Just ran a trace route to the server and the ping times go to pot as soon as it reaches Chicago. Right around 4 hops before the server.
I started the night with a playable ping of around 250 to 350. Around 9:30 EST it started climbing. I gave up playing when it hit 800. Just tried the pinging the server from the in game browser and got 1024. Guess I'll listen to some tunes, and maybe tweak my skin somemore.
i donno lately my ping has been around 150 most of the time but i have some trouble for a hour of each day but i think thats the cable connection in peak hours