Global Warming called off in Germany

January 10, 2010 By in Hard Facts Tags: , , , , , Leave a comment

I mean at least for a few weeks, people. Don’t worry. Like Arnold, it’ll be back (most likely with a vengeance too, right?).

But damn it sure is cold here in Berlin these days.

It’s cold I tell you. Why it’s so cold that pickpockets in the U-Bahn here are sticking their hands in strangers’ pockets just to keep them warm.

Cold? Why it’s so cold here that people who normally hate McDonald’s actually go there in the hope that somebody will finally spill scalding hot coffee on their lap.

You want cold? Why it’s so cold in Berlin that German car cleaning fetishists have actually stopped cleaning their cars. They just defrost them all day now instead.
 
Global Warming bis zum Umfallen.

It’s a bug, not a feature

January 8, 2010 By in Heconomy Tags: Leave a comment

Normally quite fleißig (industrious) when it comes to things like preparing for creepy global threats like the imfamous YK2 bug – which of course they actually did some, let me think, ten freaking years ago – more than 25 million German bank card owners have nevertheless been hit hard by said bug since New Year’s Day (2010) and can’t like get their Geld (money) already. Plastic money, I mean = the only kind there is.

Why the Y2K bug hit ten years late, and only here in Germany of all places, is unclear at the moment. Germans like to keep their computers a long time you know so there are certainly bound to still be a lot of really slow ones out there and all… Like mine. But ten years? Just a thought.

Y2K10 oder wat?

Export ist Mord

January 7, 2010 By in Hard Facts Tags: Leave a comment

I liked the old China Syndrome better.

In 2007 China overtook Germany as the world’s third-largest national economy. Now it’s taken away Germany’s mantle of the world’s top exporter.

But don’t worry, Germany. You’re certainly not alone out there. Trading partners keep trading places all the time. China’s right on track to become the pass Japan to become the second-largest economy too, for instance. And then after that there’s… Wait a minute. Then there’s…

China hatte Deutschland schon 2007 als drittgrößte Volkswirtschaft eingeholt.

212 minutes a day?

January 6, 2010 By in Hard Facts Tags: 2 Comments

That`s how much average TV the average German watches. On an average day, I mean, on average. Yawn. A real red-blooded American watches that much before breakfast. Or should, damn it.

And I somehow suspected this too: The real couch potatoes are in uns und um uns und um uns herum (like all around us, dude). If you live in Berlin, I mean. The Brandenburgers are the Germans who watch the most TV (262 minutes), that’s clearly more than we watch here in Berlin. I’m shocked and disappointed, sort of. But at least Berliners surf and blog more, or so I must assume. The slugs.

Den höchsten Anstieg im Vergleich der Bundesländer gab es in Sachsen: Hier verweilten die Menschen mit 182 Minuten im Schnitt 18 Minuten länger vor den Bildschirmen als 2008.

When snowball fights turn bad

January 4, 2010 By in Habitudes, Hurt Feelings Tags: 1 Comment

I guess it’s officially a tradition now. For the second (or third?) New Year’s now, a group of abominable anarchist snowmen types (this time around 200 strong) have picked a snowball fight with the rest of the world in Leipzig at a place called Connewitzer Kreuz.

Then of course the snowball fight got out of control and expensive cars, buses, store windows and even cops got hurt. Other than all the feelings, I mean. Hey, you’ve got to do something down there. At Connewitzer Kreuz, I mean.
 
Auch Polizeikräfte wurden mit Schneebällen sowie mit Flaschen beworfen, wobei zwei Beamte verletzt wurden.