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Google is looking out for you.

... just like that college friend who held your hair back while you ralphed up a night of Jager, or the buddy who kept you from taking home that "special someone" who was likely to give you coyote arm the next morning.

From ABC:

Many a relationship has been prolonged -- and perhaps many a career has been cut short -- by the dreaded drunken e-mail.

But now, Google's new motto seems to be "think before you drink and draft."

And to help keep e-casualties to a minimum, it has launched a new program to stop users from e-mailing under the influence.

Launched Monday, Mail Goggles (a playful riff on Beer Goggles) asks you to complete a few simple math problems within 60 seconds before you're allowed to send off your late-night missives.

If you can make it through the math, your message goes on its merry way and you can continue to e-mail without further checks, although there's no stopping your text messages.

Never been a problem. Right fellas? Girls?

Having recently lost some weight, I'm down to one pair of jeans that aren't so big I have to hold them up with my belt pulled to its last hole and the denim scrunched up around my waist like I just arrived at Ellis Island.

So, I went shopping for a new pair of jeans this week. And found that it's almost impossible to buy a pair of jeans these days that haven't been distressed, specially washed or rinsed or treated during their dye process to give them some unusual look or feel. Beyond that, there are so many "cuts" from which to choose that it literally gave me a headache.

In the end the winner was... Levi's 501's.

Now I'm ready to escape from a chain gang and be chased through the woods by dogs and guys with shotguns to the terrifying sounds of Nine Inch Nails...

Even these aren't made the way they always were -- and my pair says the venerable American icon is now manufactured in Mexico and Egypt. But still - their simplicity wins the day.

Here's an interesting photo essay from NYC photographer David Friedman's trip to a denim distressing factory in Kentucky.

It's weird and wonderful to see how these high-end jeans get beaten up.

Why is still beyond me. I like breaking a pair in myself.

Have you seen these new "I'm a PC" ads that Microsoft has out there as a counter-punch to the popular "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" Mac ads?

Yeah. Apparently, they were made on a Mac.

That's how I like my irony, baby -- nice and stinging.

Make that 52.

This site has created a unique, pro-Obama bumper sticker for all 50 states, plus DC and Puerto Rico.

Here's the North Carolina sticker:

It's Web Junkie Wednesday, and as the new television season is about to begin, I thought we could talk TV online.

By now, you should know about Hulu - the game changing Web site that legally streams a number of old and new TV shows and movies for free, at your convenience, no downloads necessary.

But like YouTube before it, Hulu has pushed networks to start posting their shows on their own Web sites - in higher def, with minimal ads and streaming whenever you like.

This season there are a number of networks posting their shows' season premieres before they actually hit the TV. Among them:

Showtime is allowing viewers to see this season's first episodes of hit shows Dexter and Californication now well before their Sept. 28 premieres.

But if explicit shows about serial killers and drunk, masochistic writers aren't your bag, NBC may have what you want.

Right now you can see the premiere of the new Knight Rider revival and this season's first episode of Lipstick Jungle ahead of their Sept 24th premieres.

Next week the network will let you watch the season premieres of Life, Chuck and 30 Rock before they hit the airwaves as well.

Here's a strange little story of old-school word of mouth and cross-media promotion working in concert with the Internet to the advantage of fans and artists, the way it should...

Cartoonist Scott McCloud, author of groundbreaking educational books like Understanding Comics and Making Comics, has put together a little comic explaining Google's new open-source web browser, Chrome.

And when I say "little" I mean 38 pages.

But it is actually fascinating and now I can't wait to start using it.

So, you know, its done its job.

It's another Web Junkie Wednesday and this week we're looking at getting more bang for your DVD buck.

If you're like me your inability to keep track of series television (especially large, complicated serial stories like those on Lost, Heroes and 24) has led you to give up, wait for the DVD and watch it at your own pace.

This can be leisurely -- an episode or two a night -- or you could stay in your pajamas, get a giant punchbowl full of breakfast cereal and create your own Saturday catch-up marathon. But however you do it, it can get expensive.

