The Malcontent

Malcontent.biz Update

If you've followed us to the new site, please bear with us during this outage.  I received this from Dreamhost at about 5:30 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time:

We currently are experiencing wide-spread site outages do to some DNS troubles.  We're working on the fix as quickly as we can, but unfortunately it could be several more hours before all sites are updated.

So if you're getting connection refused errors, this is most likely the cause.  Bear with us while we get things fixed up.

Hello, Typepad Fans

Malcontent.biz is currently experiencing some sort of outage.

It doesn't appear to be server-related (i.e., I can still connect via FTP).  I hope to figure it out soon!

WordPress Outage

If you're looking for our new WordPress site at Malcontent.biz and don't see anything, join the club.

Our ISP, DreamHost, is reporting massive DDOS attacks.

I was uploading some admin files when it all went down, and I thought it was my fault!

Thanks to everyone for sticking with us during this transition, though.  I still feel like it will be for the best.

Flipping the Bird and Taking the Plunge

OK, it's time.

I have made no secret of my disdain for Typepad.  (Of course, it is my fault for having chosen them in the first place.)  But at long last, the new Malcontent is ready to rock 'n' roll.  So please reset your bookmarks accordingly.

I missed my self-imposed deadline of migrating by June 1 by about 20 minutes, due to an 11th-hour database meltdown mostly of my own causing.  But hopefully it will be worth the wait.

Malcontent.biz offers many improvements over our churlish Typepad overlords, including:

• Malco-Forums
• A dynamic menubar
• Gravatar support in comments
• Numbered comments
• One-click comment emoticons
• RSS feeds for individual comment threads
• Automatic parsing of URLs in comments
• One-click translation into eight languages
• A weighted "category cloud"
• And a "shoutbox" powered by Ajax technology (doesn't require browser refresh)

And more will be coming soon!

But again, please reset your bookmarks, and please bear with whatever glitches we have at the outset.  (If you encounter any problems, please email me.)

Soon I will rejigger things here to automatically redirect you to the new site.  But for now, you're on your own.

And My Dear, She's Still Here

The Malcontent apologizes profusely for helping feed speculation about the impending death of Dame Elizabeth Taylor.

Instead, the 74-year-old screen legend turned up last night on Larry King, looking about as chipper as possible and certainly more lucid than she was at the 2001 Golden Globes.

The very much alive Taylor refuted rumors of her demise and partially dismissed reports of having "Alts-heimer's," although there were moments to make one wonder about the line between fact and fiction.

Normally I am impervious to Larry's sycophantic coddling of his guests, but I admit to a soft spot in my cold, brackish heart for the old broad.  Six days before the 25th anniversary of the CDC report that is generally regarded as the start of the AIDS pandemic, she is still a driving force behind eradication of the disease.  She was red ribbon before red ribbon was cool.

Taylor waxed nostaligic about many of her costars including Rock Hudson, whom she said would be out of the closet if he were alive today.  Oh, and she peddled her jewelry.  It's ugly as sin, but I might buy some anyway.

[Watch video – 7:50, WMV format, high bandwidth]

[Watch video – 7:50, WMV format, low bandwidth]