My Cell Phone携帯

Those of you who have seen or talked to me in the last two weeks knew this post was inevitable.

I am smitten! I have a new cell phone, and I am in love. I don't own a couch, chair, table lamp, clothes dryer, toaster, or bed. Yep, none. But I do have a new cell phone.

And so you can see where my priorities lie.

Here it is.

Hot Pink.

And it sliiiides open.

The darn thing is smarter than I'll ever be. Of course it has a camera where you can choose size, pixel size, ISO, aperture, shutter speed etc., it has a radio, and some messenger thing where I can mail friends and we can become these little barnyard animal manga-looking characters and chat. It also tells me it even has a library! Oh, and since it goes online there are infinite games, shops, and other online goodies.

That's all fine and dandy.

But right now the part I'm most excited about is that it holds a memory card (of up to 4giga) and works like a Walkman. Since I'm the only one in the family without a portable listening device, I am ever-so stoked about this. I spent all last weekend filling it will Primus, Yes, A Perfect Circle, you know, the works. I know sleep with the thing.

On my last visit to the states (almost two years ago) I was shocked to notice not every, indeed hardly any, American had a cell phone growing out of their ear or attached to their palm. Things may have changed since then. I am looking forward to seeing what's up on the mobile telephone scene when I go back this winter. And you just know I'm gonna show off by making a long distance phone call with my pink puppy!

Here. You'd be hard pressed to find someone without a cell phone. And I'm talking the elderly and children as well. I have been tutoring my mother-in-law on how to use her new one for a few weeks now. She got one because all her friends had one, she admits. And half of J's fifth grade class has one. I know first graders who have them. The reasoning behind giving them to children is because of all the abuctions of recent. The children's phones come with GPS and alarms and stuff.

Here is a short list of what phones are used for here in Japan:

※ Read novels. Yep, they really do. I actually wrote an article (I am too lazy to dig up) about an author who writes novels especially for cell phones. His target audience is junior high and high school girls. He sends the story out in installments at several yen per mini chapter. The guy is quite clever as he has developed an enormous fan base and literally uses the girls' daily text messenging feedback to bend his story in directions they will favor. He's filthy rich, and has movie coming out too; the dog.

※Watch TV. There is something called One Seg and because of it everyone has been watching TV on their phones. I don't get it. I like my big TV. But I guess if you are somewhere and want to catch the last minutes of a good game...

※Study. Could find no good links to this but because Japanese tend to commute for great lengths of time there are oodles of cell phone sites now that offer short studies. You can learn characters, foreign languages, loosen up your brain with math quizzes, just to name a few.

※As a navigational tool. Get lost in downtown Tokyo? Here ya go!

※Even as a way to quit smoking!

※Oh, and let's not forget a fashion accessory.

I guess the fancy thing to do now is to use real stones to decorate your phone. Here we have a Hello Kitty and Chanel fan.

Or, hey, how about Eddie Van Halen. {Although I personally stopped liking him back when he flipped me a bird. I was innocent!}

And I even found a cell phone that does more than mine!

Oh gosh. Matt has thoroughly gotten me addicted to Youtube and I was hardly looking when I found this... a new movie, The Cell Phone Detective. The catch phrase is, "We just can't depend on adults!"

I can still not tell if Japanese movies try to B movies or if it just comes natural.