We are pretty active in IRC, but yeah, people are being silly and AFK sometimes. I don't see the point of being in IRC if you aren't going to say anything for the next 4 hours, but hey, whatever floats your boat.
Also i got a VIOLET LASER. It lights up glow-in-the-dark things real nicely. It's crazy. You just swipe it across one of those things quickly, and hey presto, you have a brightly glowing stripe on it. 80 milliwatts of violet laser goodness, yo. It's so violet you can't focus on the dot.