When In Doubt Just Say No

Nein, nein, nein, already. Nolympics in Hamburg, either.

Nolympics

As you can see up there, Hamburgers were too afraid that the Olympics they decided not to bid to host for yesterday would have brought more police brutality, more barbed wire fences, more school crossing cops escorting people to airports, more big nasty retro surveillance cameras and more US-Amerikan Yankee dollars coming out of the chimney of some Hamburger’s house in a really weird surrealistic fashion (causing particularly nasty air pollution, I assume?).

Put in that light I think it was the sound decision to make.

Let’s see, Munich said no, Berlin said no and now Hamburg says no. I think a pattern is starting to develop here. Boston, too, said no, of course (are there really that many Bostonians of German extraction?). What a minute. Has hosting the Olympics now become some new form of cruel and unusual punishment or something? Maybe we could get ISIS to put in a bid.

“Die Menschen sehen, dass es Sachen gibt, wo das Geld besser angelegt ist.”

German Of The Day: DFB

That stands for Designed for Bribery.

DFB

No, wait. Deceit, Fraud and Blackmail? How about Deception, Fleece and Breach of Trust? Duped, Framed and Bamboozled? OK, OK. DFB stands for Deutscher Fußballbund or the German Football Association. Whichever comes first.

The German Football Association (DFB) is investigating whether a €6.7million payment made to FIFA in 2005 was mis-used. The issue came to light as part of an internal audit carried out by the DFB into the awarding of the 2006 World Cup to Germany.

Der Deutsche Fußball-Bund gibt bekannt, dass eine Zahlung in Höhe von 6,7 Millionen Euro an die Fifa im Jahr 2005 womöglich zweckentfremdet worden sein könnte.

German Of The Day: Pomadig

That means pomade-like. As in: all hair products, no killer instinct. “Pomadig means passionless, combined with a shot of arrogance,” it added. “It’s a combination with which you can lose a match against these wild, fighting, rocketing Irish.”

Sometimes defeat is unnecessary.  Other times it’s completely unnecessary.

German reaction to defeat: ‘Das dumme Ding von Dublin’

I Got Your FIFA For You Right Here

The German government sent a shipment of rocket-propelled grenades to Saudi Arabia in order to secure support for their bid to host the 2006 World Cup, according to the latest sensational claims in the FIFA scandal.

FIFA

German newspaper Die Zeit say the country’s Football Association arranged for then Chancellor Gerhard Schroder’s administration to supply the arms in order to swing the Saudi vote from Morocco to Germany ahead of the vote in 2000.

Die Regierung von Gerhard Schröder beschloss eine Woche vor der WM-Vergabe die Lieferung von Panzerfäusten an Saudi-Arabien. Deutschland habe “kurzfristig das Waffenembargo aufgehoben”, sagte Guido Tognoni, damals Fifa-Mitarbeiter, später.

German Of The Day: Neinsager

That means people who always say no first and ask question later. You know, like when it comes to maybe having the Olympics in Berlin in 2024? NOlympia here, folks.

Hamburg

The northern port city of Hamburg was picked on Monday as the country’s preferred choice for a 2024 summer Olympics bid ahead of Berlin, with the German Olympic Sports Confederation’s (DOSB) members to ratify the proposal later this week.

“I coulda been a contender.”

I’m Taking The Day Off

Bumgarner

“Ich bin jetzt doch ein bisschen müde”, sagte Bumgarner nach der Partie. Er stand einst nicht in der Schlange, in der Emotionen verteilt wurden; wahrscheinlich war er gerade damit beschäftigt, sich eine zweite Portion jener Fähigkeit abzuholen, einen Baseball möglichst schnell und möglichst genau werfen zu können.

Bumgarner. Hmmm. That’s got French roots, doesn’t it?

Cocky German Soccer Team Loses To Australia

Still on an unnatural natural high after their nation’s recent World Cup championship victory over Argentina in Brazil, an overconfident team of German robots has lost miserably to Australia 5-1 in the RoboCup 2014 final.

Robocup

Congratulations to the Rockem Sockem Socceroos. Those many long nights in the lab really paid off.

“Unfortunately, during the final, after our goalie saved an attempt, he fell over and while trying to get back up and in position we conceded the only goal during the entire competition.”