well it is and it isnt.

I am using 8332 to mine directly to bitcoind

netstat and lsof -i show me that eloipool is communicating with bitcoind

and infact my local network is reaching out to eloipool on 3334 bfgminer says no however. im using eligius for block announcements though in truth bitcoind is only ~1 second behind so probably just a waste of time.

the log file is giving me nothing to work with..

I'll keep trying