Why don't you just grab the nearest person on IRC?

Also, the way your write it sounds like you and your teammates communicate so tersely as to be an impediment. Don't do that.

In every office I've ever been in, all the programmers type to each other all day long on IRC. In all the distributed workplaces I've ever been, they do the same exact thing, miles apart.

Talk to each other. All day long. Constantly. On IRC. Just like you do in an office.