Today while waiting to get my haircut, I read A.J. Jacobs article in Esquire magazine. Jacobs was inspired by Thomas Friedman’s The World Is Flat to outsource some of the drudgery of his daily life.

The article is at turns appalling — having someone in Bangalore chat up his parents, really! — and brilliantly funny. Here’s a little excerpt:

My team is good, cheap, and absurdly eager. They will do anything short of violating the Geneva Conventions. And with most of the tasks — online shopping, thank-you notes, research — my crew saves minutes or even hours of my day. . . . To me it seems the future of outsourcing is as limitless as … blah, blah, blah.

You know what? I’m kind of bored writing this piece. I’m going into the other room to enjoy some Entourage on HBO. So I’ve asked Honey [his assistant] to finish up writing this article for me.