The Google mail goggle

Morning all, here’s yesterday’s column, hope you enjoy.

PS: I spent the weekend at the Franschhoek Literary Festival, it was flipping fantastic.

If anyone out there reading this happens to enjoy weekends filled with books and bookie stuff, conversations about everything under the sun (did you know that the loose skin at your elbow is also known as your ‘wenis’*) {true story – Edyth Bulbring told me, and she knows everything}, too much good booze, too much good food, and a fat laugh – if those kinds of things are high on your Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs, then I highly recommend next year’s festival.

* [hence the term ‘wenis rape’ is when you bash/poke someone with your elbow repeatedly.]

okay enough of that, here’s yesterday’s article:

A MILLION MILES FROM NORMAL – By Paige Nick
THE GOOGLE MAIL GOGGLE

Do you know what a ‘Beer Goggle’ is? I’m sure you do. But just in case you aren’t a reprobate who hangs around with a bad crowd, and are instead a fine, upstanding citizen who pays your TV licence, flosses regularly, recycles and looks both ways before you cross the road, I’ll fill you in.

The beer goggle is a phenomenon whereby when a person drinks a certain amount of alcohol, it almost immediately distorts their perception to such an extent, that it makes people of the opposite sex, who they would never normally be interested in, look way more attractive than they actually are in real life. So for example, once you’ve put on your beer goggles, a person who would ordinarily only rate a four on the International Scale of Hotness, will suddenly come in at a solid nine. It’s quite a well-known phenomenon in reprobate circles, and it’s actually how 60% of the world’s ugly people manage to get laid as often as they do.

Alcohol, you’ve got to love it. Our judgement really isn’t what it should be after a couple of drinks. Dodgy pavement boerewors rolls that you wouldn’t eat if you were a contestant on Fear Factor, suddenly look and smell gourmet after half a bottle of scotch.

And nothing like a couple ten drinks to make you do something you’ll most certainly regret in the morning. Like drunk dialling for example. For some reason when you’re drunk, it suddenly seems like a really good idea to email, call or sms someone you shouldn’t and tell them exactly how you feel about them. Of course your sober-self will fight as hard as it can to stop you, but unfortunately drunk-self beats sober self every time, leaving sober self to pick up the pieces in a haze of loser’s regret the following morning.

The only thing drunken dialling/emailing has ever been known to result in is lost jobs, the walk of shame, or the morning after pill. There are very few ‘happily ever afters’ as a result of drunk dialling, texting or emailing, that I know of.

But don’t worry, all is not lost. Now, as a further service to mankind (as if predictive Googling wasn’t enough) some rock star at Google invented ‘Mail Goggles’. It’s a free service you can activate on your Gmail account that kicks in late at night and on weekends, which will put an end to dangerous drunken emailing once and for all.

This is how it works. Once you’ve activated Mail Goggles, your computer won’t let you send out any emails until you’ve solved a series of five mathematical equations in a specified amount of time. (You choose the difficulty level of the equations when you activate the service.)

So last weekend I activated it and then I went out drinking to test it on your behalf. (I decided to set it to ‘beginner’ because I’m not very good at maths, drunk or sober). Here is the kind of exchange you can expect from your computer when you try to email your ex at three am on a Saturday morning, after six double whiskies:

COMPUTER: ‘Are you sure you want to send this mail? Answer these simple math problems to verify:

69–14 =

ME: Ummm, fifty something?

COMPUTER: 69-29=

ME: Wait, I know this one, I know this one. Thirty… *burp* Oh no, I should never have eaten that boerewors roll!

COMPUTER: 48-17=

ME: That’s a trick question; everybody knows 48 doesn’t go into 17!

COMPUTER: 47+13=

ME: Orange?

COMPUTER: 39–11=

ME: …. (cricket, cricket) …

COMPUTER: Oops, looks like your reflexes are a little slow. Try again later.’

ME: What do you mean my time is up? Hey, how do you order another drink on this thing?

I can report back that no matter what swear words you use, or how hard you bang on your keyboard, you’ll still have to wait till the sober light of day before your computer will let you try send your email again.

We may not know what’s best for ourselves after a couple of drinks, but thank goodness Google does.