You: Hey best friend, would you like to have a couple of tequila shots with me on this fine Tuesday night?

Best Friend: No. I have a midterm tomorrow.

You: Please, it will be fun. I promise.

Best Friend: No.

You: OK, your loss. I’m going to go consume some alcohol now, and then I think I will attend to some official business, via Gmail.

Best friend: As your best friend, I cannot allow you that privilege, since you may use it to send inappropriate messages to people you should probably not contact at all, let alone while intoxicated.

You: No, I will only check my mail, I swear on my dog’s life.

Best friend: You are a deluded fool. However, I will allow you a compromise. I will stay here and study soberly for my midterm while you drink in that corner. When you feel the urge to use your Gmail, I will give you a short test to determine your level of coherent functionality. If you can multiply three by four, I will grant you unhindered access to your Gmail account.

The next morning …

You: Wow! Thank you, best friend, for preventing me from sending an error-riddled e-mail to my ex-girlfriend in which I would have proclaimed (using very bad grammar, and a series of unrecognizable emoticons) my undying love and sexual frustration since she left.

Best Friend: When you claimed that the answer to “two times five” was “forty-two, just like in that one book you read that one time in middle school,” I knew you would later regret attempting communication. Also, you’re an alcoholic. You might want to look into rehabilitation.

Now replace “Best Friend” with “Mail Goggles,” a new Gmail feature from those folks at Google.  They are clearly hungrier than ever for world domination, and have realized that they must win not only the minds, but the hearts of the populace in order to continue gaining power.

The feature is in its testing phase, but soon, college students everywhere will be lying prostrate at their best friend’s–er, Google’s feet, thanking it for saving them from untold levels of humiliation. Somewhere, Larry Page and Sergey Brin are rubbing their hands together and laughing sinisterly.

Image Source: Conny under Creative Commons
‘Mail Goggles’ [Notes from the Field]
New in Labs: Stop sending mail you later regret. [Official Gmail Blog]

Oh wait. That’s us.

Lifehacker even offers a script to modify the e-mail/calendar mating to your taste. You better get your life in order–you only have two weeks before your academic enslavement resumes.

Image (barely) Photoshopped by Christine Borden
Integrate Gmail and Google Calendar with Enhance Gmail [Lifehacker]