Kottke has a great idea for a mobile phone feature: speed dial for both your recipient and your message. This is all fine and dandy for frequent chore-related communication ("Hey carpooler, I'm outside your door now"), but he takes it just over the edge with the term he's coined for it, "sweethearting":

Okay. Let's get this straight here. A ping is sidewalk Bonjours in Paris, crisp and cheery G'mornings as I spin my way to work, and that "I acknowledge your presence" nod adopted by high school boys everywhere, the one that infuriated me so I started giving it right back to them. In both its technical and social forms, a ping is a more or less content-less message. You ping when, for reasons of unfamiliarity (bonjour), efficiency (g'morning, or really any work-related pinging), or adolescent ego (theNod), you don't deem a situation worthy of the time and attention needed for a full message.

"If you call your husband on the way home from work every night and say the same thing each time," I say: you need a new marriage.