Edinburgh — This past weekend, I finally reached the age of 21, the all-so-important milestone of my college career. However, I have been quite indifferent about this myself. Now do not get me wrong, I enjoy a good drink; it is just that studying abroad in Scotland, I can already legally do that since the drinking age is 18.

In writing about this, I certainly was not going to compose the typical collegiate opinion piece whining about the drinking age with age-old arguments repeated in the billion prior articles. And while I recall and respect former columnist Mark Coombs’ defense of the teetotaler in “Turning Wine Into Water” (April 19, 2007), I do not fall into that category.

At long last, the fateful day has arrived. Yours truly is 21.

Yes, this is a big moment for all of us. But before you start clogging the phone lines offering me free drinks, let’s take a moment to reflect on what this once-in-a-lifetime event really means.

When we think of making the world a better place, we often think of large-scale accomplishments, for instance, donating millions of dollars to research or helping end hunger in third-world countries. And while those are absolutely important, we shouldn't forget to recognize the small-scale accomplishments--the ideas that make our lives easier and more trouble-free.

It's in that spirit that this blog post honors Google engineer Jon Perlow, who has created a feature called Mail Goggles for GMail users. It is intended to prevent people from "drunk emailing", or sending embarrassing emails while under the influence of alcohol.