...and in other news:

So I was watching the news today (it's translated so that it's bilingual, well, at least part of if), and they spent an entire 10 mintues talking about a monkey. Apparently the monkey has been seen in the area surrounding Tokyo, and has been spotted and photographed by several people. They did up a map of the area, and showed the "most likely route" that the monkey had taken over the last few weeks. Please keep in mind that this is not a troupe of monkeys, but is only one monkey. They interviewed some people about the "situtation". Here are a few gems:

"...well, the monkey turned over a stone about this big (man holds up his hands to depict an area about the size of a dinner plate). It's becoming a real nuisance."

"The monkey was just sitting there quietly, and would ignore humans until we approached it and yelled, and then it would run away."

"The monkey sits in the tree (near the school) and eats berries quietly. Fortunately, there have been no injuries."

The local authorities decided to recruit school children to deal with this "problem" by giving them bright yellow plastic signs to wear on the back of their backpacks to warn everyone about the "dangerous monkey".

It's a MONKEY!!! Not only that but it's a monkey that RUNS AWAY WHEN YOU APPROACH IT!!! TEN MINUTES this story got. Maybe it was a slow news day.

Another story, right after that one was about a bunch of immigrants who were being arrested for apparently robbing people at a bar. These immigrants (as they kept being referred to by the media) worked at a "gentlemen's club", which charges ridiculous amounts of money for "drinks". When people refuse to pay, they are allegedly taken into a back room, beaten if uncooperative, and robbed. The station did a very good job of showing every single accused person (who just so happened to be black) being escorted into the police cruiser. Although this piece was shorter than the monkey piece, it was still relatively long.

Following that, they showed a story on the sentencing portion of three men's trials, who had all been convicted of murdering a family of 4 in cold blood, and later dumping the bodies. Two were sentenced to death, while another recieved life in jail, because he "cooperated with the investigation". That story lasted about 30 seconds.

ps in other news, my boss has proven yet again that he is a complete moron. Stay tuned for details (or most likely I'll forget about that and just post some pretty pictures again)