(no subject)

[cleolinda]

So: I was having such a hard time figuring out how to text on my new phone (shut up! I can't figure out where to take off the auto-complete word function, and I tried to type "Raaaa!" and it came up "DFeed!" Life is too short for this shit, y'all) that the Squishy sent me an invitation to join a free email/text service--I'm still filling out the profile, but it sounds like you can write an email and the other person gets it as a text message, which is SO WHAT I NEED. (By the way, I'm not giving the name of the service or my username out, but just so you know, my ID is NOT "cleolinda." That was already taken by some hor. So please do not start pestering messaging people named "cleolinda," because it's not me, and whoever it is'll be like, "Dude, I'm not her," and you'll be all like, "Yeah, right." No, seriously, it's not me. I had to choose something else. Fortunately, they give you up to 15 character spaces, so... I'll shut up now.)

Anyway. I'm filling out the profile page because... I'm bored. Look, I have no idea why, if I don't really intend for strangers to message me. Unfortunately, it also has some dating service you can sign up for, and so a lot of the info it wants is sort of... inappropriate. I mean, "Turn Ons"?

Assertiveness
Beauty
Body Piercing(s)
Brainiacs
Dancing
Erotica
Flirting
Humor
Long Hair
Massages
Power
Public Affection
Sarcasm
Skinny Dipping
Sports
Tattoo(s)
Thrill
Seeking Wealth

I do not see a space for "Strangers Who Do Not Cold-Call Me."

(Also, I wish there was a place to comment on the personality descriptors I chose. "I chose 'funny' and 'witty' because I think humor is a big part of my personality, if only because I like to laugh a lot, and... really, I'm not one of those people who thinks s/he's so funny and then totally isn't. No, really, I promise. Yes, I know that if I were one of those people, I wouldn't be aware of it. I wish I hadn't checked them off at all now. I hate myself.")

And then there are the random essay questions (!):

If I could be anywhere right now, I would be...
In my bedroom, you will find...
My most favorite erotic position is...

The best/worst lie I've ever told...
The celebrity I resemble most is...
What I find sexy...

My most humbling moment was...
A song/album that puts me in the mood...
The craziest place I've ever made whoopie...

The last great book I read...
5 items I cannot live without...
My favorite on-screen sex scene...

You know what I find incredibly sexy? Strangers who don't ask me weird and inappropriate questions. Thanks, but I don't think I'll answer these for any random skeeze cruising text-message profile pages for dates to read. Also: If you're calling it "whoopie," you will be the first against the wall when the revolution comes. Don't think I won't remember.

(Jesus. Can you imagine the text messages women foolish enough to answer these questions must be getting?)

Okay, now it's even scarier: I just got an account confirmation email that reads, in part, "You are now 5 seconds away from 1 billion people! GO [TEXT] SOMEONE NOW!" Maybe this is the perspective of someone who has a large LJ friends list (cough), but the idea that I'm only five seconds away from one billion people is sort of terrifying. Seriously, I know I'm way behind on the text-messaging phenomenon. Has anyone had any weird experiences with this, or is it mostly okay?

Comments

[ambiguousreason.livejournal.com]

Honestly? I don't text much either, if only because my parents pay for the service and text messaging costs a lot extra (my father, who chose what type of services we'd like to have, was unaware of the fact that text messaging is really, really useful. Like when you're in class bored beyond belief). And so, sadly enough, I've never had an experience as terrifying unique as yours.

"Also: If you're calling it "whoopie," you will be the first against the wall when the revolution comes. Don't think I won't remember."

Don't ask me to explain it, but I laughed my ass off over that one. ROFL!

[all-ephemera.livejournal.com]

Text messaging for me is incredibly useful. I don't ever have random people messaging me, but it's amazingly great when my best friend is sitting there in her Masters classes and bored senseless. Or when I want to talk to someone to ask them a simple question and they're the kind of person who can't get through a one-word answer without a dissertation...
kind of like me... I must go kill myself now.

[pumpsnail.livejournal.com]

Not that you know me, but I figured I'd throw in my text message two cents:

-Most service providers have something like this already on their site. If you know the person's carrier, just go to their site and there should be a form to fill out. (Example: here's (http://www.mymmode.com/messagecenter/init) AT&T's.)

-If you use AIM (who doesn't?), version 5 and up allows you to add phone numbers directly to your buddy list. This is my text message method of choice. When you're in buddy list setup mode, instead of clicking "Add Buddy" just click "add mobile" and you can IM texts to the person's phone. It's uber convenient.

[meredith-mae.livejournal.com]

I don't have my buddy list on my phone (I'm sure I could do it, but I'm too lazy), but I have my screen name set to forward messages to my phone when I'm not on (and they put up that little phone icon next to my name). Then I can reply to anyone who sends me a message from their screen name. I know you can get on yahoo messanger on your phone as well, but to be honest, I only have a dozen or so friends who are regularly on YIM anyway.

[pumpsnail.livejournal.com]

That's like..the opposite of what I was talking about, but which is also helpful. If my friends have set up the forward message thing, I can IM their phone from their screenname. If they haven't, I can text their phone through AIM by adding their number.

