how do you release the IP address... I know if you release it and wait a day or 2 that works... is there a way to do this with a mac?
It all depends on which IP address you're trying to release.
Depending on your router/Mac, you can go into System preferences-> Netowork and then choose your active configuration (Ethernet, Airport, etc.)
From there if you have admin access you can click on the Renew DHCP lease button under the TCP/IP tab, this is also where you would assign a static IP to your computer. However this process only releases/renews the 192.xxx.xxx.xxx address and if your router has a small number of computers attached you may consistently end up with the same 192.xxx.xxx.xxx address since the routers typically just assign them in numerical order and without a lot of computers to snap them up as they are released you will keep getting the same IP. You might check the computers that are on the network and see which has the lower IP address. To verify that the IP on the local computer has little to do with the issue you are seeing you can reboot them so that the one with the currently lower IP address boots last and they should swap IP addresses. The ban should still follow the original computer. Or you could just give the computer that sees the ban a new static IP address, just pick anything in the 192.168.xxx.yyy range (other than yyy=255) such that xxx stays whatever it currently is, I'm guessing 0 in your case.
To release your 731.xxx.xxx.xxx address you need to log into your router and find the button to release the IP address there.
Did you try clearing the cookies as we suggested?