Friday, May 09, 2008

Holy potato, hold the ketchup

It’s usually toast, of course. And it’s usually somebody’s face. But here in Germany potatoes are generally bigger medicine than processed wheat products are. Potatoes and beer. And Germans are always cross, of course (cross, get it?).



And here in Berlin people closely examine their potatoes before cooking and eating them too, it seems (they’re less picky about the beer, though – think Schultheiss). And it’s a good thing they do, I’d say, otherwise this one lady here would have missed the latest sign from heaven. And she wasn’t even drinking any Schultheiss when it happened. She may have had a few afterwards, though.

Not that Berliners are particularly religious or anything, because they aren’t (and the few that are aren’t generally Catholic, which makes this even less fun). Not that they understand the gravity of their spiritual situation now. Nor have they ever, for that matter. Not that they will ever see that it’s time to wake up and see the light and smell the coffee and straighten up their sinful and often third-rate act, at least when it comes to brewing beer.

It’s none of my business, after all. I could care less. I just live here. I’m just saying.

Talk to the potato. Talk to the hand.

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Klar.

Posted by clarsonimus at 17:18:38 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Robotic waiters?

I thought they were already. Here in Germany, I mean. Anyway, thanks to “modern food preparation technology” you can now go out to eat at a place in Nuremburg where you don’t have to deal with those annoying, snooty and pesky waiters at all anymore. The machines do all of that for them now. “Jeez. Just leave me alone, HAL. I’m tryin’ to eat.”



No tips necessary, either. And that’s probably why this place is so popular at the moment. Just think Jetsens only more non-cartoon-like. You place your order per touch screen and then your food slides down these spiral and futuristic metallic tracks directly to your table. And for a small additional fee I bet you can probably even have this stuff pre-chewed for you.

Talk about science marching on. In the land of ideas, I mean. That one marched right past us up here in Berlin, though, thank goodness. Although I can’t imagine that the Hauptstadt (capital) will remain verschont (spared) for very much longer.

They are everywhere, you know, these machines. I hear them talking sometimes, late at night. And sometimes in the subway, too (you know; “Zurück bleiben”, stuff like that). You know, those evil telepathic machine voices everywhere and all the time. And don't pretend like you don't hear them because I know you do. But that’s another story. I think.

What’s that you say HAL? “I’ll be back?”

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Her damit!

Posted by clarsonimus at 07:41:26 | Permanent Link | Comments (4) |

Tuesday, January 08, 2008

We knew this was going to get ugly

Or call this post Kampf der Giganten (Battle of the Behemoths) on German Soil, if you prefer. And it won’t be just here, either, of course. McDonald’s and Starbucks are at each other’s throats over coffee again (did they ever let go of each other’s throats to begin with?) with Mickey D.’s planning to introduce over 14,000 additional “McCafé” coffee counters in their restaurants this year.



Over 400 of the 1200 McDonald’s restaurants in Germany are already equipped with these Starbucks killing devices and the number is expected to rise to 500 within the coming months. I’m not a big fan of the McDonald’s coffee program (although their coffee ain’t half bad) because, well, I’m old-fashioned or something and feel a bit alienated because I’m just not sure anymore if I’ll be laughed at when trying to order a cheeseburger there.

But, then again, on the other hand, maybe a little more coffee and a little less McBurger action would do me, and the Germans, some good. The average German man currently has a stomach circumference of 96.97 centimeters which sounds impressive because it is but we don’t even want to know what the American man’s stomach is doing right now and the Germans will never catch up to us in that Gebiet (area or discipline) anyway so why the hell are they even trying? The pitiful fools.

Just mark my words. You, too, will one day be telling people not particularly interested in listening to what you have to say how you remember when McDonald’s used to be a place that just sold hamburgers. And then you can tell them, as they walk away shaking their heads at the nonsense they just had to endure, that whenever fast food worlds collide, always get your order to go and drive-through as fast as you possibly can. You know, because you where there.

Do you want cheese with your frappe?

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Selbstverständlich.

Posted by clarsonimus at 07:42:30 | Permanent Link | Comments (6) |

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Let them eat lobster

Communism just ain’t what it used to be, folks. And let’s all work to keep it that way. One of Berlin’s top communists (honest, they really do still exist here), Sahra Wagenknecht is certainly doing her level best to contribute to this heroic, international effort, so make damned sure that you do your best, too.



Recently having ordered a “rich man’s dish” of lobster at a Strasbourg restaurant, the Stalinist Left Party sweetheart apparently didn’t think to send it back for some pale soup and stale bread in time and was caught on camera betraying her party, her past, and her lofty political ideals, ideals which clearly leave no room for capitalist stalk-eyed decapod crustaceans like that. Some say she even ordered Coke with her L Word, too.

And this at a time when her party generates the few votes it gets by selling what it packages as being the growing inequality between rich and poor in Germany. How shocking.

And more shocking still, Wagenknecht is believed to have then launched an unauthorized communist plot of her own to have the not-yet-infamous L Word photos destroyed before they could be published. Like I said; like how more shocking still.

By the way, they call lobster Hummer over here and I, for one, would not be the slightest bit surprised if the next photographer catches her driving a real Hummer down Unter den Linden before all too long (red-flagged, of course), know what I’m sayin’?

Klassenfeinde haben wir schon. Mit Klasse, meine ich.

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Her damit!

