just for anyone looking for an update, i had no luck with the server binaryfreedom.info . a quick search on jabber servers told me that binaryfreedom's MSN servers were down for a bit.

i went through a few, and recommend jabber.sk server. little downtime and it loads my MSN contacts on jabber beautifully.

using jabber instead of pidgin or haze hopefully reduces battery usage, i'll be monitoring and will report back!