I'm an email addict of sorts. I check it first thing in the morning, and all through the day. Hell I now even check it on my phone. I'm not sure why... Since I rarely find time (I'm busy reading email, right?) to write personal emails, I just as rarely receive them. So I subscribe to multiple mailing lists (mostly Alfa related) and like a dippy bird, I check and recheck my mail. A hundred or so messages a day to distract me from myself, and from the fact that I get depressingly little interesting e-mail. I didn't bother to snatch up an oh so hip gmail invite when I first had the chance, but I recently did. I managed to bag "denovich@" before on of the other 12 or so denovichs in the US got it. More importantly I used a second invite to get an account which I am using for all my Alfa mailing lists. I get all the standard gmail goodness, but what is really helpful is that I no longer have this stuff filling up my personal Inbox. Although denovich.org was down recently, the email was still being spooled and eventually delivered. Culling mailing list traffic, a few alfa questions, and some automated billing notices, I find I have only a handful of personal emails. Why do I devote so much of my time to checking it? I have already begun to notice the change in my habits. Just like when I started using a blog aggregator (the excellent: Tivo experience. I now watch very little TV, only the "good" stuff... I'm not endlessly surfing waiting for something good to come on.