New Install

I have just started to try to install Debian on a pink Pogoplug v2.
Literally I have tried 20 times but cannot retrieve any packages. I have updated uBoot, formatted the USB stick and repeated this many times.
No, my internet did not drop out in that time. I've trialled changing the server in the sources.list and still I get no result.
I see that my problem is that there are no retries after failures, so each failure is final.
Is there an option to download exactly what needs to go on teh USB stick, so that I can use dd to put it there?
Or do I give up on your system and install the way one installs Gentoo - using chroot and a network install?

After hacking the script and then hacking the downloaded debootstrap I got it all to install to a USB device.
But nothing happens on reboot, The front LED is orange, and I can't connect with ssh. Nmap doesn't find the network card.
I also tried the Arch tarball, and that won't boot either.
Any suggestions - it still boots with no USB stick in, and apparently has the latest uBoot after a few dozen tries.