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I've had the (dis) pleasure of moving two websites recently. One was out of necessity and one was out of economics. I had to move the www.turningcircle.org site because Microsoft decided to discontinue the server that hosted the site. That was a real drag because not only did the server get discontinued, Microsoft outsourced the domain services to an Australian company called MelbourneIT (after all, we gotta make sure that no Americans ever get jobs anywhere!) Microsoft didn't do anything on their end to migrate the site. All I got was a list of the new DNS pointers and told "good luck".

Well... It took two days, but I got Turning Circle running again. The new web services support content editing from an Android tablet, and I can update the TC calendar from a tablet or cell phone. So I can totally dig that.

My next move was economic. Since my money situation is pretty dire, I called up Aplus Net (the company hosting my www.gaianar.com RPG hobby site) and learned that I could get web hosting for half the price I'm paying now. So that was a no-brainer. Unlike Microsoft, Aplus Net reset the DNS pointers to the new server for me. I'm in the process of uploading the website content from an archival backup now. The site will probably be down for two days, but I doubt anyone will notice. Nobody really plays the game anymore since its heyday was 1998-2006. Nobody plays paper-and-dice roleplaying games anymore.


Since the AT&T network is so shoddy, I ended up cancelling my ZUNE account for my Windows Phone. There's absolutely no point in paying for a music streaming service when the associated 3G/4G network is so crippled that it can play only 3-4 minutes of music before devolving into stutters and gibberish. The funny thing is that it was not that long ago that AT&T had a data network that actually worked. I used to be able to stream music all day at work. On the unlimited plan, rounding out 7-10 Gb was a monthly norm. My last month's data utilization was under 2 Gb. And that reduction wasn't because I wanted to use my phone less. It's because the phone *worked* less, thanks to AT&T's utterly broken network. I think they should have been upgrading their infrastructure instead of handing over huge sums of the subscribers' money to straight, white, rich, ignorant, hate-based Dominionist Christians like Rick Perry (who received $486,000 from AT&T. Awesome investment, eh?)

So, it looks like my weekend adjustments have me at +$25/month more money going forward. That's not a lot, but every bit helps!
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So, I was thinking about Saint Patrick's Day. Lemme tell ya: as a witch, I DO NOT celebrate this holiday. why would anyone of a Pagan/Wiccan faith celebrate the fact that a religious zealot brought the Roman Catholic Church to Ireland? the result was the extermination of the Druids, the imposition of a new religion based solely on fear and hate, the denigration of women, and the molestation of children at the hands of hate-based clergy whose allegiance is to Rome (not God). There is nothing to celebrate about the Roman Catholic Church having expanded. It is the world's most powerful, most wealthy, most ancient, and most tenacious organized crime syndicate in human history. Celebrating the Saint Patrick is, in a very real way, making a holiday out of Pol Pot's birthday. After all, both men were leaders of organizations that would go on to commit genocide. The difference is that I never heard about Pol Pot molesting children.