"query running that was way more innefficient than it had to be"

Please be sure to index your tables properly - you had a query running
that was way more innefficient than it had to be - it went from checking
over 2000 entries each time to under 25:

mysql> explain SELECT * FROM 20050910_punbb_messages WHERE owner=65 AND
status=0 ORDER BY posted DESC LIMIT 0,10;
+----+-------------+-------------------------+------+---------------+----
--+---------+------+------+-----------------------------+
| id | select_type | table                   | type | possible_keys | key
| key_len | ref  | rows | Extra                       |
+----+-------------+-------------------------+------+---------------+----
--+---------+------+------+-----------------------------+
|  1 | SIMPLE      | 20050910_punbb_messages | ALL  | NULL          |
NULL |    NULL | NULL | 2002 | Using where; Using filesort |
+----+-------------+-------------------------+------+---------------+----
--+---------+------+------+-----------------------------+
1 row in set (0.02 sec)

mysql> create index owner on 20050910_punbb_messages(owner(10));
ERROR 1089 (HY000): Incorrect sub part key; the used key part isn't a
string, the used length is longer than the key part, or the storage
engine doesn't support unique sub keys
mysql> create index owner on 20050910_punbb_messages(owner);
Query OK, 2002 rows affected (5.08 sec)
Records: 2002  Duplicates: 0  Warnings: 0

mysql> create index status on 20050910_punbb_messages(status(10));
ERROR 1089 (HY000): Incorrect sub part key; the used key part isn't a
string, the used length is longer than the key part, or the storage
engine doesn't support unique sub keys
mysql> create index status on 20050910_punbb_messages(status);
Query OK, 2002 rows affected (8.08 sec)
Records: 2002  Duplicates: 0  Warnings: 0

mysql> explain SELECT * FROM 20050910_punbb_messages WHERE owner=65 AND
status=0 ORDER BY posted DESC LIMIT 0,10;
+----+-------------+-------------------------+------+---------------+----
---+---------+-------+------+-----------------------------+
| id | select_type | table                   | type | possible_keys | key
| key_len | ref   | rows | Extra                       |
+----+-------------+-------------------------+------+---------------+----
---+---------+-------+------+-----------------------------+
|  1 | SIMPLE      | 20050910_punbb_messages | ref  | owner,status  |
owner |       4 | const |   21 | Using where; Using filesort |
+----+-------------+-------------------------+------+---------------+----
---+---------+-------+------+-----------------------------+
1 row in set (0.01 sec)

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That dropped the load on your database server quite a bit!