Off the record is the coolest thing ever. I was just trying it out wiht my friend. He was using the integrated Talk client in Gmail, and I was using the real Talk client. He pressed off the record and I was given an alert that said he had taken the conversation off the record. We talked about how cool that was, then I put the conversation back 'on the record'. We said a few more things and then I checked my chats in Gmail and yep, worked like a charm.