Uhhh... maybe that's not the right phrase. Anyway, my inbox hasn't looked like this in a while, and every time it does (what, once every 9 to 12 months?) I feel like I have to share my momentous achievement. Any email I get in the next several months, I fully expect to answer by the end of the year.

"No new mail! Want to read updates from your favorite sites? Try Google Reader"

Apparently Gmail now plugs more than just Google News when you have an empty inbox. I didn't know this because I haven't had an empty inbox since March 6. Holy hell, this has been the worst email-avoidance streak yet. I just spent about 10 hours responding to well over 100 messages, which is more email than I think I've sent in the past three months. The earliest unanswered messages were from mid-March, a whole week or so after the last Great Purge.

I remember back in 1994 when I used to pride myself on answering every email I received, within seconds of reading it. Ha, what a joke! I'm starting to think I have no business even giving out my email address anymore, if I'm never going to respond to anything sent there.

Another thing I did today: took care of a bunch of little Zyzzyva details, mostly word definitions and other lexicon fixes. Including a Volost lexicon! I plan to release 1.0.5 tomorrow (uh, today) with all its Volost goodness. I had to laugh out loud as I was testing it out. Creating the database took about 1 second. Searching for Length: Min 2, Max 15 found 2 words. I took a quiz over the entire lexicon and got 100% correct. While testing the word judge, I tried to imagine the tenseness of the scene after one Volost player has just issued a challenge. As the players stride nervously to the computer, will the word be acceptable? VOLOTS: UNACCEPTABLE. "Crap! I can never remember how to spell that word!" Yeah, this update is so totally worth it.

I suck at answering email. I really do. When email was brand new to me, almost 15 years ago (holy cow), I used to respond to everything within seconds of receiving it. Nowadays I am much lazier, often letting email sit unanswered for months. Especially email with Zyzzyva questions, since answering those requires actual thought. Yet those are the ones that deserve an especially quick response, because the writers of those emails have actual needs. Also, when those emails sit unanswered for a long time, the author of the software is probably perceived as distant and unresponsive, and people's perception of Zyzzyva itself may be negatively affected, or they may simply give up and move on.

I guess I am sort of distant and unresponsive, though. Especially since I now have two kids who are old enough to fight constantly. I think that's when my personal productivity level took a dramatic drop, when my son turned one or so, and developed the ability to play with my daughter's toys without her permission. It's unbelievable how much attention young kids require. Not that I'm complaining; I love spending time with my kids, and raising them is priority #1 for my wife and me. But between raising them and all the other various responsibilities of church and community, and considering I would like to learn some Scrabble words myself, everything else pretty much takes a back seat. When I do occasionally get some free time and don't feel like studying, I mostly want to chill out by reading a book or playing a video game. Only rarely do I actually sit down and answer a significant amount of email.

This is difficult for me, because I like to please people. When I was in 2nd grade, other kids would come and ask me for help all the time, and because I'm a people-pleaser, I never really said no even though I was unable to get my own work done because of it. My teachers and parents noticed, and soon I had a sign on my desk that I could flip to the green side (Yes, I Can Help) or the red side (Sorry, I Can't Help). That helped a lot, because I could just flip the sign when I was busy, without having to say no to anyone personally.

I'd like my sign to be green a lot more than it has been lately. But with how busy my life has gotten, it simply has to be red most of the time. So this is an apology to anyone who has emailed me over the past few months and hasn't gotten a response, or anyone who will email me in the future and whose email will sit in my inbox for a while. I'm sorry about that. For Zyzzyva questions or suggestions, I would very highly recommend sending them to the Zyzzyva Users mailing list rather than to me personally. That way, many people will see and can hopefully answer your questions much more quickly than I will. For those of you who have been answering questions on the list (redaragorn and Richard Johnson come to mind, but I know there are others), thank you for doing that. I appreciate it.

I know this is probably not even a big deal for anyone but me, but it really bothers me to be unresponsive, so I wanted to write something about it. I'm probably also feeling strongly about it because I'm so tired. I should go to bed early tonight. Anyway, thanks for your patience with me.

"No new mail! There's always Google News if you're looking for something to read."

Woo hoo! I haven't had an empty inbox for months, maybe more than a year. Over the past few days, I've sifted through about 1000 unread messages, and responded to almost 100 emails ranging in age from 4 hours to 4 months. I hate getting that behind on email. Sadly, I'm sure it will happen again because for reasons I don't really understand, I go through spurts where I'd rather not respond to anything. Maybe it's laziness, maybe it's just being antisocial, I'm not sure. For now though... clean inbox! Woo hoo!