This partner had a particularly strong scientific background, and was generally very down to earth, so it was usually great fun to shootthebreeze with her.
More and more characters are introduced, each one weirder than the last and all of them happy just to shootthebreeze, when they are not actually shooting each other.
The hero of 15 books by Lawrence Block, Scudder is a winningly smart-assed private eye who can shootthebreeze (and the bad guys) with the best of them, and has a capacity for abstract thought to boot.
It speeds up the retrieval and dissemination of information ... partially eliminating such chores as going outdoors to the mailbox or the adult bookstore, or having to pick up the phone to get hold of your stockbroker or some buddies to shootthebreeze with.