When I'm sitting in front of a computer and I get bored, I usually type a series of commands that check whether I have any new email, any new netnews, anything new on GROGGS, or anything new in any of the livejournals I read.

Today I got sick of typing four different commands, so I wrote a wrapper that brings them all together. Now I just type "bored" and the machine automatically goes and checks all my usual haunts for me.

I'm already thinking this may have been a mistake: the act of typing four separate commands and dithering in between them usually occupied up to a minute, but now I have the "bored" command it takes more like two seconds. This gives me an extra 58 seconds to spend actually being bored, so I'm unconvinced that it's an improvement! :-)