was just playing a game on fics and had a total winning position and what appeared to me a reasonable time edge but when his clock reached zero i didnt win

in the end it was a draw because " Game drawn because both players ran out of time"
how is that even possible

here is the game
http://ficsgames.com/cgi-bin/show.cg...36;action=show

in the replayer you can see both players clocks at any given move

btw if you want to critizie my game you are welcome to do this as well

Did you have auto-claim activated? You have to claim your win if he runs out of time.

Here are a few things that I noticed going through it quickly:

9...Bg3+ should at least be considered

12...Nxf4 using the pin

17...Qxg1+ using the pin (wins N + R)

23...Rxe2+ 24.Kxe2 (24.Qxe2?? Qxa1) Re8+ gains time (and there may be tactics that follow.)

30...Rh3? is a positional blunder allowing the white king to penetrate (30...Rg4!)

32...b6??

Is Rh3 really such a bad move in that position? If followed up with Rb3 I'm pretty sure its still crushing for black. Pick up a pawn (either b2 or g4 if rook moves to defend b2) & if the white king gets in to e7 (only square where it can vaguely threaten something) you simply check it away with your rook on the e-file & continue pushing your h-pawn (and king/second h-pawn).

As for the clock situation, it seems kind of odd that your opponent is gaining time in a 0 increment game.

Having said that, it should encourage you to work on your finishing technique - once you play 56...Qxb7 it should be mate in a few moves. Much quicker is Qb6+, Rf7+ & mate with either Qb8 or Qc7 depending on where the king goes.
You can also set up the 'mating ladder' after 57...Qf7 with Rd5+, Qe6+, Rd7+ & Qe8#.
Of course you also missed a mate just before you ran out of time with 62...Qe7#.
The other alternative is to make moves that you know will lead to setting up a mating position, whether it is the most efficient or not & 'premoving' them, or having the piece 'in hand' ready to drop it on the appropriate square (if you don't use/like premove).

Good question. I just checked with Fritz and he says it's fine, pretty much any reasonable move maintains a crushing advantage. Allowing the king to penetrate in this position doesn't really matter.

Nevertheless, I think it's a bad human move in a blitz game since it would be a bad move in a lot of positions that weren't so overwhelming--so maybe it shows bad instincts?

pretty sure your opponent has negative time at the end and it doesn't show it properly on ficsgames, so it looks like he has increasing positive time from 0. you have to flag him, were you using a new interface or something or accidentally set it to not automatically flag him?

it is, or used to be, possible to cheat the fics timeseal (someone reverse engineered it and wrote their own timeseal) but it wouldn't look like this.