I'm not sure if you were confusing the two things or not, which is why I'm clarifying--but if you already knew all this, please accept my apologies. :)

[meredith-mae.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I know that, it just seems complicated to put my buddy list in my phone. :-) But there are many ways to text people through AIM and your phone, which is kind of what I was getting at.

[ladyortyger.livejournal.com]

That only works for US numbers, apparently.. *pout*

[pumpsnail.livejournal.com]

I don't know anyone outside of the US, because I'm an American loser. :p but yeah, I think they should add support for more countries.

Strangely enough, I knew there was that "select your country code" box on there and never once did I bother to check and see that there were no other selections besides the US in the box. Weird.

[ladyortyger.livejournal.com]

*nod* I clicked the box, wanting to put in 61 for australia... and no good. :(

[pistolharris.livejournal.com]

In England, texting is much more common than in the States. More often than not, you don't call someone: you text them. If you don't have a mobile (cell), you're, like, a social cripple. So obviously, I've refrained from getting one just yet. Fight the Power!

[yarha.livejournal.com]

All this communication is a sad mistake.

Yarha, Whatever Happened to Just Calling People?

[priestessoya.livejournal.com]

when i had a celly texting was the only way I could get ahold of some people, they would ignore the phone ringing, but answer a text (go figure)

but it is dead useful

though I am not to sure about the You are now 5 seconds away from 1 billion people!

i think i would be scared of weird guys/girls texting me and stalking me, and possibly kidnapping me and tying me up and forcing me to watch every episode of every (and i mean EVERY) season of star treck

as would be my luck

[ladyortyger.livejournal.com]

Will you IM me and tell me the name of the service? I've been looking and looking and looking, trying to find a *free* way to text message my SO (he's in australia)....

[museumfreak.livejournal.com]

I would like to know as well.

I don't know either of you, so I will not look you up on it, word of honor. But this way I can text my girlfriend who lives a long way away (I have no cell phone and no long distance, and her computer is shared between 3 people--so we don't get to talk much).

museumfreak at livejournal.

thanks!

[arayuldaiel.livejournal.com]

I don't have a cell, which is probably why I have no life or friends waaah, but my mom does. Once she got a text saying "Booty call! Male or female?". It was most disturbing, as my mom is 43 and married, and...yeah. Also, my friend got a text during class that said, "hey hey babi whatcha wearin?". We were very scared for her, as we aren't allowed to have phones in class and she might get caught.

Um, I just made it worse, didn't I?

[http://users.livejournal.com/lorien__/]

texts are common place here... walk down the street and you'll see at least 10 people typing away...

as for disturbing texts... bf got a lot of messages with numbers to call for "hot sex"... no thanks he gets that at home *blush*

horoscopes.... oooooh annoying horoscopes... and it's not free either... :s

the most terryfing one i got was "didn't we agree to meet half an hour ago... i'm comming over.. hope your naked and ready"
that is soooooooo not fun... i locked the door closed the drapes and grabed my largest kitchen knife... man i scared the hell out of bf when he got home... (which was about 4hours later but still... good thing he has good reflexes...) *shame face*

yeah so texts... a blessing and a curse...

Cheers
Lorien__
easily freaked out...

[elbales]

Aiee. All of that makes me really, really glad I didn't activate the text messaging bit of my PCS account. Stalkers I do not need. Even prank not-really-stalkers.

And, I mean, ads on my phone? I see them everywhere else already. You can't even get away from them in some restaurant bathrooms, fer jebus' sake.

[http://users.livejournal.com/lorien__/]

lucky for me i think it was just an idiot that typed in the wrong phone number (why on earth is there a phonebook in it if you don't use it h??)

what's also fun is people calling the wrong number... who many french i got is just amazing and i hate that language... so you can see me trying to explain that they got the wrong number... to make it easier i learned that line by heart...

adds... oh you gotta love those :s
here's oen
"sign up now and win a phone"?? lol no thank already got one...

Lorien__

oh btw cleo... what type of phone do you got... i might be able to help if it's a nokia *grin*

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

I used to have a Nokia, but not anymore.

[http://users.livejournal.com/lorien__/]

pitty... can't help... i think... lol usually a cellphone doesn't have a lot of secrets for me (if i know the type)

hope you get it sorted... maybe if there's a dictonary option to turn on and off... if it has turn it off... no more auto-thingy...

Lorien__
good luck

[ladyortyger.livejournal.com]

Now that (yes I get comments mailed) I know the service, let me warn you away from that. I signed up for it, and they require sending daily spam to your phone number or else you don't get the "# free messages per day"... also, only about 25% of the messages I sent to an australian cell number went through, and even IF they did, they showed up 2 days or so after I sent them.

In short, it was a waste of time *plus* I got charged for the spam messages they sent me (my incoming are 10cents each).

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. I didn't sign up for the extra horoscope/daily crap stuff. Vladimir hasn't complained about anything like that, so I'll have to see if he knows a way around it or something.

(OR MAYBE I COULD JUST LEARN TO TEXT WITH MY PHONE. There's always that...)

