Sending Out an SMS

You know all this SMS text-messaging cell phone business? Well, in Pakistan cell phones have taken off, and since sending a text message is much cheaper than a minute of air-time, messaging is all the rage. I was never a fan of this, since I always figured, screw this, I’ll just call them. But now that I’m "connected" I’ve been forced to join the craze.

Lately though, I’ve been fascinated by the attempts that the Nokia dictionary function makes at guessing the words I’m trying to type. It saves you time, theoretically, by suggesting words based on the possible letter combinations of your keystrokes. I think it's fun. So, for example, if you try to type the word "cool" the phone will suggest "book," which I think is a great literacy message for kids. "Books are cool, stay in school" – a message from your friends at Nokia. Or, interestingly, if you type in "Bride," the first alternate suggestion is "Cried," followed by "Brief" and then "Aside," which, taken all together, kind of sounds like a stage direction for "Kill Bill." But by far the best example is when you try to type my name. First you will get "Date" then "Fate" and then finally, "Dave." I would like to personally thank Nokia for programming their phones to subliminally help me find a girl. A date? It’s fate. It’s Dave.

Along these lines, if you type in my friend Zubair Kazmi’s name in Microsoft Word, and then take the suggestions of the red-squiggly line spell-checker, you will get "Subaru Kazoo," which I think is fantastic.