I found the bash script on this page rather illuminating, adding in my usual sites. (including flyertalk, etc).

http://www.manu-j.com/blog/opendns-a...dns-rocks/403/

When an address is not cached by the local ISPs nameserver, it's painfully slow. for me opendns gives consistent times, even though ping times to the mainland are much slower ( > 2x for opendns.com) than to the local ISPs nameserver.

Interesting. I will try using opendns for a while and see how it goes. I always assumed it wouldn't work very well for me with ping times in the 88ms range, but it seems to be much better than using the ISPs (Hawaiiantel) nameserver.

And I guess that article and script might be interesting for those outside of N. America as well.