Another Shocking New Revelation

March 29, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: Attitude, Bad Attitude, Berlin, Capitalsim, German, Germans, Germany, Good Attitude, Humor, Negative Thinking, Positive Thinking, Psychology, SAP, Satire 1 Comment

“Germany is a nation of grumblers.”

Wow. And this guy should know. He’s a German himself.

I mean, I knew that they were a nation of moaners and whiners and that they liked to complain and gripe and lament a lot and that they regularly deplore things and eat their hearts out bemoaning matters while greiving and bitching and moaning (as opposed to just moaning without the bitching part), but I honesly had no idea that they were grumblers, too. Hey, live and learn.

“Anyone who follows all the daily debates in Germany that are critical of capitalism and growth could come to the conclusion that we Germans don’t want to be successful anymore.”

I Thought He’d Never Leave

March 28, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Helplessness, High Art, Home Cooking, Humor, Hypocrisy Tags: Berlin, Comedians, Comedy, Entertainment, German, German TV, Germans, Germany, Harald Schmidt, Humor, Late Night Television, Satire, TV 3 Comments

Contrary to popular belief, Germans have a great sense of humor. What they’re not terribly good at, however, is imitating other comedy formats, something they insist on doing time and time and time again. Harald Schmidt is a prime example of this and – glory hallelujah let the saints be praised – they’ve finally gotten around to cancelling his show for good.

He has been Germany’s late night Tonight-Show-David-Letterman-Conan-O’Brien-like clone for many, way too many years and I’ve never understood why people here pretend that he is funny, but, then again, maybe that’s just me (uh, who else is it going to be?).

I’d give you an example of some of his highbrow, sophisticated humor (see above), but that would only make me feel more aggressive than I do already so go out there and dig up something on YouTube yourself if you absolutely positively have to and good luck with the translation because it won’t be worth it.

Geh mit Gott, Harald, aber geh.

Gentrification Giants 1 – Subculture Vultures 0

March 25, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Helplessness, Hideology, High Art, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: Alternative Lifesyles, Alternative Scene, Anarchists, Anarchy, Artists, Berlin, Bohemians, Chaos, Gentrification, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Satire, Subculture, Tacheles 1 Comment

An evicted group of about 20 subculture artist/activist types chained to the remains of Berlin’s graffiti-covered Tacheles alternative scene “living space” ruin is about to be forcibly dragged out kicking and screaming into German reality by black-clad gentrification special forces troops right here live on TV, I hope, but nobody can tell me when. Or on which channel or anything (maybe later in the Internetz?).

The group is defending “one of Berlin’s last bastions of alternative subculture, and are fighting eviction ahead of plans to develop it (the Tacheles) as an office and luxury apartments complex” and has to be dealt with accordingly, of course. After years of pussyfooting around with them first, I mean.

I would advise them not to let the door hit them on the way out but there are no doors at the Tacheles as they were surely used as firewood long ago during one of those quaint, Stone Age let’s-not-freeze-to-death-tonight gettogethers so popular with artist types there and elsewhere here in Berlin.

Tacheles “is just the latest in a long line of public spaces that have been lost to private investors” and will surely be missed by all, myself not included.

Darko stands behind an iron gate, his bare chest daubed in red paint with the words “victim of bank.”

PS: This German subculture is not to be confused with this other German subculture here.

Just Say No

March 21, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypochondria, Hysteria Tags: Angst, Berlin, Business, Culture, Economy, German, Germans, Germany, Hi-Tech, Humor, Kreuzberg, Satire, Techhnology, The Internet Leave a comment

As usual, I mean. Berliners in Kreuzberg (or at least that active, left-wing kind) aren’t interested in finding new solutions for urban living, thank you. And they’ll even threaten you with violence if you try to establish “temporary cultural space” to attempt to do so (go ask BMW Guggenheim Lab). Kreuzbergers don’t do culture. Temporary or otherwise.

And speaking of resistence… The rest of the country is pretty much Kreuzberg all over again (only on a much larger scale) when it comes to saying no to the Internet (some call it the Internetz).

This isn’t really a news item or anything, but now certain German businessmen types are actually starting to get worried about their country “sleeping through the Internet” age like it does.

They have come to discover that their fellow Germans provide “too few qualified professionals, suffer way too much from risk aversion and are caught up in a tightly structured regulation frenzy.” Like I said, this isn’t anything new. But the real question is: What are you going to be able to do about that? Not a damned thing, of course.

Das Internet ist ein globaler Treiber für die Wirtschaft. Doch in Deutschland bremsen Fachkräftemangel und hohe Anforderungen an den Datenschutz die Firmen aus.

Germany In Grave Danger Again

March 20, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hi-tech, High Art, Home Cooking, Humor, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Climate, Climate Change, Climate Models, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Natural Catastrophes, Rain, Satire, Weather, Weather Forecasts 2 Comments

It’s all over but the crying now. Or whining, if you prefer. German Wetter (weather) just keeps getting wetter!

A new study tells us that the number of “devastating” storms, heavy rains and other weather-related “natural catastrophes” has tripled in Germany since the 70s! Wow. Have there actually been three already?

