Babies love dialing 666-6666

According to an item from O'Reilly Emerging Telephony writer Bruce Stewart, babies are suckers for the number "6" on a telephone.

Stewart knows this, he writes on this June 6, 2006--or as many are delighting in calling it, 6/6/06--because his former boss at the University of San Francisco used to have the phone number 666-6666.

And while the phone was certainly available for other uses, Stewart remembers, the boss used to get calls all the time from babies who apparently couldn't resist picking up the handset and dialing seven sixes.

What is it that compels babies to punch out the sixes? Stewart doesn't venture a guess, though he does predict that anyone who has a phone number comprised of all the same number will most likely also be getting their fair share of calls from infants in dire need of reaching out and speaking to someone. Or, I suppose, telemarketers.

And really, what's the difference?