Last night I was up fairly late watching TV. One of the Hockey World Cup games was aired the night before, from 2am-4am, and I stayed up and proceeded to sleep until noon; hence I was quite wide awake indeed at midnight when...guesses, anyone?...yet another bloody earthquake hit! Now it`s just getting annoying.

Anyway, I didn`t feel like sleeping after all the warnings and alarms were sounded, so I flicked through the channels, and it occurred to me that I have never really provided any documentation of a typical cross-section of Japanese television. Below are some examples of the TV shows that I managed to catch last night:

- some kind of a talkshow/gameshow wh ich culminated in a long table topped with various types of fish and seafood dishes being lowered into the cage of a large black bear, with well-known celebrities betting on the dish that the bear will eat first;

- a gameshow in which a scary-looking guy in a clown suit lights a candle and proceeds to pour the hot, melted wax onto the bare chest of a contestant below - his winnings are based on how much hot wax he can handle being slowly dripped onto his body from an increasing height;

- a talkshow that ends each interview segment with the interviewee putting on a suit of fuzzy fabric, running down a long plank, jumping off a diving board, and trying to stick to a wall covered in velcro;

- a show in which, from what I could discern, female fashion models get grouped together to form pick-up games of various sports that none of them are good at, or even played before; I managed to sit through an insufferable round of bowling and two horrendous innings of baseball before changing the channel;

And, my very favourite:

- an odd gameshow in which a contestant selected from the audience drops one of his credit cards into an aquarium filled with piranhas - if one of the piranhas tries to eat the card, he wins. What he wins, I know not; does he get his credit card back? Maybe he gets to keep the piranha? I don`t know.

And you know, at that moment, around 1am last night, I believe I reached my tolerance for nonsensical television. I really can`t take it anymore. At this point, I think looking for pictures in the static of out-of-frequency channels would prove more entertaining.