The weather was gorgeous today, which apparently freaked out my camera. Here's what it did when I tried to shoot another Tokyo skyline panorama. Maybe it tried to match up the cloud patterns?

On the train today, I saw a Vodaphone ad. Apparently they've decided that giving away the store is a good way to attract customers, and maybe it is. Here's what they're offering: 1) no packet fees to receive e-mail shorter than 192 characters (presumably they mean Japanese characters, so you could probably get 384 English letters for free) 2) Half-price calls to family members also using Vodafone cellular, and 3) Rollover unused minutes to the following month (this is probably less of an enticement than in the U.S., because Japanese cell service plans tend to offer many fewer minutes: I get 80 minutes for around 3,700 yen/month. I doubt many people have unused minutes at the end of the month.)

That's a pretty sweet offer from the customer perspective, but I'm not so enthusiastic about the business side. Competing cell carrier au has student discounts (50% off monthly service plans) that have made them pretty much unassailable in the student market - but the difference here is that the students graduate and turn into full-charge paying, (presumably) loyal customers. With no corresponding time limit on their discounts, it seems to me that this promotion is going to be costly for Vodafone, and offer little return on that investment. I guess they have some magic target number of new subscriptions after which they'll end this promotion, but what will they use for a carrot then?

Of course, Vodafone's Japanese launch has been wiggy from the start. They took over J-phone, a medium-sized Japanese carrier suffering from anemic subscriber growth and a mediocre brand. (J-phone was the first carrier to offer cameraphones and e-mailed photos - that made them a leader in the youth market, until au siphoned off all the students.) In response, they decided to launch a huge rebranding campaign - marketing materials carrying both logos, pretty girls handed out tissues in the street, etc. That's kind of the equivalent of AirTran rebranding like this: "Remember ValuJet? Well, call us AirTran now."

Given the low value/poor image of the J-phone brand, I think they'd have been better off quietly letting all their current subscribers know about the switch, and then performing a massive Vodafone launch campaign, treating it as a new, cool, European brand.

Anyway, I took advantage of the beautiful weather to go spend two hours in a LAN cafe playing a Counterstrike mod. I think there's an article brewing on this, so for now, just check out their nifty poster to the left. It suggests they put a lot of time into studying the ergonomics of their purpose-built monitor stands and chairs, but I wonder...my back hurt like hell after I left.

More random pics: the excellent banana-shaped joystick for the arcade version of Monkey Ball, and this cute little raw quail egg that came with the soba I had the other night. Packaging genius at work.

Oh, and don't forget the refrigerated coin lockers. That's interesting 'cause it's a product inspired by lifestyle rhythms that just don't exist in the U.S. It's for people who go grocery shopping before they go shoe shopping. In that context, it makes sense - of course you want to keep your groceries refrigerated while you try on the latest adidas kicks.