NG technical issues: Is it just me?

[Nick Sabalausky (Abscissa) via Digitalmars-d]

Using Thunderbird to access this NG, but as of about a couple months ago 
(IIRC), this problem started happening. Anybody else having this problem?:

When I try to select a new unread message to read, I've got roughly a 
10% or so chance that it'll fail with a "The connection was refused when 
attempting to contact news.digitalmars.com:119."

But here's the weird thing: Once that error DOES occur, then ALL further 
attempts to download/view a new post fail with the same error...until I 
hit "Get Messages" or switch to a different sub-forum and then back, 
which consistently fixes the issue (until it happens again a few 
messages later).

*Looks* like a server/network issue but behaves like a screwy local issue.