I have learned quite a bit over the last three days about what happens to greedy blogs that hog up the processors at DreamHost.

If you go over 100 CPU minutes in a day, the next day they send you the computer-generated Threat-O-Gram e-mail, which contains entire sentences in capital letters, and some exclamation points. It mentions an “evaluation server,” in the same tone that mafia goons mention a “ride to the pier.” I gather from the context that an “evaluation server” is not a place where one would want one’s blog to go.

On Thursday, I used 108.52 CPU minutes and got my Threat-O-Gram on Friday. On Friday, I used a little bit less; I was down to 103.35 CPU minutes. Since I was still over 100, I got the same Threat-O-Gram on Saturday, plus another e-mail, this one actually written by a human. “Jeff T.” at DreamHost wrote to tell me to “try to take care of this ASAP! If you hit 100 CPU minutes for more than 3 days, you will be sent to an evaluation server.” In other words, this was my last warning.

But I already was taking care of it ASAP. I was busily recoding my blog, shaving off prodigal function calls wherever I found them. It’s really just about all I’ve been doing since Friday. By Saturday, my efforts were starting to bear fruit. My CPU usage on Saturday was down to 80.47 minutes, and on Sunday it was only 68.61 minutes! I had saved the Bloglomerate from whatever goes on in the evaluation server.

Now, instead of the daily Threat-O-Gram, I’m getting a much gentler Warn-O-Gram, with no capitalized sentences, no exclamation points, and no ugly references to the evaluation server, just a (comparatively) friendly reminder that I am using more of their server than they would prefer, ceteris paribus.

If I can get my usage below 50 CPU minutes — and I think I can — I’ll stop getting any warnings at all. So I’m still recoding.