Blockchain.info JSON-RPC Broke with v0.8.1

[ErebusBat]

I was trying to get bitcoind v0.8.1 hooked up  to the blockchain.info JSON-RPC and I kept getting:

Code:

$ bitcoind getinfo
error: couldn't parse reply from server

My ~/bitcoin/bitcoin.conf file:

Code:

rpcconnect=blockchain.info
rpcport=443
rpcssl=1
rpcuser=MyWalletGUID
rpcpassword=MyS00perS3cretPassword
printtoconsole=1
debug=1

I can't figure out what is wrong, I can get curl to work fine and it returns results as expected.  I know I had this working some months ago, which makes me think that maybe it is a problem with the newer bitcoind (which I just installed from apt this morning: Bitcoin version v0.8.1.0-g34d62a8-beta)?