I have a FICS account, but I don't use it much. I've played one game, actually. I think it's hard to get a good long game on the internet, so I don't really try. I also am skeptical of the value of playing blitz, so I don't. I think it develops bad habits when it's done more often than real games, and I don't play many real games these days (once every two weeks and maybe a tournament every few months, which isn't terrible but isn't great).
However, I do need to play sometimes. Blitz is better than nothing, and there are worse ways to waste time when you have 10 minutes to kill.
What I might consider doing is taking up correspondence chess. I wouldn't be hardcore about it, I'd probably treat each game as though I were in the middle of a 40/2 type game (well, I'd probably do a little bit of fiddling in the opening book). Voila, 5-10 minutes killed. I would probably lose a lot playing that way if I were playing against serious players, but it would be informative and it would be relatively serious chess. Not as intense as doing correspondence chess right or a tournament OTB game, but good enough to count as a "real" game. I suppose one of the servers like RedHotPawn or chess.com or something would be an appropriate venue for that, but I've heard the players are of very variable quality or something like that. I think I'll do it as soon as I'm done with my travels. I have a few short trips coming up and I don't want to have to worry about being sans computer or busy for 4 days or so.
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