めんどくさい！(Pain in the Ye Ole Arse!)ということだ。

So, these days everyone is really into their blogs and internet social networking. For those of you old folk unfamiliar with the concept allow me to introduce you to something you probably had no idea existed.

Social Networking:
I am not sure if this term is actually often used in English but it is borrowed from English and is at least used in Japan in that Japanese I'm going to take some English and use it how I want regardless of what it may actually mean to someone who actually speaks it. However, in this case it is actually relatively apt. The Idea is simple, create a way in which you can create a web of social interaction. You sign up. You create a profile. You then make connections with friends and groups with interests that match your own. Before you know it, you have a complete list of all your friends in the world, how they know you, who they know, and you are inevitably left feeling socially inadequate with your measly 10~20 friends while everyone else goes on a friend invitation spree, becoming "friends" with anyone who has a quirky quote or alluring profile picture so that they can reach an impressive 1x10^19283471092837401 friends before the night is over and they then look ever so popular. You Get the picture by now I'm sure.

The part where this actually starts to become interesting and useful is that it actually DOES allow you to stay in some form of contact with friends that you may not see so often by sending messages and sharing photos. Oh yeah, and of course I don't want to forget stalk people you haven't seen in years, don't know at all or perhaps have a restraining order against you. These social networking websites are all very good for that ;-). You may have heard of the two most popular MySpace(The absolute worst of them all), and Facebook.

So what's my point and why am I bothering to write all this? The Japanese of course wouldn't be left out of this phenomenon. Thus, naturally they have their own social networking exclusively for their exclusiveness. It's called Mixi.

The past two days I've been trying to join this stupid thing because my friends keep sending me invites. So, when I finally get around to doing so it tells me it needs my cellular phone e-mail address. Now of course, like the dimwit I am, I had signed up through the service of the my study abroad program. Which, for some sick reason, assumes that the only people I am actually going to be calling are going to be in the United States. It's actually about 20 yen cheaper for me to call the states than it is for me to call a land line here in Japan! But, there is a catch. All other services on the phone are limited. In other words NO INTERNET. I came to find out with the help of a friend I can't activate the Mixi service, even though I have a cell phone e-mail, because to activate I need to be able to navigate to this silly web page on my cellphone. It simply won't let me activate using any other device so my registration is stuck. According to my friends it is possible to get an account without a cell phone but I have yet to see how.

On the other hand, I've also gotten a lot more into my cellphone since being here. I use it all the time. In the states I almost never use my phone for messaging, email, and web. I have friends that never touch a computer because they chat and do email on their phone. Fushigi! I could never go that far, but still, fushigi.