If you're at work, then you've discovered their port-blocking policy. It's possible that you could connect on an obscure port, or do what I do and tunnel through a SSH server. When Sean wakes up, maybe he can arrange a server through which you can tunnel.

(the channel we live on is #notsorandom on irc.freenode.net)

You could try www.mibbit.com - I'm not sure if it'll get around port blocking, but it's worth a try. Barring that, you could try finding an SSH account somewhere and using pork or irssi (I'd suggest irssi - much more straightforward)