Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Two Funny things about today

It's kind of late so pardon the brevity.

1) So I was driving back from the sports center after my run and on the radio came a cover of Ozzy Osborn's "Crazy Train." What surprised me was the singer's ability to turn the song into a catchy big-band version of the original. I was stunned - stunned - after the song was finished to learn that my radio was tuned to the local corporate-commercial J-pop channel and not the off-beat national public broadcaster like I had assumed.

2) Pushing the admittedly headline grabbing story of a Hiroshima construction worker arrested in possession of 4000 pairs of women's socks and underwear off the front page today was extensive coverage of the Japanese Meteorological Agency's erroneous cherry blossom forecast. Because of a miscalculation in December temperature data, cherry blossoms had been mistakenly forecast anywhere from 3 to 8 days too early in many parts of Japan. It was the lead story. Heard on the national 7 o'clock news: "We now go live to the front of a store where a man is sweeping for comment."

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