beer goggles for your gmail.

oh yeah, it's just what it looks like. found via techcrunch on behalf of gmail blog, it seems as though the company really wants to ahem--step up to the plate--and give you that friendly, buddy-to-buddy pat on the shoulder we sometimes need.

you know, for when that tiny voice in your head saying "maybe this can wait till morning" or "proofread?! at least proof--" just gets drowned the hell out by overwhelming streams of alcohol-induced emotion.

personally i think this would be better served on Facebook or Myspace. i'm less inclined to be stalking--i mean, checking up on--people in my gmail. what kind of trouble can i really get into there?

anyway. beside the point. kickback it's getting is that most people are saying they can do this sort of math drunk (and that if it's any more complex they couldn't do it sober--here here!)--that it should have other sorts of questions as well. that may be true, but then you get into SAT cultural type issues and no emails ever get sent after 8pm or on weekends. haha.

i think the value in this isn't so much the math question as a--SOBER--voice outside your own head, the calm logic of binary digital happiness, says "hey, uh, maybe you shouldn't be sending that right now?" that's the subliminal message being sent by those math problems, not whether you can count to 11. and that 1 step between you and send--even if it's a step making you run for the calculator--may save lives.

or at least a considerable amount of drama.

[disclosure: i have never sent a drunken text/tweet/mail/etc that i've regretted. partially cos i don't do most anything that i regret. partially cos most anything i'd do drunk i'd do just as easily sober. and also partially because when i'm drunk i'm social and nowhere near any technology that would support mail goggles. haha.]