Techie Help needed...

I work in a place that is very slow this time of year. There is NOTHING to do there. I mean...no work at all. We're busy like 7 random months out of the year and I hate it. It drives me crazy to sit there and do nothing all day. I keep thinking of all the things I could get done if I were anywhere but there.
Today I surfed the net, read a book, played spider solitaire, read some more. I tried writing a little but there are too many people yapping and I forgot my ipod.
The one thing I used to enjoy was AOL's Instant messenger. My daughter lives in Florida and it was wonderful to chat with her while I sit there and do nothing.
Then the company blocked it!
Grrrrr....
So any techie's out there tell me how I can get around this blocked chat?
Gmail chat-blocked
MSN-blocked
Yahoo chat-blocked
Help!
The IT department is pretty good...I'll need some real geek help to beat this.
Either that or anyone know of a job that will keep me busy? I can't stand this down time! Why don't they put us on a four day work week for the summer? Why don't they lend us out to other departments? Something? Anything!