German Of The Day: König Kunde

August 27, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Heconomy, Hi-tech, Higher Education, Home Cooking Tags: China, Exports, France, German, Germans, Germany, Imports, Industry, Language, Trade, USA 1 Comment

That sounds a bit like King Kong but actually means king customer or the customer is king, if you prefer. And it’s nice to be the king, as you well know.

For decades, France was the single biggest importer of German goods. But that’s changed now. The United States has taken the pole position among clients for “Made in Germany” goods for the first time.

Seit dem Jahr 1961 kauft kein Land so viele deutsche Produkte wie Frankreich. Das hat sich nun geändert. Und auch damit zu tun, dass Amerika wieder mehr auf die Industrie setzt.

PS: But thank goodness Germany still has its trade with ten foot tall China, too.

German Of The Day: Dumm, Dummer, Til Schweiger

August 19, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Heconomy, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Egos, German, Germans, Germany, Hollywood, Language, PR, Refugees, Til Schweiger Leave a comment

That means dumb, dumber, the dumbest.

Speaking on German TV Thursday, Schweiger dismissed claims he is using the immigration debate as a way to garner positive PR. “I’m the most successful filmmaker in the country, what do I need PR for?”

“Sie gehen mir auf den Sack.”

German Sommerloch Update: Office Chairs Incorrectly Adjusted For Many Employees

August 17, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Health, Helplessness, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypochondria Tags: Employment, Ergonomics, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Hypochondria, Language, Satire, Sommerloch, Work 1 Comment

Especially for the ones still on their Sommerloch summer vacations, I bet.

Sitting for long periods strains the spine. Many desk workers therefore complain about backache. Correctly adjusting the office chair can prevent these complaints, however.

„In vielen Betrieben gibt es gute Stühle, aber die Beschäftigten haben sich damit noch nie befasst.“

German Of The Day: Umweltunfreundlich

August 16, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hysteria Tags: Biodiesel, Biofeuls, E10, German, Germans, Germany, Governement Regulation, Interventionism, Language, Planned Economy, Socialism, Soja Leave a comment

That means eco-unfriendly. Or in the case of biodiesel, this means “being so eco-friendly that it is eco-unfriendly.”

More starry-eyed government interventionism in action. To save the world from destruction by using biodiesel they have to destroy the world first by producing it. This reminds me of those good old communist planned economy days. And we all know how that went with the best made plans of mice and communist men.

Dem Biokraftstoff gehört die Zukunft. An negative Begleiterscheinungen dachte keiner. Doch die Indizien, dass vermehrt für das Weltklima wichtige Wälder gerodet, Sümpfe entwässert und in Ackerflächen umgewandelt werden, mehren sich. Nach Informationen der Weltagrarorganisation FAO dienen nur noch 47 Prozent der Weltgetreideproduktion – Weizen, Reis, Mais – der Ernährung.

German Of The Day: Erschlagen

August 9, 2015 By Hermann Observer in High Art, Higher Education, Home Cooking Tags: Angels, Berlin, Birthdays, Der Himmel Über Berlin, Film, German, Germans, Germany, Language, Movies, Paris, Potsdamer Platz, Texas, Wim Wenders 2 Comments

That means to strike dead. But it can also mean to be overwhelmed by something. In this case, it will be the sheer number of Wim Wenders movies, retrospectives, documentaries, exhibitions, etc. that we will now be overwhelmed with (he’s turning 70 next week).

By the way, this place down here doesn’t exist anymore. At least not in this form.

I’d wish him a happy birthday now but that is absolutely positively not done in Germany. Brings bad luck or something.

70 Things We Love About Wim Wenders 15. Wenders tried for a time to marry German “brood-brood” with American “just do it.” A beautiful child sprang from this union: “Paris, Texas.”

Speaking Of Construction Projects…

August 6, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings Tags: Berlin, Berlin Brandenburg International, Construction Projects, Egypt, German, German Efficiency, Germans, Germany, Klaus Wowereit, Language, Myths, SPD, Suez Canal Leave a comment

So just let me get this straight. After one year Egypt has opened a major expansion of the freakin’ Suez Canal, deepening the waterway and providing ships with a 22 mile channel parallel to it.

