We’re Helping Greece To Help Ourselves

March 6, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Heconomy, High Art, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Athens, Berlin, EU, Euro, Euro Crisis, Financial crisis, German, Germans, Germany, Greece, Interest, Lending Leave a comment

It’s undeniable that Germany has great interest in helping Greece. Why just look at the great interest they’re getting back by doing so.

Despite all the perpetual bitching and moaning about having to foot the bailout bill for their bankrupt buddies in the bottomless pit, German tax payers raked in some 380 million euros on Greek aid interest payments in 2011 and are likely to pull in a whole lot more this year. It’s good to be the king, I mean lender.

Geez. With generosity like this, who needs extortion?

Im Rahmen des ersten Griechenland-Hilfspakets hat die Bundesrepublik dem Euro-Partner Darlehen von insgesamt 15,17 Milliarden Euro gewährt, um das Land vor der Pleite zu retten. Der Zinssatz habe zwischen 3,423 und 4,528 Prozent gelegen.

Sandra Bullock’s Chinese Rocks

February 27, 2012 By Hermann Observer in High Art, Higher Education, Humor Tags: Academy Awards, Berlin, Chines, Foreign Languages, German, Germans, Germany, Hollywood, Humor, Language, Languages, Satire, Stars 3 Comments

Now This Is A Show That I Could Watch

February 21, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Helplessness, High Art Tags: Berlin, Celebrities, Entertainment, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Promis, Satire, TV Leave a comment

Germans can’t seem to get enough of watching Promis on TV (German TV Promis are second-rate celebrities, usually of the third- or fourth-rate kind).

They drop them off in the jungle and let them scratch and bite for Promi fame there, they make them prepare awful Promi dinners at home for their unwelcome Promi guests, there was even one show where I saw some Promis going on a freakin’ Promi pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in Spain.

But now they’ve finally developed a concept that will open up that prominent Promi TV world for the rest of us out there. They’re going to put them in a boxing ring and let them beat the Promi crap out of each other.

Großes Promiboxen mit Dschungel-Prominenz

Film Critics And Other Smart People Disappointed

February 19, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Helplessness, High Art, Home Cooking, Hypocrisy Tags: Berlin, Berlin Film Festival#, Berlinale, Film, Film Festivals, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Intellectuals, Movies, Satire, The Golden Bear 1 Comment

This year’s winner of the Golden Bear for best film at the Berlinale was actually a real dog, German film critics and other intellectual thinking folks and artist types everywhere are saying.

It’s not that the Italian film “Caesar Must Die” was bad in a cinematic sense or anything. It just didn’t meet the standards that modern film-makers and their kind aspire to, that’s all.

It was, in other words, too “humanist,” not at all a “strong, political film from young, engaged film-makers” (the film-makers who made this non-political film are old, engaged film-makers) and, worst of all, “it was a very conservative selection.” Pfui (yuck)!

Geez. If they had wanted to watch human, uplifting drama they would have gone to some other film festival. I don’t know which one that would be, of course, but it certainly wouldn’t/shouldn’t be the Berlinale.

“The jury shunned almost all the contemporary films that were admired or hotly debated at an otherwise pretty remarkable festival.”

This Is An Anglicism

February 13, 2012 By Hermann Observer in High Art, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Humor Tags: Berlin, English, Expressions, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Language, Satire, Science, Words 4 Comments

Not an Americanismcism, OK?

Those filthy-mouthed British. “Shitstorm” just won Germany’s Anglicism of the Year award (2011). Wow. I wonder if “Crap Tornado” came in second?

The punchline: “The jury’s decision is meant to emphasize the positive influence of English on the German language.” I don’t make this stuff up, people.

Mit der Wahl will die Jury den positiven Einfluss von englischen Ausdrücken auf die deutsche Sprache hervorheben.

Berlinale Predictably Boring

February 11, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Heconomy, High Art, Home Cooking, Hotness, Hypocrisy Tags: Berlin, Berlin Film Festival#, Berlinale, Film, German, Germans, Germany, Hollywood, Humor, Movies, Satire 1 Comment

As usual. But at least we get to look at Angelina Jolie for awhile this year.

