Just a suggestion to help bridge the gap between chat clients:
Trillian is a windows app that will allow you to chat on MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, MIRC, etc all at the same time through one interface, and it's free...
Trillian website:
http://www.ceruleanstudios.com/
Download.com:
http://www.download.com/Trillian/3000-2150-10148311.html?tag=lst-0-1
And if you'd like an app that doesn't look like ass, gaim does the same. ;)
http://gaim.sourceforge.net
Nightwulf