irc d00d. just idle 24/7 pop in whenever you think of it, /lastlog to catch up. been keeping up with san jose/mexico/london that way for yrs. i think email is getting more and more obsolete and with spam, the disadvantages are outweighing the pros. blogs, rss, irc, sms, IM should be good enough these days...but thanks for replying to email anyway :) cheers!