The one with the horse dentist

^^^ That's a "Friends" reference. All their episodes are called "The one with..." A few of you will understand it, and that's okay. The 'horse dentist' thing, though, that comes later.

Japan has some serious news items going down.
1) The Farm Minister of Japan committed suicide yesterday. He was involved in some huge money scandal, and I guess he couldn't take the shame. He apparently wrote 8 suicide notes to different people. Shino-san is really upset about it, actually, because he thinks it will generate sympathy for him and the people associated with him and I guess Shino-san doesn't like them. I don't really get it, but Shino-san went off on a tangent about it and then apologized profusely for getting so emotional (sooooooo Japanese).

2) A Japanese movie won the Grand Prix, which is the first runner-up to the Palme D'or (best picture), at Cannes this weekend. That's pretty sweet, I guess. I would love to see it. It's called "Mogari no Mori" (The Mourning Forest), and it was the last film shown in the competition, receiving a 5-minute standing ovation afterwards. "The movie's story focuses on two people -- a retirement home resident and a caretaker at the center -- struggling to overcome the deaths of loved ones, against the background of a traditional Japanese view of nature." (from Mainichi News). Side-note: A Korean girl won best actress for her role in a movie called "Secret Sunshine" and I really want to see that, given my recent growing interest in Korean film.

3) Miss Japan won Miss Universe 2007. She's a 20-year-old ballet dancer named Riyo Mori, and the first Japanese girl ever to pass the audition to be a Rockette, and I think she'd be perfect for me, don't you? *(#^_^#)* --------->

I have spent pretty much all day today researching Japan's market for veterinary products. We have a new-ish client that wants to export their animal health products to Japan. Their specialty is horse products, but it's freaking impossible to find anything about the market for horse health products in Japan. But randomly enough, Ted actually knows a guy whose whole job is to clean horses' teeth. He goes around to all the different race tracks and to peoples' farms and stuff in Japan and cleans horses' teeth and files them down and stuff. Totally random. So anyways, he might be able to help us out.

I also just found out today that Ted is gonna be leaving in a week or two to go on a 3-week vacation. So it'll just be me and Shino-san here for 3 weeks. I'm a bit worried that will dramatically increase my workload, but oh well. It probably won't. I mean, I'm sure Ted's smart enough to take care of business before he goes so I won't get overwhelmed, but you never know...