Will TXT for Food, Better Mobile Messaging

Sometimes I feel I'm standing on the gimp side of the digital divide. Let me explain: Seeing as texting in Costa Rica isn’t the most reliable of wireless services, I've automatically defaulted from taking part in the TXT-for-takeout trend currently taking the fast food industry by storm. I feel I'm missing out; I can read about texting orders online, but that's about it.

Papa John’s and others have the right idea, fer sure, and many digital early adopters are already all about ordering thru text messages. Send a text message, get your pizza in half an hour. It’s simple, super-quick and surprisingly secure, despite what some skeptics would think. Here in Central America, however, the mobile situation is SNAFU as usual, making a TXT-placed order next to impossible.

Check it: If I send a text message using my all-sorts-of-embarrassing, olden Third World cell phone, it might take up to 12 hours for it to reach the desired recipient—if it gets there at all. So when it comes to ordering food, it’s the phone for me, chuck.

1 lrg pzza pls, xtra cheez? Sounds good. But what I really need is rlble txt msging, mos def. Alas, no amount of shorthand can help me inveigh against the state-owned cell phone provider. I guess I’ll resort to in-person complaints at the local agency. Ugh. I feel so savage.

Your Cell Phone's Rebel Yell

No no, I’m not talking about the ringtone you pulled off some shady site to let everyone else know just how unique or with it you really are. I’m talking about phantom cell phone vibrations! Check out this nutty article featured on Yahoo! News yesterday; it’s right up my alley, and tailor-made for all you crazy cell-phone-and-BlackBerry-toting professionals. It’s creepy, it’s kooky, and it’s a sign o' the times. And I kind of like it!

Is your love affair with your phone causing you ringxiety? It seems a lot of us are sufferers. Here’s one guy quoted in the article who I know a lot of you can totally identify with:

“Jake Ward… claims to ‘pre-feel’ a new message or call. ‘I'll feel it, look at it. It's not vibrating. Then it starts vibrating,’ he said. ‘I am one with my BlackBerry.’”

I like to think I am also one with my tech tools. My laptop’s my favorite friend of them all. I’ve tapped into that otherworldly force much maligned by hokey teen scream movies such as Pulse; but rather than haunt me, this techno-force empowers me.

The iPhone is definitely my next purchase--once the technology becomes available in Costa Rica, that is. I too, want socially sanctioned carte blanche to surf the Web wherever I might be, in detriment of face-to-face interactions. If only I could grow an iPhone off my hip. So what do you think? Are you also a sufferer of “fauxcellarm”?