Everything is as it appears

Or appearance is everything, if you prefer. There’s a reason why McDonald’s Germany is going to start looking a little green around the gills here in the coming months, it’s going to get a green facelift. Management here wants to “reposition the restaurant as a bastion of environmental friendliness” or something.

The 40 new restaurants set to open in 2010 will be allowed to keep the golden arches, but that snappy red background in the sign will be replaced by a green one instead. The facades of the new restaurants will include natural stone and wood too. Ronald McDonald will still be allowed to hang around for a while I guess, but only as long as he’s hugging a tree. By the end of the year, more than 100 McDonald’s restaurants will be outfitted with the new design style.

And best of all, the food will stay exactly the same as it is now.

Today the sign, tomorrow the arches. McDonald’s marches on.

“More than 2.58 million people eat at McDonald’s daily in Germany, while the company employs 58,000 people.”

Germany Gets Pregnant?

Well you’ve got to call the show something. Other than bizarre, I mean. And no, it’s not a science fiction program.

Germans really love watching these, well, let’s call them reality-TV-advice-giving-practical-handbook-or-guide kind of shows these days. There’s one out there on how to be an adult, one about how to have somebody else raise your kids for you, and even one about how to get out of debt, to describe just a few. You know, stuff like that.

But what if you don’t have any kids to be raised by somebody else and therefore no debts to get out of? This new Germany Gets Pregnant show is here to help, I guess. Apparently a lost art, this program (twelve steps?) will show those interested (not many, really) everything they will need to know to, you know, have babies.

“Nach der Baby-Show kann RTL kaum tiefer sinken.”

Gnome man’s land

October 15, 2009 By Hermann Observer in Home Cooking Tags: Satire 2 Comments

What’s all the excitement about? This is art that even I get.

A pose by any other gnome would smell as sweet.

“For humans, the gesture can bring a three-year jail term.”

Fruit sellers go home!

October 2, 2009 By Hermann Observer in Home Cooking Tags: Berlin 2 Comments

Bashing Berlin? That’s easy. Especially if you’re a real insider who’s on the outside now. Thilo Sarrazin (SPD), the city’s former finance minister now working for the German Central Bank in Frankfurt, has said in an interview that Berlin is 1) not productive enough 2) has too many immigrants and 3) is being held back by its leftist mentality. Well, two out of three ain’t bad (I’m on the immigrants’ side for some strange reason).

“In Berlin there is a bigger problem than elsewhere of an underclass that does not take part in the normal economic cycle. A large number of Arabs and Turks in this city, whose numbers have grown thanks to the wrong policies, have no productive function except selling fruit and vegetables. I would strike a completely different tone. Anyone who can do something and strives for something with us is welcome. The rest should go elsewhere.”

It’s a good thing he went elsewhere before he did this interview is all I can say. And what the hell’s wrong with selling fruit, huh? I don’t see anything wrong with selling fruit. Unless your name is Klaus Wowereit or something, I mean.*

* Inappropriate/incorrect joke warning: Klaus Wowereit is Berlin’s openly gay mayor who’s about to be the next big thang in what used to be the SPD, get it?

Sarrazin hält die Berliner für eher plebejisch und kleinbürgerlich. Die Bundesbank distanzierte sich von Sarrazins Äußerungen.

Yeah, but where’s the Currywurst?

August 16, 2009 By Hermann Observer in Home Cooking Tags: Currywurst 1 Comment

To eat, I mean. What is this, people? Berlin opens up the world’s first (and last) Currywurst Museum and the Betreiber (operator) folks don’t even have the decency to offer their guests one (or two) to eat.