That's where Just The Disc comes in. By ditching the packaging and selling you just the disc of movies, shows and music CDs they cut the price dramatically -- CDs are just $2.99 and DVDs $3.99. You can buy one disc at a time and if you buy five, you get free shipping. All discs are pre-owned but in excellent condition and fully guaranteed.

They don't have everything -- but they do have a lot of popular shows, movies and CDs.

Example: On Amazon.com the cheapest price for the First Season of The West Wing is $37. Even used, the best you can do is $21. You can buy all four discs of the same series at Just The Disc for $16 -- or just buy the first disc to see if you get addicted (you will).

I don't know about you, but I rarely keep DVD and jewel cases nowadays anyway. I slip them into a disc wallet to save space. From now on, when possible, I'll be buying them this way, saving money and cutting out the middle man.

It's a thin line between genius and madness -- and Cracked.com has assembled a list that proves the point.

Among the 7 "Eccentric" Geniuses Who Were Clearly Just Insane:

- Pythagoras, mathematical genius who founded a religion that held that beans were evil and that vegetarianism and pacifism were essential (except when Pythagoras was himself slaughtering oxen or dying in fights).

- Nikola Tesla, brilliant scientist who was a compulsive hand-washer, afraid of round objects and fixated on the number three

- Lord Byron, great poet who let a small menagerie of exotic animals wander around his home doing whatever they liked and spent whole days in homemade forts directing toy boats. He was basically Prince with all of the sex and none of weird religious hangups.

Cracked.com has a hilarious (and surprisingly educational) list of The 5 Greatest Things Ever Accomplished While High.

The list includes Coca-Cola, Psychoanalysis, the discovery of the DNA and (wait for it...) The Ten Commandments.

It also includes the following caveat: "To make the cut, an accomplishment has to be considered great by people who could pass a field sobriety test. So no Grateful Dead music."

Cory Doctorow gave a talk at the Cambridge Business Lectures Series.

Really fascinating stuff - the Internet as the world's most perfect copy machine, Digital Rights Management, why Paris Hilton's genitals are like the undead on the Net, etc. Worth listening to.

Go check out the finalists in Radiohead's contest for best animated video from their album In Rainbows.

I kinda dig this one:

Watch more cool animation and creative cartoons at aniBoom

It's another Web Junkie Wednesday and today we're celebrating those brave, industrious souls who have faced down their e-mail, stemmed the tide of spam and junk, fought the digital pack-rat urge and completely cleaned out their inboxes.

Inbox Victory is a site where people share the amazing feeling of getting down to zero messages.

From the site:

Have you ever been in the situation where you spend days trying answer all of your email only to accomplish your goal and have no one to share in your victory? All you want is a high five, a pat on the back, and a “job well done soldier!”, and yet most likely all you are left with is an empty room and a cold cup of coffee. Inbox Victory is an initiative that says, “you deserve that high five!” And here is how you get it:

3) Leave your screenshot in the comments of this post.

Here are some of the newly liberated:

Inspired by these brave individuals, I'm going tackle my work Outlook inbox (162 items) and my personal Gmail inbox (913 items...no...now it's 914).

Wish me luck!

Reader Brad K. takes up the challenge of making his own Mix-Tape at Mixwit.

He says of making his tape, Vanishing Point 2.0: A Soundtrack for the Road:

"I had to go with second and third choices on some artists and some songs. In a couple cases, I even had songs deleted after I posted them in the mix. However, I was also pleasantly surprised to find songs I didn't think would be included at the site. So I guess I broke even."

It's true, the service isn't perfect -- it's powered by free streaming online music. But I think his mix -- which includes Motorhead, Joan Jett, Superchunk, Neutral Milk Hotel, The Drive By Truckers and Metallica -- came out rather bad ass.

Take a listen for yourself:

Think you can top it? Go make your own mix and send it to me at Joe.Killian@news-record.com.

I'll post the best ones here.