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In This Issue

• HALLOWEEN MUST GO
• Olay, Dual You, You Sunk
• Happy Gentrified Halloween
• I Humbly Volunteer Myself to be Columbia’s Resident Second Amendment Scholar
• The Noble Order of the Lunar Cradle
• ZAGAT 2007/2008 New York Metro Area Drug Dealers Survey
• The Fed Picks the Top Ten White Male Dance Moves (in no specific order)
• A Brief Illustrated History of the Drugs of White Males
• Correspondence From Mr. Shorefront
• A White Male's Take on Feminism
• Abercrombie: apparel of the young and elite
• A Furtive Guide to Pooping Around Campus
• The Continuing Adventures of Awkward Man
• Don't Wanna Go Home All Alone (no, no, no, no)
• Security Issues
• The Smurf Village
• Awkward Man in "Gullible's Travels"
• An Exhibit At the Creation Museum
• Columbionics
• THEY WATCH
• The Staff of 23.2

Sarah Levin

I got a problem, and unfortunately, this one can't be fixed by mailing more threatening letters to Kelsey Grammer. You see, technology has reached a point where it can guess what we humans are thinking. For example, TiVo can analyze what I record and can recommend new shows based on these viewing preferences. However, some devices have yet to master the analysis of human preferences and therein lies my problem. So let me make myself as clear as possible from the start: FUCK YOU T9 PREDICTIVE TEXT, Y'ALL DON'T KNOW ME!

T9 Predictive Text, iTap, whatever you want to call it, is an asshole. T9's goal is to make it easier to type text messages by allowing words to be entered by a single keypress for each letter, as opposed to a multi-tap approach, and then correlating my entries with a database of numerically ordered words. So basically, all predictive text does is assume what I mean through numbers. And you know what they say about assuming, it makes...what's that phrase again?...oh that's right...it makes you into a whiny TV psychiatrist who gets cryptic threats in his mailbox! I get enough assumptions when I go to the bank dressed in all black and wearing a ski mask, I don't need them coming from my cell phone, too.

So how does T9 Predictive Text dispense its baseless, wireless judgments? Well, here is a list of the three most common text messages I send, each one tainted by the cruel conscious of T9.

1. "You'll fuck me because if you don't I'll stab you" in T9 morphs into "You'll dual of because he you foot I'll stab you." The "I'll stab you" part gets across, but the rest of the message is lost. "You'll dual me?" What is this, a text message from Aaron Burr to Alexander Hamilton? And I don't know who "he" is or what he is doing with "you foot" but if you are cheating on me with some dude, I'll be so devastated that I may not be up to violating you at knifepoint. Maybe.

2. "Are we going to the club for pussy or is it a ho night?" perverts in T9 into "Are we going to the club for puppy or is it a it might?" First of all, when I am looking for puppy, I don't go to the club, I go to Burlington Coat Factory and pick up a "genuine mink fur" coat. Second of all, hos aren't "it"s, they're people...people who will have sex with you for money and then steal your TV set when you pass out. And there ain't no "might" about that fact.

3."I know where you live, Kelsey Grammer" in T9 for some bizarre reason becomes "G jmmw wgdpd wmt jgtd Jdjpdw Gpammdp." What the hell does that even mean? Is it some kind of message from the dead? Oh, wait, my T9 wasn't on when I typed that.
The evidence speaks for itself. If T9 Predictive Text really knew me, it would know that I pull knives on people and wear dog fur coats. Assuming anything else is discriminatory. I mean, what if Lincoln had texted in the Gettysburg Address? "Four score and seven years ago" in T9 comes up as "four scope and seven year ago." Now that would be a major coup for the mouthwash lobby, but our nation wasn't founded on product placement. The Declaration of Independence doesn't start "Wii the people." So not only does T9 pervert what we say, it is a shill to corporations as well.

I spelled it out in capital letters at the beginning of the article, but let me repeat my message to T9 Predictive text again only this time in T9; "DUAL YOU T9 PREDICTIVE TEXT, WALL FOOT KNOW OF!"