By Casey Lynn
Contributing Writer, [GAS]

00:30 Refresh gmail.
00:40 Refresh gmail again.
00:45 Refresh gmail again.
01:00 Twitter about how gmail is down.
01:30 Go to Google search bar on Firefox and type “gmail basic html.”
01:40 Go to google.com.
02:00 (Like an idiot) type in Google search bar “google is down.”
02:10 Cry a little.
02:30 Fire up Trillian and start complaining that I can’t read my email.
03:30 Go to Yahoo.com and say, “Hello, long time, no see.”
03:40 Find nothing helpful.
04:20 Go to search.twitter.com and on a hunch, type in #googlefail.
04:50 Thanks to a Twitterer, discover that AT&T is to blame, which is completely unsurprising.
05:00 Realize that after I finish writing this blog post, I will be unable to email the editor to tell him I’ve written it.

Okay, so this isn’t completely accurate, but the gist is, I had a sudden realization of how much Google is integrated into my minute-by-minute life. I was also reminded of Cory Doctorow’s story Scroogled, in which Google takes over the world. I wonder if this is helpful for the whole Google anti-trust investigation?  Also, I wonder how much Yahoo’s traffic went up during that time.

Mock me if you will, but I suspect I’m not the only one who was suddenly paralyzed by a lack of Google (just have a look at #googlefail). The email thing was definitely a problem. Whether it was the fault of Google or AT&T doesn’t really matter. Maybe they’re trying to remind us how much we need them?