In keeping with the recent baseball theme,

I'm mad. No wait, I'll drop it down a notch to "incredibly peeved." I was able to watch the baseball All-Star game live (the broadcast started at 9:00AM out here). To make it even better, it was showing on one of the TV channels (NHK) that have bilingual capabilities here in the Muroran/Date area. I consider this better because that way, I don't have to listen to Japanese "sports reporters" babble on and on about American baseball when it's very clear that they know nothing about it. I love Japan, and Japanese things... but the sports reporters here, ughhhhh.

Anyway, in the 7th inning, the clock struck noon here, and whaddya know, NHK cuts away from the game to a news report. Why? Because it was noon. Everyday, at noon, NHK does a 15-20 minute news report... who cares if their showing a live feed from the All-Star game, and it's not yet over?

If it's a news flash showing some major disaster, or international crisis, or national crisis for that matter... I'd understand. If the news report started in the 3rd inning, maybe I'd let it slide. But it started in the 7th! And of course, because it started in the 7th, by the time the news report was over and they cut back to the All-Star game, the game was over and the American broadcasters stopped talking about the game so, Japanese broadcasters took over the bilingual channel, going over the highlights of their Japanese players.

To make the whole thing even more infuriating, the news report interruption highlighted the action of the All-Star game up until that point (the 7th inning). I wanted to SCREAM, "I DON'T WANT TO SEE THE HIGHLIGHTS UP UNTIL THIS POINT IN TIME! I WANT TO SEE THE GAME! HURRY UP AND GET BACK TO THE GAME! STOP TAKING AWAY TIME FROM THE GAME SO THAT YOU CAN SHOW HIGHLIGHTS OF THE SAME GAME!"

And of course, there was a ton of action in the bottom of the 7th and 8th inning, as well as the top of the 9th inning. NHK now joins NTT and NTT's subdivision DoCoMo, on my list of most hated Japanese companies.