the.[ED]ition

At first, I thought I could get buy without a phone here in Japan. Sure, it was a pain in the ass getting a package from UPS and I seem to be the only person in Japan without one but since I don’t know too many people here in the first place, I thought it would just be a waste. However, as I’m meeting more people and as more of my friend are coming to Japan (or have been here awhile but I just either didn’t know or forgot…), I thought getting a “keitai” would be a good idea.

Boy, is it a pain in the ass to get one of these. First of all, Softbank seems to be the only provider in town with English-speaking service as well as one of the only ones that offer a pre-paid phone service. Neither of those would be a huge problem if I was here longer than two months since I would get a normal phone on a normal contract then but since I’m not here that long, pre-paid is the only way to go. Secondly, most Softbank stores seem to require a Japanese passport or ID (although I’m told you can go to certain flagship stores with foreign ID). Thirdly, because of a recent change to 3G pre-paid service, all the 3G pre-paid phones are sold out.

Luckily, a strange variety store near my apartment called Donki Kingdom (or Don Quijote…for some reason) had them in stock…at half of what most Softbank stores were charging! Seriously, Don Quijote has EVERYTHING from food to electronics to clothes to…uh…other “interesting” items. However, the guy at the front was also not taking my lousy foreigner ID and required a Japanese one. Fortunately, I brought a friend along who was living in Japan and he signed me up for one.

My Softbank 705px (a Panasonic) cost me a grand total of $60, $30 of which is for the phone and $30 for the pre-paid time. I’m not quite sure how much talk time that is but not much is necessary here in Japan as everyone communicates through e-mail. 300 yen ($3) of the $30 for my pre-paid card goes toward an unlimited text and e-mail plan. That’s right…unlimited text and e-mail for $3. Why on earth do we pay such ridiculous prices for mobile plans in Canada?

It’s also not a terrible phone. It’s quite thin at about 15mm, has Bluetooth, a 2.0MP camera (two actually…one for taking pictures of myself and one for everything else) that has a flash and macro mode, has a microSD slot, and does 3G. Pretty impressive for $30. It’s crap compared to some of the ridiculous mobile phones here that have TVs, GPS, full internet browsers and microwaves attached to them but it’s not bad for the price. And I’m told that it’s possible to unlock one of these for use in Canada…although that might cost a bit more than the phone itself.

If you’d like to reach me during the day (daytime in Japan anyways), you can e-mail me at edlau@softbank.ne.jp. I might also be able to use Twitter on this thing but I think I can only send and not receive. I’ll figure that out later.

I’ll be back with more posts from Japan tomorrow but I thought I should touch on an important topic for all Canadians. Dot Com Pho member iPhone Gary at iPhoneinCanada.ca recently mentioned a petition in regard to the high mobile phone service plan prices we get in Canada. Seriously, of all first world countries, we have one of the highest average rates if not the highest.

The important thing is…this isn’t some made up internet petition. It’s a real petition for a real act, started by parliament member David McGuinty. Petition C-555: Get Connected Fairly Act calls the government to do something about the fact that Canadians pay, on average, 33% more for our cell phones compared to our American neighbors.

Let’s also not forget that Americans don’t have the lowest rates either. If you look at many other countries around the world, they have far better plans for much less money…especially in most of Asia.

It looks more and more like I won’t be getting a 3G iPhone anytime soon due to Roger’s (and I assume Fido) absurd data plan rates and simply ridiculous voice plans aimed to gouge Canadians like you and me of our hard earned money so the executives at Rogers can buy themselves ivory handled back scratchers.

Sign the petition and voice your opinions about our high cell phone bills. In less than four days, there are already nearly 6,000 signatures (I’m 5,932) so maybe if enough people sign this, we can actually get something done.

Stephen put together this seriously awesome video of the Dot Com Pho Crew’s adventures in Taipei set to the tune of Weezer’s Pork and Beans a few days ago and if you haven’t seen it, it is totally made of epic and win. It’s fitting since the original video is comprised of the internet famous. While I won’t attest to being at the same level as the Cho-co-late Rain or Dramatic Gopher…it’s quite an appropriate song, especially when you see how Stephen cuts it.

And just to clarify…that is a camera in my hand, not an iPhone (that was a fun night)…and I still have nightmares of those dudes in their matching skin-tight camo…as well as ponytail baldie. Seriously, if you’re bald, you’re not fooling anyone. I’m not sure who looks stupidier…a bald guy with a mullet, two dudes in matching shirts or Michael Kwan trying to attach a webcam to his head.

…and yes, that’s me doing a Rocky celebration after running up those stairs. I did that when I went to Philadelphia as well…but that is luckily not on film somewhere on the internet.

Yes, I’ll get to my Tokyo post but first, I received an e-mail from Matt Harding yesterday informing me that the latest video of him dancing to that funky music, white boy…is up and running. I posted about Matt’s ridiculous but totally awesome “dancing around the world” videos and last September, when he said he would make a stop in Vancouver, I took the opportunity to go meet him and be in the video. Here’s us boogie-ing down. I’m not sure which one of us is better at dancing poorly…or whether that’s actually winning, really.

Here’s the whole video. Yes, it is, in fact, epic as hell and made of win…although the screenshots above are obviously the best part since I’m in it. But what the heck, watch the rest anyways.

It looks like all the other members of Dot Com Pho are settled back into their regular routines. In continuing with out new trend of shooting the exact same video from multiple points of view, both Stephen Fung and John Chow have made separate episodes of Dot Com Pho this week and they want you to decide which is best.

And by the way, Flip Flap freakin’ rules. I won an iPod at COMPUTEX but I think I’m much happier with my Flip Flap since I already have a wackload of iPods. Thanks Gigabyte!