Posted by clarsonimus at 08:16:41 | Permanent Link | Comments (5) |

Sunday, September 30, 2007

Berliner Currywurst


alt : http://www.youtube.com/v/v0tF52fJ_0c
Posted by clarsonimus at 08:31:41 | Permanent Link | Comments (2) |

Sunday, August 26, 2007

Döner for Dinner


alt : http://www.youtube.com/v/QMcbQlYpsQg

PS: Thanks for rotten meat link, Joe. Ouch. And I still can't stop eating this stuff.

Posted by clarsonimus at 08:47:28 | Permanent Link | Comments (1) |

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

What ever happened to American Esskultur?

You knew it was going to come to this, just admit it. In what is clearly a not-so-secret attempt to undermine wholesome American fast-food world domination, and after having carefully established a bridgehead of McCafés to help facilitate their diabolical and subversive plans, a group of some 30 German McDonald’s restaurants has now begun “experimenting” with serving cereal yogurts, vegetable sticks with humus, Indian and Thai curry and - I cannot believe that I am typing this - soup. Friggin’ Russian soljanka at that.



Many customers were “pleasantly surprised” by the new products, a spokesman for the group is reported to have said. Yeah, right. Pleasantly surprised to have found anything real to eat at all, you mean. So are you going to Souper Size Me now, or what?

I remember a time when you could walk into a McDonald’s, look the kid straight in the eye and order a damned hamburger. Without having to lower your voice, I mean (actually, I would always order four or five). But, then again, I still remember a time when a space shuttle landing wasn’t a news item and when “July 4th was a whole week in July… For you see, I used to be one hell of a woman.” Okay, trivia time: Who said that?

It doesn’t matter who said that. What matters now is that we undertake something. Immediately. I, for one, plan to go underground and join that anarchist fringe wacko anti-McDonald’s group in Kreuzberg. If they will still let me, that is.

Ich hätte gern einen McSojaburger mit Griessgnocchi Pestosauce zum mitnehmen.

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Logisch.

Posted by clarsonimus at 07:44:01 | Permanent Link | Comments (11) |

Friday, June 08, 2007

Polonium scare after talks with Putin

President George W. Bush has mysteriously fallen ill after a short meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin during the G8 summit in Heiligendamm, Germany. One source close to the President noted that he began to feel a little woozy shortly after drinking some tea which had been personally prepared for him by the reptilian-tongued Russian leader.



Bush had to skip this morning’s session of G8 leaders because he woke up in the middle of the night with an upset and slightly glowing, somewhat greenish-looking stomach. The President's military doctor does not know whether it is a stomach virus, something Mr. Bush ate or just another common everyday variety of Russian polonium poisoning.

“We don’t think it was the enchiladas he asked for last night after dinner. After that pitiful European ‘nouvelle cuisine’ so-called dinner they served up last night, I should say,” the doctor said. “It could have been the Ben and Jerry’s we brought, though. A virus is unlikely. And if it’s polonium, hell, that ain’t no big deal, either. We've developed methods of flushing that stuff out in no time.”

Putin’s staff has vehemently denied “any such ridiculous claims” and has countered by insisting that the British MI5 is behind it all. They have also insinuated that Bush’s stomach began turning the instant he reached a compromise with host Angela Merkel on pursuing cuts in greenhouse gases and to work with the United Nations in order to clinch a new global warming deal by 2009.

“Ridiculous,” replied one White House spokesman. “Although I must say that my stomach starts turning just thinking about that one, too.”

Mit Milch und Zucker, George?

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Logisch.

PS: Thanks for the Atlantic Community link, Joerg.

Posted by clarsonimus at 13:38:21 | Permanent Link | Comments (4) |

Sunday, May 13, 2007

German Esskultur


alt : http://www.youtube.com/v/vNhtnh1_CyY
Posted by clarsonimus at 08:02:09 | Permanent Link | Comments (2) |

Friday, May 04, 2007

Sorry, I don’t do asparagus fields

Or do you know any Germans (or Americans) who would be willing to dig up white asparagus out in the hot sun a few weeks each spring for five or six euros (roughly $7 or $8) an hour? No, I don’t know many, either. But to make matters even worse, Polish workers, the traditional asparagus diggers/pickers in Germany, are starting to lose interest, too.



That Germans are mad about white asparagus is one matter (inexplicably so, I can take or leave the stuff and usually leave it), but that the Poles are now moving on to greener pastures in Britain, Scandinavia and the Benelux countries is another one altogether (these countries pay better). And now due to the lower unemployment figures in Germany, the annual, ritual cry for “make the unemployed do it” is even less realistic than it was before. In fact, it even appears to have been canceled for 2007 altogether.

“Merkel’s government dropping German unemployment under the politically sensitive level of four million for the first time since 2002 really bites it,” says one irate asparagus farmer in Beelitz near Berlin. “As we all know, The German labor office says that 3.9 million people were without work in April, compared with 4.1 million in March and the postwar high of just above 5 million two years ago under Schröder. April's seasonally adjusted rate was 9.2 percent, compared with 11 percent in April 2006. *!#$?!#! What a catastrophe,” he said, kicking around in the dirt in rage.

“So like now that the Poles are jumping ship, how the hell are we going to call for the unemployed to help us?” he continued. “The few that are left are out there getting real jobs. I mean, does the government expect us to raise our wages or something? Then Germans would have to pay a fair price for the food they eat. And we both know that that’s never going to happen.”

“*!#$?!#!” he repeated. “These politicians are really a little weltfremd (live in an ivory-tower) sometimes.”

Feldarbeit ist nicht meine Welt.

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Klar doch.

Posted by clarsonimus at 08:25:17 | Permanent Link | Comments (2) |
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