Yeah, me too. I’ve always felt that wedding veils add a certain mystique to a bride’s look.
Berlin Fashion Week. It’s not just for fashion designers anymore.
Category Archives: Home Cooking
I Think It Should Have Been Superpenner
Sozialtourismus has just been selected by the Brain Police as Germany’s Unwort des Jahres (non-word of the year). It means “social tourism” and is terribly cynical and politically incorrect as it refers to “unwanted immigrants from eastern Europe” who come to Germany to presumably milk all the wonderful social benefits here, something of course social tourists from eastern Europe or elsewhere would never, ever do.
Non-word of the year? The year has just begun, hasn’t it? And there are way more cool non-words out there that are much more deserving, if you ask me (I know you didn’t, but I’m telling you anyway). How about Superpenner (Super Bum), for instance? Bum is totally politically incorrect, too (that is what they used to call the homeless) and super is, well, super. So there.
Anyway, in case you didn’t know, Superpenner is a new comic action hero who has now arrived to save Berlin. And it’s about freakin’ time, too. To save it from all of those Straßenfeger (street sweeper) newspaper salesmen who accost us with their sales pitches in the U-Bahn all day long. I can hear it already: “Now with the Supperpenner comic book!”
Berlins Straßen haben einen neuen Helden: Den Superpenner – wenn auch nur auf dem Papier. Der Comic-Actionhero soll den Absatz der Berliner Obdachlosenzeitung Straßenfeger steigern.
German Soldiers Just Can’t Take It Anymore
That’s why 6000 of them (half the German army?) have now put in for early retirement.
No war is hell, too.
Flexibles System der Kinderbetreuung, mehr Tagesmütter für Randzeiten, Teilzeitmöglichkeiten mit einer Drei-oder Viertagewoche in der Familienphase, ein Lebensarbeitszeitkonto für Überstunden. Auch will sie sich das System der nahezu automatischen Versetzungen alle zwei bis drei Jahre „genau ansehen“ und Schluss mit dauernden Ortswechseln machen.
PS: And thank goodness this just came in. Here are the top 10 places for Frührentner (early-retirees) and other retiree types to, well, retire around at (International Living Annual Global Retirement Index 2014).
One Million Dollars!
Unlike in Germany, where at least fifty percent of all German politicians stem from working-class families, where none are susceptible to bribery or lobbying influence and most can just barely make ends meet on the meager remuneration they receive (or so I must assume, to judge by the outrage here), word is out that more than half of Amerika’s lawmakers are now “worth at least $1 million” (although I personally have always held them all to be priceless).
This is a scandal or something. This has never ever been the case before because American politicians, gosh darn it, up until now anyways, never ever used to enter politics just to obtain money and/or power. In the past, I mean. Something bad has now apparently happened. Or something. That is why we must look to Germany for the answer, as usual.
Everything here in Germany works better, you see. This is because Germany is a so-called “classless” society. But with class. Just go and ask the folks here who run the country. They’ll tell you.
In Deutschland ist die “Millionärswahl” eine TV-Show, in den USA Realität.
Singapore
Beautiful German weapon sale of the week.
Because somebody has to admire them.
That Sure Looks Like A UFO To Me
A 4-meter-long UFO landed near a place called Zwickau yesterday and nobody there seemed to notice and/or much care.
I guess this kind of thing happens down here all the time (what else are you going to do in Zwickau?). Unfortunately for the rest of humanity, the object in question turned out to be a remote-controlled mini-me-Zeppelin and no trace of the alien intelligence responsible for its construction has yet been found.
Später stellte sich heraus: Bei dem Ufo handelt es sich um einen ferngesteuerten Zeppelin, der „Ufo-Konstrukteur“ ist ein Hobby-Modellflieger aus dem Ort.
Secret NSA Database Discovered In German Phone Booth
Just when it appeared as if the lastest wave of hysteria about personal privacy violations by the NSA was subsiding in Germany, a local man in the small southern German town of Oberscheißheim has stumbled accross what appears to be a vast treasure trove of illegally acquired private data carelessly left hanging in the town’s telephone booth.
Although in German and ostinsibly published by the “Deutsche Post,” personal privacy experts are nevertheless convinced that this could only be the work of the NSA. The secred database, in book form, is said to contain a a detailed, unencrypted listing of all of the town’s residents, to include name, address and telephone number, and would have been freely accessible to anyone entering the booth had not the quick-thinking resident who discovered the ghastly privacy violation not ripped it from the small metal chain it had been attached to.
“I felt it was my duty to inform the local authorities immediately,” the man later said when being questioned, prefering to remain anonymous, of course, with a paper bag over his head. “And I shudder to think about all the other secret databases possibly out there just like it, in communities just like our own, just waiting to be discovered and accessed by perfect strangers.”
“And in closing, I must say that I also get the creeps when I think about what the NSA is going to do to that poor careless agent of theirs who left the thing hanging there in the first place. What a dumb ass.”
The NSA has a secret unit that produces special equipment ranging from spyware for computers and cell phones to listening posts and USB sticks that work as bugging devices. Here are some excerpts from the intelligence agency’s own catalog.
But Our Battle Drones Will Only Be Used For Goodness And Niceness
And they won’t stink, either.
The Bundeswehr Association and the commander of German troops in Afghanistan have expressed their support for the acquisition of battle drones to protect their soldiers.
Let the long, agonizing and hypocritical debate begin!
“Wenn Soldatinnen und Soldaten in den Einsatz geschickt werden, dann muss ihnen auch das Optimum an Ausrüstung zur Verfügung gestellt werden.”
Silvester Still More Deadly Than Atomkraft
More Germans get injured and die EVERY year by fireworks while celebrating on New Year’s Eve than have ever been injured by German nuclear power plants (no fatalities).
Especially now, I suppose, now that the last few reactors running will soon be turned off for good.
No, I haven’t the slightest idea what the connection is here, either. Ha! Other than perhaps… Germans FEEL that nuclear energy is more dangerous although they KNOW that getting drunk and shooting rockets at one another is a very real and present danger. And hey, what you FEEL wins. Loses?
System One Thinking: System one thinking is automatic, unconscious, lightening fast and generates strong feelings of certainty. System one decisions are difficult to put into words other than ‘it feels right’.
Zerfetzte Hände, schwere Verbrennungen, Tod: Die Silvesternacht hat nicht nur viel Freude, sondern auch einiges Leid gebracht. Mehrere Menschen starben durch Raketen und Böller, andere stürzten aus dem Fenster oder vom Balkon.
Brought To You Since 72
Who am I to question a long English television tradition? In Germany, I mean.
Do you know who Freddie Frinton was? Or May Warden? Nope. Don’t feel so bad. If English is your native language and you live in the US or the UK, then you’re not alone. But a German would likely know the names, or surely at least know their most famous characters.
Happy New Year!
Observing Hermann 