How about "Tower, 1234T inbound 17"? Same length, but infinitely more helpful to the guy in the tower juggling airplanes.
I've started to say "VFR" (when I'm VFR) rather than "inbound" when I'm at a class C... One more little thing in that the tower guy knows he doesn't have a flight plan to close for me.
I still haven't figured out what the best way is to let 'em know I'm parking on the South ramp. At MSN, all transients, all of the rental planes, all of the based outside tie-down planes, and a few hangared planes go to the East ramp. Most of the based aircraft with hangars go to the South ramp.
Best case: Tower recognizes my tail number 'cuz I fly a lot (and the plane flies more than I do) and just sends me to the south ramp.
Other than that, though, since most planes are going to the East ramp, that assumption is often made by the tower. The next best cases are when either Tower will specifically ask "271G, where do you park?" or I call them as I'm slowed down and about to exit and say "Tower, 71G goes to the South ramp." Otherwise, I'll hear "271G, left on Charlie, taxi to the East ramp" or somesuch depending what runway I landed on, and I have to call them back and tell them I go to the South ramp, and they have to give me new taxi instructions.
Y'know, this would probably be a lot easier if they actually used their ground control frequency now and then! The vast majority of the time, we stay with Tower until shutdown. The field isn't very complicated and it's somewhat rare to have to taxi across an active runway due to the layout and usage of the runways.
Oh well, I guess that makes up for my concise inbound call... "Madison Approach, Skylane 271G 25 northeast four thousand five hundred landing with Uniform."