Please Help!

 The latest update really screwed up my 8gb iPod touch, so I'm trying to get it back to software version 3.1.3 via the DFU mode. But when I hold down the Power/ Home button, then the Home button, iTunes says it detects an iPod in recovery. So I try to restore it and hold option key (on a mac) to select the update I want (3.1.3) but it just hangs on "verifying restore with apple". What should I do?

How is the iPod Touch screwed up?  Have you tried restarting it since the update? 

@Forte: It's been days. I've tried restoring it twice. The apps are slow, can't connect to certain things, the wifi is crappy out on me tonight.

While I do not own a Mac, I do have an iPod Touch and I did have a similar problem jumping to iOS 4.  My apps were running extremely slow and battery would die after about 10 mins.  My problem went away when I did a system restore from a PC.  Perhaps try  restoring it using a PC (barrow a friends if you don't have one)  might fix your issue.  I doubt it will, but it can't hurt to try.  Really all the help I can give you, sorry.  Hope you get it working though.

@Forte: Thanks for the help. I'll give it a shot before I attempt to return it.

Have you brought it by an Apple Store, or do you not have any near you?  Their support is pretty solid, absolute worst case scenario they can replace it for you.

@Lukeweizer:  You correctly tried to restore it, so I don't know what the issue could be. Perhaps the firmware version you got from somewhere is corrupted somehow, so try to find another source to download it from, here's a site where I get my firmware. Also, try either loading the older 3.1.2 firmware version or like Forte suggested, try restoring it on a PC. You'll have to hold the Shift key in iTunes when trying to find a specific firmware version.