Multiplayer could fix that. We could stage a crusade to the nether. Arm ourselves. Some of us fight to keep them occupied and distracted, some of us build, until we have a stronghold worthy of note and drive back the ghasts, and forge for ourselves a great land of our own.
This sounds amazing, as soon as Hell works in SMP, count me in.
On topic, My minecraft has been having some issues, If you get errors on load, delete the whole .Minecraft folder in AppData (after backing up your world) then redownload the whole thing again... and it should be fine after that, if not contact notch?