I'm watching World News Asia--why is it called World News Asia when it isn't any more focused on Asia than World News Europe?--on CNN this morning, and what would normally be the half-way point of the program turns out to be the end.

Co-anchor Anjali Rao tells viewers Talk Asia with guest Shigeru Miyamoto; creator of Nintendo's Mario, Donkey Kong, Zelda, Pikmin and Nintendogs; is next.

Normally hearing Talk Asia and next would get me to stop watching CNN. Talk Asia is a soft interview show. I have little interest in soft news and talk. But I continue watching CNN on the off chance that Miyamoto might reveal something interesting about Nintendo.

He didn't. I wasn't expecting him to. Talk Asia isn't meant for tough interviews. The only thing close to tough was Anjali Rao--the same Anjali Rao from World News Asia--telling Miyamoto she was disappointed that Nintendo's Game & Watch handhelds were no more because she missed seeing stick figures move across their screens.

Still, I was disappointed. I could have used this half hour for something useful. Like getting ready for the day.

To be fair, the Miyamoto interview would have been interesting, or at least informative, to those who don't regularly visit Web sites like GameSpot. Those people would have learned why Mario looks the way he looks, why the Revolution was renamed Wii, just at whom Nintendo is aiming the DS and Wii and why, why Nintendo has decided to go with alternative control schemes with its recent hardware, why he and Nintendo as a whole do not produce excessively violent games, and other tidbits about Shigeru Miyamoto and Nintendo.

But for those of us who do regularly visit sites like this one, it was old news.