[GRLUG] Time-Based Internet Blocking?

[Luke McReynolds]

Hi GRLUG,

Longtime lurker here. I'm a student, and while I use my laptop to take
notes, do homework and brief cases, I find that I'm much more
productive when I don't read Slashdot or otherwise screw around on the
internet while I'm trying to study.

Unfortunately, I find myself much more efficient with my notetaking
and everything when I do use my laptop: I use basKet Notepads to
manage everything, and it works great. I can type much faster than I
can write in longhand, and being able to cut/copy/paste large sections
of text is invaluable for me. Furthermore, my professors often assign
8-10 page cases in PDF format: it's great to be able to search for
particular words or phrases in them, which means that printing them
out and taking them with me isn't very practical. I think that
continuing to use a computer for note-taking is too important for me
not to do.

My question is,

Do you guys know of an easily-configurable "Internet blocker" that I
could install on my linux notebook? If I could block myself from the
internet for a couple hours at a time, I think I could get a lot more
done.

I mostly study at school using the free wi-fi, so I'm not really
looking for a server-based option. (Blocking my MAC address or
internal LAN IP address from accessing port 80 on the router level,
for example.)

Do you guys have any suggestions that don't include prescriptions for
anti-ADD medication?

Thanks a lot,

Luke McReynolds

P.S. Obviously, self-motivation is my problem here more than anything
else, but I think that a software solution could help in the short
term.