I'm using a shell account to idle on AIM and IRC. On IRC I'm on about 6 channels on 5 different networks, #4chan being one of them. It's a great way to stay on IRC provided if you've got some spare cash to spend. I also use mIRC sometimes, but that's mostly to poke around in new channels or to see what's going on, any "permanent" channels that I decide to check out I use irssi for. Not to mention that you can resume your IRC session from any computer so long as it has Java (I know, Java is terrible) installed using a Java based ssh client.
I've been thinking about upgrading to a VPS account soon, being that my shell provider offers that service for those who want much more control over the remote machine.