I know it can be fustrating, but I don't have much of that trouble as I connect to the internet via my home LAN, so I don't have o worry about dial-up accounts and such to bog my machine down. Just to put it in perspective, not even Smoothwall would work on my network.
Now just to download an IRC client so I can find that guy you PMed me about.
[edit] Got XChat and guess what? The channel's empty, I just hope they check the logs.