SEOUL—My office has a pool going about when North Korea is going to launch its rocket. I’ve got Monday at 1 pm, though by the looks of it lunch might end up being on me. Reports have been coming in pretty steadily that seem to indicate the launch will take place this weekend. Monitoring equipment has been set up around the site and the North’s official Korean Central News Agency released a statement saying the launch would come “soon.”

It’s ironic that that we can even joke about something as serious as a missile test, which is really what it is, whether or not there’s a satellite on the rocket as the North claims. But it does sort of sum up the mood here as most people have grown accustomed to the North’s antics and assume there’s slim chance of a wider conflict. Not so with Japan.

A group of my co-workers went out for barbecue earlier Saturday. Twenty or so hungry editors, writers and photographers filed in and sat around the table waiting for the food to arrive. Picture this – just as the waitress is sliding the meat onto the grill everyone around the table yanks out their cell phones. “They launched it!”

We all jumped up and run back to the office, panting cause it’s the most exercise most of us have gotten in months. There’s a charge in the air because this IS afterall what being in the news business is about. “URGENT – NK launches rocket,” the message reads in bold red, what we’ve all been anticipating. Then comes the follow up. “NK – launch confusion.”

Apparently someone over at Japan’s NHK either got nervous and hit the send button or was looking to get out of the gate early and scoop everyone else. Of all the concerned parties Japan has certainly been the most vociferous in its denunciations of the North, which has led more than a few to wonder whether Tokyo isn’t looking to use North Korea to rally support behind an increasingly unpopular government and efforts to remilitarize.

Whatever the case may be, the incident highlights just how well North Korea plays on local nerves, ratcheting tensions the way a musician would string a guitar. A little twist here, few strums there and you’ve got the whole region dancing to your tune. Especially those in the newsroom.

I chose Monday afternoon because I figured that would give the North maximum covergae in headlines in the U.S., where it would still be early morning. That and weather reports said conditions would be best that day. Others said the weekend because that’s how North Korea is, they like to catch folks off guard, or crash the party so-to-speak.

Sort of like they did today at lunch, only it wasn’t really them this time but us, the media, which is just how the North likes to play it.