Staten Island Ninja

For the past seven months, a "ninja" has been creeping into the homes of Staten Island residents and absconding with their valuables. (For those unfamiliar with New York City, Staten Island is the island borough just south of Manhattan.) The few people who've seen the ninja say he (or she!) dresses in black from head to toe, conceals his face with a black mask, and never utters a word. When confronted, the ninja simply whips out his nunchucks and makes a daring escape. He's also been spotted "scaling walls and leaping noiselessly out windows."

According to this story in The New Yorker, the Staten Island ninja appears to schedule many of his capers for Wednesday evenings. (Good to know. I think I'll save my visits for Thursdays.)

Of course a guy who breaks into people's houses to steal I-pods doesn't deserve the ninja title. According to Wikipedia, the original ninjas were Japanese warriors trained in the arts of sabotage, espionage, scouting and assassination. (There may even have been female ninjas--though the person who wrote the Wikipedia entry appears to be skeptical of this notion.)

If you're interested in ninjas (and don't mind a little blood and guts), I highly recommend Across the Nightingale Floor by Lian Hearn. It's set in feudal Japan and revolves around a secret society known as The Tribe. I loved it!