She and her husband what’s-his-name have been here for days now and refuse to go home, giving the notoriously anti-Hollywood Berlin Film Festival that all important Hollywood touch.

But as for the movies, the only Lichtblick (bright spot) I have heard about so far is a film called Barbara, “a harrowing reminder of what life was like two decades earlier behind the Iron Curtain and Berlin Wall that stood just a few meters to the east of theatres where the Berlinale is based.” You know, it’s a film about how suffocatingly horrible communist East Germany was. But who wants to see that? Here in Berlin of all places, I mean.

That and that flick about the Nazis on the dark side of the moon, of course.

“It’s not a film about East Germany, it’s a film about how people survive in a country that was on its way out.” – Hmm. Sounds like a film about Syria.

Electric Cars Bad, Too

January 30, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Heconomy, Hi-tech, High Art, Hysteria Tags: Alternative Energy, Berlin, CO2, E-cars, Ecology, German, Germans, Germany, Green Shirts, Humor, Renewable energy, Satire, The Greens 1 Comment

For the climate, I mean.

How piquant or exquisite or unintentionally funny or something. An eco-study by an eco-institute (Öko-Institut) has just found out that eco-cars of the ecolectric kind are not nearly as ecological for the ecology as assumed (is there an eco in here?).

Basing its findings upon the amount of additional electricity these cars will have to use in the future, the study determined that if this energy does not come from renewable energy sources (a most unlikely likelihood at this time, it appears), then this increase in electricity production will actually prove to have a detrimental effect upon the so-called climate balance.

Exhaust or not, it must be clear by now that this subject will never be exhausted.

Als Grund nennt das Öko-Institut die Strommengen, die durch Elektroautos verbraucht werden. Die Klimabilanz wäre nur dann ausgewogen, wenn dafür zusätzliche Mengen erneuerbarer Energie in den Strommarkt eingeführt würden.

Talk About Your Hollywood Nazis

January 26, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Hi-tech, High Art, History Tags: Berlin, Berlinale, Film, German, Germans, Germany, Hollywood, Humor, Iron Sky, Movies, Nazis, Satire 1 Comment

How about Nazis from the dark side of the moon?

Well, this isn’t quite Hollywood. It (Iron Sky) is actually a Finnish-German-Australian co-production that will concur the earth next month at the Berlinale.

And it’s a comedy. I think. Isn’t it?

We come in peace.

@bundestag.de

January 25, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Helections, Helplessness, Hi-tech, High Art Tags: Berlin, Email, German, Germans, Germany, Government, Humor, Satire, Spam, The Internet Leave a comment

When the Bundestag isn’t being shut down due to power failure…

Unintentional spam attacks from Bundestag employees can take their toll, too.

You’ve all seen this happen, I’m sure. Somebody on a huge distribution list receives an internal email and accidently responds to everyone (instead of just to the person who sent it). Dozens if not hundreds of the recipients who then get that person’s response feel the desperate need to respond to that in some smart ass way (to everyone here, too) and on and one it goes, for hours on end, until a systems administrator finally loses his/her patience and pulls out the plug.

Well, that happened today in the halls of German government. Just your normal everyday dumb office behavior kind of thing again. Or was it maybe a diabolical terrorist attack doch?

“Liebe Britta, wenn Ihr Euch eindeckt, bringt Ihr mir eins mit? Danke und herzliche Grüße.”

Berlin Fashion Weak

January 16, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Heconomy, High Art, Humor Tags: Berlin, Berlin Fashion Week, Fashion, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Mode, Satire 5 Comments

Hell if I know if they’ll be presenting this elegant ensemble at this year’s freak, I mean show.

All I know is that German fashion (or any other kind of fashion, for that matter) is clearly way too deep for me.

Neben zahlreichen Messen, darunter die Premium am Gleisdreieck, bietet die Fashion Week viel Klatsch und Tratsch bei Empfängen und Partys.

Observing Hermann

“Was interessiert mich mein Geschwätz von gestern?”

Category Archives: High Art