Salsa, Merengue, Samba!

So it's one thirty in the a.m. and I'm very, very sleepy. Only I can't fall asleep because the people in the house diagonally from me are having a party. It is a huge fiesta of a party. The living room, which is in the front of the house, is full of salsa-dancing couples. The windows are all open in the house, (however, not in mine) and I can hear singing and shouting and laughing. And the band? Well, the band is on the roof. I guess that's why the windows are open.

I've been toying with calling the non-emergency police number for about an hour. But somehow I'd feel like a jerk. The people across the way have one huge party like this every year. Other than that, I don't know if I've ever even seen them.

So I'm awake and reading that ever-riveting Communications World: The Magazine for Communications Management. I found some pretty fun stuff about creative uses of SMS in the "Tech Talk" column. For example, did you know that you can send a text message via your cell phone to 46645 and query Google? You can also order headlines from Reuters and other news agencies.

I am immediately fascinated by the five-digit telephone number. How did we get back to five from ten? Back in the day when the land-line telephone was new, telephone numbers were short like this, with the first two or three digits being letters that specified local areas. Now, somehow, these shorter numbers are national - registered to one entity or another to perform a function.

Also, not being a complete gear head, I have no idea how any of this works or if anyone is doing these things yet- but think of the possible applications:

• Send an SMS to your favorite restaurant on the way home and order dinner
• Send a text to your bank and have them transfer funds
  
• Combine this technology with GPS and query the arrival of the next bus
• Refill a prescription
  
• Order a taxi
• Call the non-emergency police number and report a really awesome but unfortunately loud Mexican combo

I've only been the owner of a cell phone for about a year now, and the model I have is pretty basic. It doesn't have a camera or mp3 player, but it can send and receive email and text messages. It also has a very rudimentary web browser, but I keep that turned off. It is just too hard to read on that tiny screen.

Until very recently, I've thought of this thing as a personal annoyance that I carry around to placate others. I totally get it now though: I am converted. There is so much communicating to get done, and very little of it involves speaking to actual people. It is all about interfacing on the run.

What fun/useful/gravity-defying things are you all doing with your cell phones out there?