In news wrote:

To all of those that I have chatted with over the years and whom I may
never chat again, thanks. It's been fun.

There are lots of alternate sources for USENET, some free.

Here's a nice free one:

http://www.motzarella.org/

news.motzarella.org is a private project providing free access
to text-only Usenet News. The server has a 100MBit connection to
several Internet backbones and is integrated into the Usenet via
more than 60 peers.

--
Bert Hyman St. Paul, MN