May 1, 2004

• 18 Uses for a J-Phone!

  Ok, I’ll try to continue updating this regularly once again. As promised earlier, this is the 18 uses for a J-Phone special. First, let me explain a bit about Japanese phones…

  As said before, Japanese phones are nice… Most come with plenty of extra features as standards, such as camera, email, internet, etc. The new Foma900i phones in particular have a bunch of classic games on them too, like Final Fantasy 1 and Dragon Warrior. But, I’m not rich and am only here for 5 months, so I got a pre-paid, “Kombini” (Convenience Mart) Phone. But, it’s still incredibly good; here are just a few of the ways I’ve been using it (those of you with the same one may want to take note):

  	1) Phone Of course, the primary use of a cellphone is, well, as a phone… But, most people spend a lot less time talking on their cells and more time doing #2-3.
  	2) Address Book If you happen to get a nice ledke‘s number at an izakaya, you don’t pull out a pen and paper… You get out your cell. Not only do you keep the number somewhere you’ll actually remember, but it’s a convenient way to remember her name–e.g., “ah, how do you spell your name again?“
  	3) E-mail But by far, the most popular use for a cell is still to email. Every phone has it, and they’re usually regular e-mail addresses–in other words, you could send a message to my phone from any old hotmail address if you’d like. Previous Host Grandfather: Every time I’m on the trains now, everyone has their heads down punching in the keys on their cellphones… Times have changed, haven’t they (laugh).
  	4) Notepad If you need to take some info down, and don’t have any paper, no need to worry. Just use the email feature on your cellphone and enter whatever you’d like into the body of a long-mail message. You can even save it in your inbox… very convenient.
  	5) Kanji Check Or, what if you just forgot how to write a particular kanji? No need to pull out your electronic dictionary, just enter it into your cellphone, hit down, and check the list of kanji that show up. Easy as that.
  	6) Flashcards More than that, here’s a lesser-known benefit of the cheap combini-phones: flashcards (F39, so hit the blue button in the middle then 3 9). You can enter in any English or Kanji compound at the top, and the kana at the bottom. While everyone else flips through their mini notecards preparing for a vocab. or kanji quiz, I just have to scroll through this.
  	7) Locator / GPS Better yet! Are you lost? No need to worry; you can at least find your rough location–right down to the street or city ward (number 5 in menu 4/11). After walking for 15 minutes trying to get to Shibuya, me: So where am I now… Eh? Minato-ku? Bloody hell, I’ve been heading in the wrong direction all this time!
  	8) Flashlight But what if you’re lost in the dark? No problem. With these backlit phones you can find your way even in the dark.
  	9) Beacon But what if you’re lost and need to be found? There’s another use for the backlight: wave it around and signal to everyone where you are. You’ll be found in no time. Great if you happen to find yourself in a bamboo grove at midnight, which often happens to me.
  	10) Calculator Been in a bar or restaurant, needed to split the tab, but couldn’t figure out how? Well, no problem, as most cellphones come with a calculator as well (F43, hit the blue button then 4 3 here).
  	11) Clock And you can always been on time since the clock is conveniently displayed on the front. Mine’s set by the trains, just to make sure after running like hell I can reach the station in time to see the next train pulling away from me. …
  	12) Calendar Don’t want to forget that important holiday / birthday / date? Well, with the calendar you can check which days are free and set your own events–including reminders or alarms to go off letting you know when you were supposed to do something five minutes ago. (Hit the ƒNƒŠƒA button once to get to it). National Japanese holidays are also marked in red; though since stores will also randomly close on Tuesdays, this may or may not help you.
  	13) Alarm Clock Need to wake up for that important holiday / birthday / date? The J-Phone can handle that, too. Set up to 10 different alarm times to make sure you don’t cop out by hitting the snooze button for 3 hours.
  	14) Timer Or, better yet, set the alarm to go off after a certain amount of time. That way there’s no excuse… unless you have it set to vibrate.
  	15) Sound Effects Ever been in those situations where some random sound effect would’ve been just perfect? …ok, maybe I’m the only one. But this is still useful for that. Whenever someone emails me, I get a 1UP; if I turn my phone off, Mario dies; if I turn it on, Link blows a whistle from Zelda 1. …yes, I’m pathetic.
  	16) Music Composition And I’ve got too much time on my hands, at that. You can use this phone to enter in your own polyphonic ring tones, about the same quality as MIDIs but with some limitations–e.g., no 32nd notes, limit on number of measures, no triplets, etc. But, I’ve managed to use to the fullest for #17…
  	17) Soundtrack Entering in a dozen or so classic video game themes… The current soundtrack list here includes: Gauntlet, two themes from Tetris, one from Zelda 2, the Final Fantasy Prelude, four themes from Mario, and the theme from Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Don’t laugh, though; that last theme came in pretty handy in that China AIDS presentation, even though our Hitchcock caught AIDS.
  	18) Voice Memo And here’s one I just discovered the other day (this phone is full of surprises): voice memo (F# to record, F* to listen). You can record up to one minute total of anything; very useful for little personal memos to yourself if you’re prone to forget things like people’s names, birthdates, or your blood type.

  I suppose this should give you a general idea of why going back to the crap brick-phone I had back in the states is going to be difficult. Hell this is the cheapest possible model you can find in Japan, too.

  But in any case, check back next after Golden Week (first few days of May) for the next update. In the few weeks I have left in the country, I think I’ll begin to include a few serious thoughts on Japan and reflections on my time here. But, that’ll have to wait until after I get back from Karuizawa.

  In the meantime, let me ask y’all a question: so have any of you found any more ‘inventive’ uses for your cell besides what it was originally intended to do? …clean uses only, please. KF

  • 1:17 am
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