Damn baby, A/S/L? When it comes to pimping fine ladies, I'm a champ. Well ... pimping to fine ladies on AOL Instant Messenger, anyway.

Sure, in a conversation with a girl in person, I might come off sounding straight-up Gump, Forrest style, "What's your name? You got real purdy hair," but on IM, I'm a smooth operator. "Sup sweet thang, lemme help you outta dem clothes."

Let me give you my resume. And believe me: I've kicked some mad game over the Internet.

I've macked it from coast to coast. I've pimped sweet Southern belles in Savannah, Ga., all the way to the fine honeys out in L.A. That West Coast thing is always tricky because you have to subtract three hours from Penn State time. It's never smooth to start busting a rap with, "Sup girl, What chu up to dis afternoon?" and it actually turn out to be morning where they are. See, a good IM pimp always has to be thinking.

I think I even busted a rap to a girl in Brazil once. Yeah, I had to use a translator Web site, but I think my message got across loud and clear.

"Bebê represado, seu 'booty' olha 'hella' bom."

In person I might crash and burn before I can get two words out, but on IM, I'm a regular Don Juan.

How do I meet these girls online, you ask? Simple, my friends. With a few short clicks you can pull up a list of screen names of classy Internet ladies. Choose one and mack away. Remember, the initial contact is critical, so don't be a chump with lines like, "What are you doing?"

"What up girl?" almost never fails, or "Damn, you look fine as hell, hella fine," is also a classic conversation starter. Yeah, the force is strong with this pimp ... on IM anyway.

But, I admit it, sometimes even I, the pimpologist that I am, have an off night and have to kick it to several Internet girls before I get results. But they're out there, so keep the faith!

Once you meet that special Internet freak, it's an art finding out what she looks like, cause we pimps gotta be keepin' it real, ya dig?

A sure fire way to find out if the girl's a hottie and worth keeping on your list-o' buds is to check out a photo; but, a good pimp can't just be like, "Hi, um, can I see your picture?"

Hells no! That's straight-up Urkel. An IM pimp has gotta be smooth, so prepare to be learned.

My trick, and this never fails, is to show her a picture of yourself first, that's key. A decent picture, mind you. Don't show her that one where you passed out on the bathroom floor and your friends wrote all over yo' ass, then stuck it on the Web.

Be like, "Sweet thang, let me show you a pic." Naturally, once she sees you are a true gentleman, she sends her picture back to you. Or if she doesn't send you one, you've got a reason to ask for it.

But what's that? What if her scanner is broken and she doesn't have a picture to send? Chill young playa', for there is always another way.

"So let me ax' you a question. Girl, say I was going to buy you a bikini from some fine-ass store, like Target, what size would I get?"

Boom. All the information a good IM pimp needs to know.

And if she turns out to be heinous, you just say "gg right quick, I ttyl, promise babes." And with a quick click of the block button, that problem is solved! Like I said, internet pimps gotta be the smoothest operators.

Of course, while pimping on IM there are situations where someone I thought was a fine-ass freak with an IM name like "BoyToy69" actually turned out to be middle-aged man or, worse yet, a 12-year-old girl, but shoot, that just comes with the territory.

So take my advice to heart all you aspiring IM playa's and pimp on my friends, pimp on!