The changing of the (Cell Phone) Guard

My cell phone endured much pain. In fact, I think I dropped it more than anything else I can remember in my life. It was a warrior. This past weekend, it could not handle the fierce colds and snows of Hokkaido. I took it up the mountain in my jacket, and although it survived the 1st run, I decided to wrap it in a bag for the second run, and pulled it out of that soaking wet for some reason. My only thought is that the bag was from a warm environment, and when wrapping it up, warm air got caught in the bag and bringing it from 20 degrees celcius to -10 degrees celcius, the moisture in the air came out in the form of water, and since my cellphone was wrapped in this bag, it became like wrapping one's phone in a bag of water.

Does that theory sound appropriate? I think so. Now that I think about it, I could test it by doing the same here and seeing if it happened. Anybody smarter than me want to take a shot at another theory or agree with mine?

Regardless, here's my old phone (these are pictures of the internet, not my actual phone).


It used to be the superiority of its class: It had a 2.1 megapixel camera, it was sleek, came in black, silver or blue (the color I picked), and could be used in English or Japanese. Also with an external display, this keitai (cell phone in Japanese) was a trooper. The camera broke actually a couple of months ago, but even then, everything else worked despite constant torture and harm.

I went to the DoCoMo store to talk to Kyoko, the one and only DoCoMo girl on getting a new phone. Options for Mova (more coverage than Foma, although DoCoMo is trying to promote Foma since it's got much more options and gadgets, although it's coverage is still sub-par compared to Mova or AU, another cell phone brand). That being said, I insisted on Mova, and she brought out my options. Here's the phone that I picked:


This one's pretty wild. It's a fat square basically. Doesn't look like a keitai at all. Has a horizontal display (very cool actually), all the usual functions (a crappy 1.3megapixel camera but at least it works!), the ability to not only listen to the radio but also play mp3's (yeah, I know, I already have an mp3 player, but this is conventient as well, no), but here's the kicker: It's only available with Japanese directions and such. Therefore, I have now successfully forced myself to use my keitai solely in Japanese, zero English. Very good. Also, another advantage is that it was free since I've been a DoCoMo phone-holder for over 10 months (the other options were about 5000 and 7000yen). Even better was since I'm friends with Kyoko she gave me a used charger cable for free, thus avoiding an additional 1800yen.

So the only cost I will pay is the 2000yen for deactivating my old phone and activating the new one. So roughly twenty dollars to switch phones. Not a bad choice considering the options I think!