regular e-mail will be working at some point in the near future. I just want to make sure I don't miss anything important.

Just don't tell the people that keep sending me e-mails to add two inches...

"If I had my way, if I had my way, if I had my way, I would tear this old building down."

If I had MY way, nothing would be torn down. Alas, though, in this case it is inevitable.

On April 15, 1998, in a city that covers only a single square mile in land area, a club opens that differs from any other club in the Burlington area. In an end unit of a strip mall, that the older folks of the area may remember as a Denny's, sitting atop the banks of the Winooski River, Higher Ground becomes the premiere live music venue in the entire Chittenden County.

I couldn't tell you who the first act that played there was, nor would listing every show I've seen there make good use of my time; but over the years Higher Ground made a name for itself. Bringing in such classic rock bands like Blue Oyster Cult and George Thurgood, and a slew of bands with grassroots followings like Strangefolk, moe., or Keller Williams; Higher Ground becomes the place associated with live music -- previously claimed by Nectar's, only two miles down the road.

A month from now marks the six year anniversary of Higher Ground. It's also the closing day. By midnight, on April 15, 2004, Higher Ground as we know it will close it's doors for good. How ironic that the city of Winooski would mandate the closing of the doors on the birthdate of this establishment.

The reason for this eviction? It's not totally clear to me. I've heard that they're going to build a road there, but as far as I know my favorite place to see live music is going to torn down to build a parking lot. Isn't that the way it always works?

I've spent the last few nights at Higher Ground. Dark Star Orchestra played a show on Sunday and Monday night. For those unfamiliar, DSO isn't an orchestra in the sense of, lets say the London Philharmonic, but a tribute band to the Grateful Dead. The coolest thing about DSO is that instead of just playing Grateful Dead songs, a lot of the time they recreate an entire Dead show exactly how the Grateful Dead did in the past.

On Sunday night the setlist from January 17, 1979 was recreated. Last night, we got an original setlist. The band is well aware that it was their last time playing at Higher Ground, and wanted to put together something special; wanted to go out with a bang. And that they did.

The quote at the top of this post is a line from an amazingly powerful encore. A choice of a song, Samson and Delilah, that hit home with everyone in that room last night.

A reminder that in a month, Higher Ground will be our Brokedown Palace.

I don't usually post forwards and jokes I read from other poeople, but this one was funny as hell. Thanks for the forward Ryan.

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A Texan, a guy from Massachusetts, and a Vermonter are riding horses out on the range..

The Texan, just to show off, pulls an expensive bottle of whiskey out of his saddlebag, takes a couple drinks, throws the bottle in the air, pulls out his gun and shoots it in mid-air.

The guy from Massachusetts is shocked and asks, "What are you doing? That's a perfectly good bottle of whiskey!"

The Texan replies, "In Texas, there's plenty of whiskey and bottles are cheap!"

A little while later, not wanting to be outdone, the guy from Massachusetts pulls out a bottle of champagne, takes a few sips, throws the bottle into the air, pulls out his gun and shoots it, just like the Texan.

The guy from Vermont can't believe it. "What are you doing? That was a very expensive bottle of champagne.

With a wink to the Texan he says "In Boston, there's plenty of champagne and bottles are cheap."

About 15 minutes later, the Vermonter pulls out a bottle of beer. He opens it and takes a sip. Then another sip. Then he chugs the rest of the bottle then places the bottle back in his saddlebag, pulls out his gun and shoots the guy from Massachusetts.

The Texan is visibly shaken. "What did you do that for?!?!"

The Vermonter replies, "Well, in Vermont, we have plenty of people from Massachusetts, and bottles are returnable.