Our server is getting more traffic than it can handle, so I've put in an order for an upgrade. Hopefully, that'll happen within the few days.

Part of the problem is that we're getting blasted with tons of referer spam now. It's about 25% of our traffic. I've had enough. So I just installed a program to automatically block anything that looks like referer spam. So if you come to the Toaster from a url with the word "poker" or "casino" or "viagra" in it, you'll get an error now. It's only a matter of time before the evil referer spammers figure out how to get around this scheme, but it should buy us a temporary reprieve, if nothing else.

Part of the problem is the Fairpole software itself: in particular, the templating engine. A major upgrade for that should be coming soon, too.

Thanks for your patience.

Sorry for the server troubles today. I'm still not quite sure what the problem is. The server started acting like it was overloaded with traffic, but I don't see any evidence of traffic levels being any higher than normal. It's a bit of a mystery.

I tweaked the server settings a bit to adjust to this phantom traffic load, and it seems to be helping, knock on wood. But if it keeps up, I'll have to move things over to a more powerful (read: expensive) server.