Scarier still is that the climate model for the next thirty years (this in a country that can’t get the weather forecast for tomorrow right, mind you) calls for even more “heavy precipitation” that will most likely lead to – oh my God we’re all going to die – flooding! That’s right, the f-word. Oh the horror or something. And you thought it couldn’t happen here.

„Für die nächsten 30 Jahre rechnen Klimamodelle in Deutschland vor allem mit einer Zunahme der Sturmintensität und mit mehr Starkniederschlägen, die zu Überschwemmungen führen.“

Germany’s Energy Turnaround Rocks

March 19, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helections, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Home Cooking, Hysteria Tags: Atomic energy, Berlin, Economics, Energy, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Nuclear, Renewable energy, Satire, Solar energy, Supply and Demand, The Green Shirts, The Greens, Wind Energy 2 Comments

They never promised you a rose garden (actually, they did). It looks like Germany’s Energiewende (the energy turnaround = shutting down nuclear power and waiting for solar and wind energy to pick up slack) is going to have its price, too.

And it looks likes the first installment will by about a seven percent increase in energy costs for private housholds. But Germans pay these increases gladly, I think. At least for now (seven percent is just the start, of course). It’s back to the future. It’s for the common good. Or it’s for saving the planet or something.

Uh, like why don’t they just have “the state” pay for it. Oh, that’s right. They already are (the taxpayers are, that is).

Stromtrassen, Umschlagwerke oder intelligente Stromzähler kosten den Staat Milliarden. Draufzahlen muss am Ende oft der Verbraucher – offenbar bis zu sieben Prozent in den kommenden Jahren.

German Austerity Still Quite A Rarity

March 12, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Heconomy, Helections, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hypocrisy Tags: Berlin, Debt Crisis, EU, Europe, European Fiscal Pact, Fiscal Discipline, German, Germans, Germany, Greece, Humor, International Fiscal Pact, Satire, The EU, The Euro Leave a comment

Despite all the talk to the contrarity.

The German government didn’t reach even half of its planned savings in the federal budget in 2011. Only 42 percent of the spending cuts named by Merkel’s coalition government, comprised of the conservative Christian Democrats and the business-friendly Free Democratic Party, were actually not implemented…

The government is also falling behind on its targets for this year. Of the originally planned €19.1 billion in savings, less than half has been implemented…

This lapse (in reaching savings targets) is particularly embarrassing for the German government because the news comes just after 25 European Union member states agreed in early March to an international fiscal pact obliging them to adhere to greater fiscal discipline…

The aim of the pact is to make EU countries maintain binding austerity measures that leaders hope will contain the debt crisis and prevent countries like Greece from being able to pile up massive debts again.

And countries like Germany will show them how to do it, see? Next year, maybe. Or the year after that. Hard to say for sure.

“It (the pact) is a milestone in the history of the European Union.”

German Computer Clouds Don’t Stink

March 11, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Home Cooking, Hypochondria, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, CeBIT, Cloud Computing, Data Protection, Data Security, Fear Mongering, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Marketing, Nationality, Paranoia, Satire, Technology 2 Comments

I mean float. At least not across the German border, they don’t.

Germans being pathalogically hypersensitive whenever it comes to data protection issues, whether they be actual issues or not, Deutsche Telekom has cleverly exploited these wildly popular fears during this year’s CeBIT technology fair by suggesting to “the 3.6 million prosperous German small and medium sized firms who have not yet taken the leap to storing their data using cloud computing” that their “German cloud” can offer them the safety and security that those leaky and toxic foreign clouds could never offer them – even if those foreign clouds wanted to offer them safety and security in the first place which, of course, they don’t.

Telekom’s cloud – some 30 datacenters spread across Germany – is, well, spread across Germany, so nothing can ever possibly go wrong, one Telekom spokesman tells us. “And we are not playing on peoples’ fears, either” another spokesman added. “It’s just that when servers are situated outside of Germany there is a risk that companies will use your data for commercial purposes or, worse, they will be spied on by the secret services.”

Let’s all sing together: Paranoia strikes deep. Into your life it will creep. It starts when you’re always afraid. You step out of line, the man come and take you away…

This will be “a cloud computer model for the German market and in the German language.” Made for Germans. By Germans. In Germany.

“Tax Advice Mission” Impossible

February 26, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helections, Helplessness, Home Cooking Tags: Athens, Berlin, EU, Euro, Euro Zone, Financial Criis, German, Germans, Germany, Greece, Humor, Satire, Taxation, Taxes 1 Comment

How about a little more sensitivity here, Greece? Germans are only trying to help.

And it doesn’t look like they’re going to stop trying to help you anytime soon, either. That’s why if they can’t get that “budget commissioner” they proposed to help monitor the Greek government’s (lack of) management of its finances, some 160 German tax collectors have now selflessly volunteered for assignments in Greece to help gather Greek taxes more efficiently. And as you can imagine, when it comes to taxation and tax collection, German efficiency can really hurt.

A recent flurry of acrimonious exchanges between Athens and Berlin reflect deepening doubts among mainly northern members of the 17-nation euro zone about Greece’s ability and willingness to overhaul its economy to satisfy lenders’ demands.

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.”

Observing Hermann

“Was interessiert mich mein Geschwätz von gestern?”

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