Iowa Teen Wins Text-Messaging Championship

[SMLCHNG]

This I do NOT get.

http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2009/06/17/ ... mpionship/

After the tears (and there were tears), texts and frantic thumb work, Kate Moore, 15 years old, came from behind to win the best-of-three finals round of LG’s U.S. National Texting Championships Tuesday.

Kate Moore, who has an incredible 500 a day average for texts, won the grueling competition, which included such tests of texting savvy as running an obstacle course while posting messages, ignoring trash talking actors dressed as various emoticons while texting tongue twisters, and seeing how fast popular phrases could be zinged from her fingertips.

Kate Moore, a Des Moines, Iowa, high-school student, holds her texting trophy in New York Tuesday.
Ms. Moore, from Des Moines, Iowa, beat Morgan Dynda, 14 years old, for the $50,000 prize by being first to text an error-free modified chorus from “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah.”

[Lightning Bolt]

I don't which title is more ridiculous... speed-texting or cup stacking

[flipflopgirl]

uuugghhh what will they think of next????

[Frank4]

How I hate text messaging....my 14 year old is one of the masters of it....

[Tiki Bar]

I'm not willing to join the texting world yet... just another step in the anti-socialization of people. It bugs the heck out of me when people text me... I shouldn't have to pay a quarter and dig out some reading glasses when it's just as easy to pick up the phone and call. That way there's back and forth communication, and everything!

/rant

[Frank4]

I'm not willing to join the texting world yet... just another step in the anti-socialization of people. It bugs the heck out of me when people text me... I shouldn't have to pay a quarter and dig out some reading glasses when it's just as easy to pick up the phone and call. That way there's back and forth communication, and everything!

/rant

AMEN!!!

[Hockey Mon]

I'm not willing to join the texting world yet... just another step in the anti-socialization of people. It bugs the heck out of me when people text me... I shouldn't have to pay a quarter and dig out some reading glasses when it's just as easy to pick up the phone and call. That way there's back and forth communication, and everything!

/rant

AMEN!!!

Although it is handy if you are at a place where it's a bit loud to have a conversation with someone (say, at a concert or a bar). I've gone to places looking for someone, can't find them, text them and we devise a meeting place. It does has it's place. But a competition for it is a bit much.

[Brown Eyed Girl]

I don't which title is more ridiculous... speed-texting or cup stacking

At least cup stacking doesn't kill....

I don't get it either, Penny. Are parents proud of their kids for winning this title? Whatever happened to limits? No kid needs to be sending 500 texts a day. heck, no adult needs to either.

This Jack Mosley song comes to mind...



Then we're tooling around in our portable homes
with our CD players and cellular phones
man we are so in touch, we're all connected up.
Yeah we can be found wherever we are
up in the hills or out on the boulevard, as we cruise the strip
man we are way too hip.
Then your pager goes off and your cellphone rings
and you wreck your car doing too many things
Pick up those keys you know what to do
set em aside, change your point of view...

Don't you think it's time
we simplified our lives
got out of those cars, you know that we could even try
to have a normal conversation, take a walk down the park
get down to the basics
don't you think it's time, we start?

[buffettbride]

I text with my daughter all the time. We'd be lost without it, and it saves us minutes. No texting at the dinner table, no matter how many dingers are going off. She just earned cell phone priveliges with friends after 6 months of cell phone probation. Unfortunately, she got a little slacking with her chores, so we took the phone away for the week. Boy my house is clean!

[pbans]

500 a day......rookie.
My daughter could kick her ass....

[buffettbride]

500 a day......rookie.
My daughter could kick her ass....

well, you know what iowa stands for don't you?


idiots out wandering around.

[Glorfindel7]

Speaking of texting I just had to put 250 texts a month onto two phones (not so much for outgoing but INCOMING... I've been getting dinged .35 cents a call for about 20 texts while one of my family members was on vacation )

[STL PARROTHEAD]

500 a day......rookie.
My daughter could kick her ass....

yea, mine could too.

[Spider Johnson]

So what did people do BEFORE text messages?

