Welcome to SMS Theatre

18/05/04 10:25 Fra: Dilley
Name the three musketeers?

18/05/04 10:55 Fra: Nathan
Dartagian, Raphael, uh, Alonso... wait, am I thinking of ninja mutant turtles?

18/05/04 11:00 Fra: Dilley
Yes you muppet! You have 24 hours to complete your challenge!

18/05/04 11:15 Fra: Nathan
Athos, Porthos and Aramis. D'Artagnan is just a friend of theirs, apparently.

You'll notice that neither I nor Dilley have used normal 'txtspch'. I mean, I'm all for abreviation, in it's place. Smtms ts usfl t rmv mst vwls, and it can be amusing to go a bit anagram crazy, even wehn it sreevs no ueusfl prposue. But of the few things that really annoy me, one is the tendency of people to abbreviate from laziness. Especially when they're abbreviating two-letter words. Anyone who refers to me as 'U' stands to be ignored. I am not a letter, I am a free man. I don't want to be told that someone is going to 'cu' me, expect maybe if we've known each other a long time. Similarly, it's not difficult or time-consuming to type "at". I just did it. Look, I'll do it again. "See you ""at"" the place." So there.

Anyway, the three musketeers. I won the challenge. I love the internet.

On reflection, you'd have to trust me quite a lot to click that link: it's promiscious clicking like that that can get you into trouble, So I'll rephrase: I love completely legitimate online encyclopedia.

I could go into a legnthy discussion of the new social-informational landscape created by global communications. I could talk about the vast degree of redundant communication we all indulge in (a-hem). Alternatively, I could round on the cultural purists who threw up their hands when I confused Dumas with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Quite frankly, though, I want to go to lunch.

Song in my head: "Y-O-U-R, Y-O-U-apaostraphe-R-E, they're as different as night and day, don't you think that night and day are different, what's wrong with you" by Strong Bad