[ladyortyger.livejournal.com]

I didn't either. No extra stuff, but they DID require a daily message of advertising in order to get the free # of messages for that day.

I wish I could just text with my phone but it's ridiculously expensive. Damn you Cingular!!!!!

You tried looking in your user guide manual thing?

[meredith-mae.livejournal.com]

Cingular charges you for every message. I have a bundle package from verizon - it's 200 messages a month for $2.99 or something. And any more than that is 2 cents per incoming, 10 cents per outgoing, though I've never gone over that number. I have maybe - MAYBE - 50 texts a month.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_waterlilies/]

Sorry to do this, but on a completely unrelated note, what are your thoughts on the new Phantom of the Opera movie? I know your squishy reviews movies, and I was wondering if he's (or maybe even you have?) seen anything from/about it. I was thinking of getting the soundtrack for my birthday, and I like what I've heard, but there are a few people who absolutely hate it on the IMDB.com boards and think it's going to bomb terribly. I was just wondering what people who are more involved in the movie scene think about it.

[lilychick.livejournal.com]

I have a Samsung, so I don't know if this advice is terribly helpful, but considering that it took me a year and a half to figure out how to turn off the Auto-Complete on my phone, I figured I'd mention it anyway in case it was something similar. :-) Apparently my phone was set to "English", which *I* had thought was perfectly logical, seeing as how I speak English. But what I needed to go was change the setting to "ABC Mode", which allowed me to type in the words I wanted instead of "loorlgh" (which I swear actually appeared in one of my messages at one point).

[bluemarie.livejournal.com]

So, so, so off-topic but OMG ICON LOVE. I haven't kept up with the WWE but Jericho was always one of my favorites.

[lilychick.livejournal.com]

YAY JERICHO. My love for him is deep and true like OMG W0 and now he got a haircut and I always thought I would be upset about that but it's really really pretty.

Er. Fangirl run-on.

Anyway. Thank you for the random icon love. I got it from mynxkittie (who makes better icons than I do, as you can see from the one I'm using now).

I will now try to quit spamming Cleo's inbox. :-D

Actually, yes.

[chenpion.livejournal.com]

A few months ago, I applied for a part-time job which simply wanted people who could write well in English, and used the Internet a lot. It had a fairly intensive screening process... I breezed through it, and found out that it was basically a dating/personals service, largely targeting Filipinos.

Filipinos are CRAZY about texting... in the Philippies, the average Filipino has a more modern cell phone than the average Chinese person there (and Chinese people tend to try and go for the top of the line stuff as soon as possible). Children in the Philippines have perfected the art of texting without looking at the keypad, so you have these students texting people when they're in class, just sitting there with a hand in their pocket.

Anyways. The sad thing about the part-time job was that they wanted you (well, me) to pretend to be half a dozen different people, and basically chat up (or let myself be chatted up) by people who are looking for rich Caucasians who will carry them away from their humble background. Bleh. The disappointing thing was that it was a 'shadow operation' of the cell phone provider that I used to use.

Needless to say, I listened to everything... then politely told them I wasn't interested.

[foresthouse.livejournal.com]

The craziest place I've ever made whoopie...
Tell me they are not serious.
They are serious.
Ouch.

As for the texting...I had a HUGE problem with mine, so don't feel all alone. Apparently, for about 3/4 of a year, although my service included text messaging, it wasn't activated (somehow), so people would send me texts and I NEVER KNEW. This actually caused one of the issues that led to my break-up with my last (horrid) ex-boyfriend, who was shady anyway, and who was all like, "No, I text-messaged you!" when he was supposed to meet us at a bar down the street from where he worked, and never did, even after we waited for like, an hour an a half. This was, clearly, before I knew it wasn't on.
Anyway, I finally got it figured out - but don't feel bad for having The Issues with text messaging.
You are not alone.

[bibliotech.livejournal.com]

I have never texted anything in my life. I received one once, and was so surprised that I dropped my phone (onto the bed, luckily, but surprised).

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

See, my mom and sister are obsessed texting people at all opportunities, but my phone didn't have texting until I got this new one, so I could never answer them back. In fact, I kinda wish I didn't have it now. Oh well.

[bibliotech.livejournal.com]

I'm so lo-fi. Our phones have text ability, but we just look at it and go, "Wow. Complicated" and then play Minesweeper or something.

[penguinevere.livejournal.com]

well, thanks to an sms sent to the wrong number found one of my best friends ever. (i moved away when we were 10-11, and a friend of hers sent a text message to my friends phone by mistake, and for some weird reason this led to: "wait, you have a friend named *myname*? but my friend here knew her! omg!" and now we're bestest of friends again :)

and a text message sent to the wrong person (me) led to me finding out about my boyfriend doing the "whoopie" with someone that wasnt me...so you have to be careful about where you send them! unless of course you're not bonking someone other than your SO, in which case you should be safe :)

[veetvoojagig.livejournal.com]

"If you're calling it "whoopie," you will be the first against the wall when the revolution comes."

What, like the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation? *grins* Sorry, had to be said. *hopes someone gets the reference*