Granted there may be noisy places where texting can/would be handy. Sometimes it might be nice to have say, directions in text.
Maybe it is more private, whatever.
However for the most part if you can call, you can say it. I have as of yet to text anyone on my cell, that I have had for several years. I call them back.

Part of it is the texting racket charge. It uses the same bandwidth and there is no need for the extra charge. The company already makes more than enough $$$ off of me and every other customer.

The other part is the time going through the tiny numbers/letters to
type a message when I can make the call and be done. UMMmm excuse me...why do I have the phone ? I have the phone to CALL or recieve calls. Anything else is just whatever the server provides or wants to charge me/us for.
That does not mean I/you have to use it or pay for or want the extra add ons.

I guess the people just suffered before this tech came about. Poor keets. Poor parents....all that suffering......

What will people do when the batteries on the phone suddenly die or in an area where there is no service?

Oh my....the inhumanity....the madness....People dealt with it long before they had such tech available.
I could think of much better things to award $50K for, besides this idiotic contest.

Talk about idiocy......So who really paid for all of those text messages and the $50K? Do you own a cell phone or stock with that particular company?

[ph4ever]

I text with my daughter all the time. We'd be lost without it, and it saves us minutes. No texting at the dinner table, no matter how many dingers are going off. She just earned cell phone priveliges with friends after 6 months of cell phone probation. Unfortunately, she got a little slacking with her chores, so we took the phone away for the week. Boy my house is clean!

I'd text more with Mongo if I had a qwerty phone. He sees how frustrated I get while texting with a regular.

[flyboy55]

I don't text. I have a love-hate relationship with the cell phone my wife forces me to carry around.

But I don't see anything wrong with this kind of competition. It's just simple, mindless fun - like those 'strong man' competitions where teams of four guys take turns lifting things up and putting them back down, or those monster truck shows at the arena where guys drive big trucks over top of other trucks and cars, or most pro sports for that matter ("hey every once in a while I can hit that ball with this bat right over the fence and I get paid five million dollars a year to do it!!!").

[Spider Johnson]

I don't text. I have a love-hate relationship with the cell phone my wife forces me to carry around.

But I don't see anything wrong with this kind of competition. It's just simple, mindless fun - like those 'strong man' competitions where teams of four guys take turns lifting things up and putting them back down, or those monster truck shows at the arena where guys drive big trucks over top of other trucks and cars, or most pro sports for that matter ("hey every once in a while I can hit that ball with this bat right over the fence and I get paid five million dollars a year to do it!!!").

It rates right up there and is about as interesting as "who can pee the furtherest". Does it really matter and who really cares?
They know what they can do with those all of the majority of those useless text messages..... I know I would much rather hear a human voice than have to go through the hoops to play the messsage game. It is much easier and faster, to call and leave a voice mail, than go through the texting process.

If you want to talk, use that feature, since that is primarly what the phone is for. Doesn't it make it sense to use it for that?

Oh wait, throw sense out the window! (Sense seemingly has no meaning anymore.) Let's make everyone else pay, to award some keet somewhere, $50K for nimble fingers and being good at wasting their parents money. Maybe in this day and age, it will make a deposit on the college fund...or else a front row seat at a JB concert.

Definitely something to be proud about....my keet can text me all the time, but can't ever find time to actually talk with me? I certainly would be very proud of that. NOT!
I suppose I would be glad I was at least was hearing from my keet.

[buffettbride]

I text with my daughter all the time. We'd be lost without it, and it saves us minutes. No texting at the dinner table, no matter how many dingers are going off. She just earned cell phone priveliges with friends after 6 months of cell phone probation. Unfortunately, she got a little slacking with her chores, so we took the phone away for the week. Boy my house is clean!

I'd text more with Mongo if I had a qwerty phone. He sees how frustrated I get while texting with a regular.

I love my qwerty. I have an ENv2. Not the greatest phone, but it's slick as an oily nipple when it comes to texting.

[Migration Michelle]

I could've definitely given that little chick a run for her money!!

[phjrsaunt]

What is the world coming to when people can win SERIOUS money for being adept at TEXT MESSAGING??? What is this TEACHING our young people?