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.

This pig foot could be yours!

December 31, 2009 By in Habitudes Tags: 2 Comments

After you strap a Polish firecracker on it and blow it up on New Year’s Eve, that is. Although… Why you would want to do this is beyond me (like lots of things that get done here).

Germans love blowing stuff up on New Year’s, you see, but they just don’t trust foreign explosive imports (sound familiar?). And a certain annual anti-Polish-firework-movement has even become a near-ritual kinda thang here. German newspapers and cops love to issue dramatic warnings about Polen Böller (Polish fireworks) right before the fireworks hit the fan.

And that’s what this picture is all about. Cops in Berlin and elsewhere are trying to frighten the pants off everybody by showing them what an illegal Polish firecracker can do to an unarmed pig’s foot (don’t worry, they had the decency to kill the pig first). German firecrackers just don’t put holes in your pigs feet like that, I assume.

Anyways, be careful out there this year, people. Blow up your pigs feet and other objects properly and with great care. And buy German. First, I mean.

And while we’re at it, Happy New Year!