Tag Archives: Humor

Cheapness is what we want

March 14, 2010 By in Heconomy Tags: , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Still. But it looks like we’re not going to be getting it anymore. Here in Berlin, I mean. When it comes to cheap rent.

The average rent for new rentals has gone up nearly 5 percent since 2008, in some of the angesagte (hot) districts nearly 7 percent.

So much for finding your cheap ecologicial, I mean economical niche in Berlin, I guess. Although it’s still WAY cheaper to live here than in other German cities or gar (even) in “real” cities like London, Paris, New York, etc.  And it will probably stay that way for a while yet, maybe, I hope.

This trend will continue, however, the smart guys say. There are ever more renters out there looking for apartments in a stagnant market – and only about 13 percent of Berliners actually own their own. Ich bin ein Berliner, they must be thinking, but I don’t necessarily want to own a piece of it.

Dieser Trend wird anhalten, so der Marktbericht, den die GSW am Donnerstag vorstellte. Denn in Berlin konkurrieren immer mehr Haushalte um die stagnierende Zahl der Mietwohnungen – und Wohneigentum leistet sich nur eine Minderheit (13 Prozent).

We said we’re sorry already

March 12, 2010 By in Habitudes Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

More Germans are leaving the church these days. More than usual, I mean. I wonder why?

“The flood of revelations began in late January when an elite Jesuit school in Berlin admitted systematic sexual abuse of pupils by two priests in the 1970s and 1980s. A school attached to a cathedral in Regensburg where Benedict’s brother was choir master was among those later implicated.”

Celibacy is the sign of full devotion.

665 million marks won’t buy you what it used to

March 11, 2010 By in History Tags: , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Especially when you find them strewn along the side of the A10 near Berlin, wrapped up in little aluminium packets.

And especially when you consider that nobody here pays with marks anymore. And especially so when they’re the old Reichsmark type issued between 1913 and 1923.

Maybe this was a foiled caper by those great poker tournament robbery robber guys. Maybe it wasn’t.

Hinweise auf den Besitzer des Geldes fanden sich nicht.

Tanker tanks

March 10, 2010 By in Hi-tech Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Tank this. Damn. Hurt feeling time again for Europeans with a military industrial complex.

“Airbus and its U.S. partner, Northrop Grumman (NOC), declined to bid on the tanker contract because they didn’t think they could win. That’s because they believed that the Pentagon’s specifications for the deal favored Boeing’s smaller 767 over the larger Airbus A330.”

Erst sah es so aus, als würde EADS Tankflugzeuge für die US-Luftwaffe bauen. Dann hat die US-Regierung die Ausschreibung im Sinne des heimischen Konzerns Boeing geändert. In Europa läuft das bei solchen Projekten nicht anders. Dabei braucht die Rüstungsindustrie dringend mehr Wettbewerb.

McDonald’s, Subway, it’s all Google to me

March 8, 2010 By in Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Everybody’s out to get me these days, or my data. Out to get them I mean, actually, over here in Germany.

It’s bad enough that Google is googling the very streets they live on. Now, if a German wants to open up a McDonald’s or a Subway franchise, he or she has to let these potential employers know shockingly private and even intimate matters about him or her selves.

You know, private and intimate stuff like “were you ever directly or indirectly involved in terrorist activities.”

Needless to say, everybody over here is totally empört (shocked) about the matter. No, not so much about such indiscrete questioning like this, they’re shocked that a German would actually sink as low as to want to open up a McDonald’s or a Subway franchise.

Die Bewerber haben sogar Auskunft zu erteilen, ob sie “jemals direkt oder indirekt an terroristischen Aktivitäten beteiligt” gewesen seien.

Here people work until they are 67?

March 5, 2010 By in Heconomy Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

You know how it is, the best thing to do with good advice is to pass it on.

And that’s just what Germany’s Bild newspaper did during a lecturing session to Greece the other day. The newspaper basically called on the Greeks to adopt something they called “a more Germanic work ethic” in an open letter to Greek prime minister Papandreou.

What a joke. This is hilarious. This is hilarious because the Germanic work ethic is a hilarious myth.

My favorite lecture claim here? The one about Germans working until they’re 67. Ha, ha, ha. Every German knows that this is a big fat lie. But hey, if it makes you feel good to believe in such Märchen (fairy tales), whatever.

Anyway, you go Greece. Actually what I mean is that you’d better get going while the going’s good.

Germans tell Greeks to rise earlier and work harder to avoid financial crisis

What’s that guy with the knife want?

March 4, 2010 By in Hard Facts, Helplessness Tags: , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Talk about your cruelty to animals.

First  rejected by his mother, then seperated from his ersatz father-keeper at a tender age while getting gawked at by quadrillions of annoying zoo visitors (he was even forced at gunpoint once to take a Vanity Fair cover shot with Leonardo DiCaprio), then turning from a cute and cuddly baby to a grungy teen right there where everybody could watch, then forced to marry a blood relative who doesn’t even speak proper German (they call her Giovanna).

So now? Poor Knut, Berlin’s own. Now German animal rights activists want to cut off his family jewels. Word is that “if they (he and Giovanna) were allowed to breed, the offspring would be prone to genetic abnormalities and liable to illness.”

I’m sure that Knut is wondering now if they couldn’t just be good friends. Unfortunately, he can’t talk.

“A long-term cohabitation between Giovanna and Knut is only feasible if Knut is castrated.”

Are you sure you want to delete these files y/n?

March 3, 2010 By in Habeas Corpus, Hi-tech, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Sicher ist sicher (better safe than sorry). At least when it comes to deleting data saved in Germany to combat terrorism and serious crime. Delete the stuff, in other words – can we delete the Street View stuff while we’re at it?

Germany’s highest court overturned a law that let anti-terror authorities save data on telephone calls and e-mails for a limited time. Now the big delete button has to get pressed – or maybe just the regular delete button, but lots and lots and lots of times.

This law is a “grave intrusion” into personal privacy rights or something and must be revised. Most likely because grave terrorism and serious crime never take place here, right? It’s nice living in Wunderland.

The ruling did not overturn the European Union anti-terrorism directive on which the law is based, but may lead to its reassessment later this year.