It's the change of seasons in Japan and the favorite time of year for TV weather forecasters as they make comments and give advice to their viewers. "It is normal for people to feel hot during the daytime but cold at night," observes one weather forecaster. "Tomorrow people should carry a foldup umbrella," advises another. "People should carry a jacket tomorrow." Gee, thanks.

As TV stations attempt to be more competitive, I wonder if it is an attempt to compete with the exciting weather forecasts in the U.S., where hurricanes dominate the headlines. For Japan, it seems that those little icons of the sun, clouds and rain used on the weather maps are just not enough these days -- now people want animation. So what do we have now on one particular TV station? The Laundry Forecast. Yep, you get advice about hanging out your laundry in accordance with the weather. And the Laundry Forecast comes with animated icons: T-shirts on the clothesline, socks dancing in the breeze. They seem to believe that telling you when to hang out your socks will make their TV station more competitive. Either that or smelly feet have become such a big problem in Japan that people need to be instructed to hang out their socks. They are not fresh and dry until they swing back and forth on the line to an angle of about 20 degrees. T-shirts, to be properly dry, should ripple in the wind, occasionally furling.

I suppose it is possible they're educating the young girls with Hello Kitty washing machines who don't want their clothes washed together with their father's clothes. "O-jii-sans" are said to have a certain smell about them, and girls are afraid their clothes will take on this smell if washed together. And if that's true, you can imagine what could happen if they were dried on the same clothesline together! Ehhhhhh?