I found this on microsoft's messenger service status page (
http://messenger.msn.com/Status.aspx )
All Features
The .NET Messenger Service is undergoing routine maintenance. The service may be unavailable. Please try again later.
Last Update: 10/10/2004 2:06:00 PM Pacific Time (GMT -8:00)
EDIT: it is working for me now as stated in above posts. Although I would hardly call this routine maintenance...
[ 10-10-2004, 05:30 PM: Message edited by: dplax ]