*not* retrieving messages at startup

[darkside]

I have two related questions:

1. Is there a way to keep Gnus from getting messages from my
   servers at startup (but still have 'g' get the messages)?  I often
   need to just hop in to read an old message, email someone something
   quickly, etc. and one of my mail servers is notorious for going down
   a lot, which slows down loading and often crashes gnus.

2. If the above is possible, is there a way I might bind keys to check
   specific accounts, so I can skip the bad server when I suspect it's down?

I couldn't find anything in the manual or in the past posts on this group...

Thanks in advance,
-- 
darkside

email: darksidex at charter dot net
website: http://silenceisdefeat.org/~darkside