Can anyone recommend an unmanaged Virtual Private Server hosting company?

I host four of my own sites from a cranky old Celeron box in the spare bedroom: this blog, Carole's blog, my brother's site, and my company site (including staging areas for client projects). The bedroom server also handles e-mail for those domains.

If only to cut down on the number of cables to trip over, I'd like to move these all to a hosting service somewhere. I'd also save some pocket change by switching from a commercial to a residential internet package with WHTV NorthwesTel.

Trouble is, setting up individual cheapo accounts for each would end up not being so cheapo in the aggregate, and I'd lose the ability to configure services just the way I like them, and to run my own programs for various purposes.

The ideal solution would be a dedicated server running from somebody's rack enclosure down south. Far from cheapo, those.

A nearly-ideal compromise is the concept of a Virtual Private Server (VPS) -- a "pretend" computer that is actually just a portion of a divvied-up real computer, but runs like a normal computer anyway, just a little bit more slowly. An unmanaged VPS is one where they give you the root password, a command-line connection, and tell you not to call unless you need a reboot. You have to set up and maintain the web server software and everything else yourself (I wonder if they set up reverse DNS?). Nothing I haven't done a few dozen times before.

After a quick look, I've seen prices ranging from $5 to $150 per month, but I don't know any of the companies. Has anyone out there tried VPS? I'd prefer to deal with a company in Canada, or at least one aware of the Yukon and not governed by the US Patriot Act.