Meanwhile, in Berlin…

The non-working airport, Berlin Brandenburg International (some prefer to call it Klaus Wowereit International), should have started working three years ago. It may start working in two years’ time. No one knows.

The most important thing to remember is German efficiency – both the term and concept – exists in our English-speaking world but not in theirs. You never hear Germans talking about German efficiency. Anyone who lives in Berlin knows why… While Germany may have a system for everything, Berlin proves every day there’s no system for when the system fails.

German Sommerloch Update: Two New Mysterious Extraterrestrial Phenomena Found Near Berlin

July 31, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, High Art, Home Cooking, Humor, Hustle (Hoax) Tags: Berlin, Crop Circles, Extraterrestrials, German, Germans, Kornkreise, Language, UFOs 2 Comments

No, not in Friedrichshain. NEAR Berlin. In a place called Großziethen. The Germans in this area call these phenomena “Kornkreise” and they appear to be designs or patterns laid down gently in a growing crop, leaving the surrounding crop untouched. By aliens.

Here is a picture of a German Kornkreis taken earlier this year.

Needless to say, German Kornkreise are not spread randomly across the countryside but always appear near roads, areas of medium to dense population and Ortschaften (places) like Großziethen where there is obviously very, very little to do.

Two new crop circles have recently appeared in a suburb of Berlin and Dave Keating reports…

English Of The Day: Fancy

July 30, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Helplessness, High Art, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Humor Tags: Actors, Comedians, English, Flula, German, Germans, Humor, Language, Los Angeles, Videos 2 Comments

Flula: “I tried to eat items. You know, food? And I was in a restaurant to eat some food. But the salad that I did like it was having like a weird thing. Some strange cheeses…”

“Get away from my fancy. It’s my fancy.”

Or check out the “he is from, where are you from?” pseudo-dirndl-gal who’s way too excited about learning how to be German. In Los Angeles.

German Of The Day: Bombenstimmung

July 27, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: Bombings, Fear, Freital, German, Germans, Germany, Intolerance, Language, Nazis, Racism, Refugees, Terror, Xenophobia 1 Comment

That means a tremendous, “bomb-like” atmosphere. And that’s definitely the kind of mood some of those fine, wholesome folks down there in that little old one-horse town called Freital, Saxony seem to be in.

A local politician who supported a plan to house refugees in the town of Freital outside Dresden has been the victim of an arson attack. The Left party said that Michael Richter was the target of right-wing threats…

In recent weeks, Freital – just 10 kilometers (6 miles) southwest of Dresden – has been the scene of increasingly tense political rhetoric and sporadic violence after city authorities announced in June that the town of around 40,000 would house 280 refugees in a former hotel. Some locals responded by launching a series of increasingly virulent anti-asylum seeker demonstrations, culminating in a July 6 town hall meeting which saw protestors clash with town politicians.

Sheesh. Ugly Germans of the week? These folks have now been awarded the entire month of July.

German Of The Day: RIAS

July 19, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Hi-tech, Hideology, Higher Education, History Tags: Berlin, Cold War, German, Germans, Germany, Language, Radio, RIAS, West Berlin 4 Comments

That stands for Rundfunk im amerikanischen Sektor and means radio (or broadcasting) in the American Sector – of a place they used to call “West Berlin.”

Now Father Time has managed to take care of something that the East German jamming stations were never able to do back then in the good old bad old days: Shut this broadcasting tower down. With explosives, in this case.

Von Britz aus ging 1946 der Rundfunk im Amerikanischen Sektor (Rias) auf Sendung. Später entstand dort Europas damals leistungsstärkster Mittelwellensender, mit dem jahrelang auch die Störsender aus Ost-Berlin überwunden werden mussten. Heute gilt die Übertragung per Mittelwelle als veraltet.

Observing Hermann

“Was interessiert mich mein Geschwätz von gestern?”

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