I do a lot these days to get pickier about where my time and attention go, and keeping unnecessary phone calls at bay is near the top of the hit list. For years now, I've pled for "Spam Assassin" or something like regular expressions for my phone. GrandCentral may not be that smart yet, but it's years ahead of the options I've seen from landline carriers.

The features of Google's recent acquisition are many and powerful, but a few of my own favorite bits bubble up in this screengrab I took this morning (from a robot UPS phone call, alerting me to a signature-required package that's out on the truck).

I can't imagine going back to typical phone options after having access to:

• Visual voicemail
• Multiple options for banning nuisance or spam numbers
• Good email integration (including receiving alerts and forwarding messages)
• Web-based calling (with pretty okay privacy protection)
• A single online location for managing all my telephone "stuff"

GrandCentral is still in semi-private beta, but you can sign up to receive an invitation as they roll-in new users. I'd recommend getting in line now, because if you suffer from the same phone frustrations that I do, GrandCentral may be worth a throw for you.