Small Adventure 56

I don't have a TV. I do have a radio, and I end up listening to that all day, which often gets pretty painful. During the day, the local station, Mu FM, has a radio shopping program that runs periodically through the afternoon. The main sponsor is Japanet. It's the typical "infomercial" garbage that you see on cable TV in the U.S., the difference being that Japanet promotions consist of the local DJ "interviewing" one of the Japanet sales people, and you can tell just by listening to them that they're reading off of scripts on-mike. There are three regular salespeople, 2 men and one woman. One of the men, and the woman, both get really shrill when they fake excitement over the supposedly "unbelievable prices" of the products they're shilling (generally PCs and home electronics), and it hurts my ears until I change channels. Since none of the Japanese I've talked to listen to the radio, I have trouble imagining anyone that would buy anything from these radio shopping programs.

So, a few days ago, I was walking along the street near the apartment, and I saw this guy standing on the corner, looking kind of lost. Under his arm were a few empty, folded up cardboard shipping boxes, as if he was trying to take them to the trash, and couldn't decide whose trash drop off to use. The outer box was labelled "Japanet". I guess that shows at least ONE other person in Japan listens to the radio...