waiting for s.yimg.com

I use my yahoo as my start page and have been getting the following message in the lower left hand activity box when it starts "waiting on s.yimg.com..."

From what I have learned it doesn't appear to be malware or any threat, just the way Yahoo does some image stuff, but I really don't know.

It really slows down the loading of my start page. I have blocked it using a host redirection program, but then then the start page loses all formatting and loads in a text type view.

Anything else I can try. I have spent a LOT of time looking at other customizable start pages, but in my opinion they are extremely limited and can't use the yahoo widgets that I really like.

Thanks