curl_get_contents -- if your jerk ISP disables allow_url_fopen

curl_get_contents.php

<?php
function curl_get_contents($url) {
	$ch = curl_init($url);

	# curl options
	curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, FALSE);
	curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, TRUE);
	# socket options
	curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT, 10);
	curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, 20);
	# query
	curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPGET, TRUE);
	curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_ENCODING, '');

	# invoke curl, get response body
	$result = curl_exec($ch);
	if ($result === FALSE) {
		error_log("cURL Error [".curl_errno($ch)."]: ".curl_error($ch).". URL = ".var_export($url,1));
	}
	curl_close($ch);
	return $result;
}