Even if you have no friends willing to let their boxes become potential DoS targets, shells needn't be expensive...
There are shell providers offering deals for $6-10 a month (or less!) now including multiple background processes (bots), able to access major IRC networks like IRCnet and DALnet.
My shell provider offers excellent uptime and amazingly good customer support on a 100Mbit connection, 3 processes for a mere $10 a month.
Try the
Egghelp shell provider list which is searchable by various criteria. Check out some of the shell review websites too.
Some shell providers have "how to" information, if not,
Egghelp again!
PastMaster