Melantrys’ Page

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Was too busy yesterday to post but this is just too funny. Well, at least to me it is.

At the end of each work day the Warengruppenbericht (containing, among other things, the day’s earnings) has to be faxed to Central.
The regular fax machine is broken, so until it is fixed (erm, ok, until the boss manages to re-install it…..) we are using his own private rather ancient fax machine.
It has been explained to Şişko, and she has used it in the past already.
The boss left early on Friday, it was my afternoon off, but still… no worries. All the difficult comp work for the day had been finished by the boss.
So.
On Saturday morning I checked the fax machine for the meter of requests from other branches and the spam we keep getting. And what else did I find? A copy of the Warengruppenbericht….
Now.
To fax, you insert the paper, printed side up. Then you pick up the connected phone and dial the number of the fax machine you want to send it to. When it starts beeping and screeching into your ear, you press the large “Start/Testkopie” button on the fax machine, then hang up the phone.
If you totally forget this rather extensive activity with the phone and just press the “Start/Testkopie” button the fax does what the button’s name suggests - make a rather ugly copy on fax paper.

*smirks*

The fax machine also prints a regular sending report (and luckily it had done so early yesterday morning) or I might have been moved to just destroy the copy (nice person that I am) and fax the Warengruppenbericht. But the lack of faxing activity shows up on the report of course, and the boss would wonder at that. And my love for that colleague really doesn’t run so deep that I’d destroy that report as well; the boss would miss it.
So I faxed the thing, made a note on the copy saying that I had, stapled it to the report and put it on the boss’s desk for his reading pleasure when he’ll be back on Wednesday…

Also - Şişko never tiring of telling the boss how lazy I am and the like (not true!) - I immediately informed A. and S. of what she had done.
That brightened up our day a treat.

Still no sign of Orlando….

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I already commented a tad on the answers but anyway….

Ok, first prize for fastest reply goes to Alba.

can’t do:
3.swim in a lake/pond/sea when its dark outside, you know …like at night
What about solar eclipses then???

say most often:
2.German Beer !!!
And what’s the point in that???

First prize for stoned nerdiness goes to KrankImKopf.

Seven things I plan to do:
6. ……
7.
Wow, really?!?!

Seven things I can do:
1. Fix a computer while being really stoned
3. Roll a joint under bad conditions
4. Light a joint under bad conditions
Do I see a trend here…?

Seven things I can’t do:
1. Getting up early and then being awake and cheerfull
7. Fluently speak german and french
1. Yes, I remember your face that morning in Enschede when Frenzie and me were finally so hungry that we invaded the kitchen…
7. *rolls eyes*
Yes, very bad German. Silly little man…

Seven people I want to pass this tag to:
Are there 7 more ppl who read this blog? :S
*unsheathes sword*
You were saying…?

First prize for depth of concentration goes to Frenzie.

Seven things I plan to do:
4. See every Lost episode and keep up with the US (Mel already said that, but it applies to me as well, in fact, I’m her Lost-source, or whatever that should be called, Lost-source sounds really weird).
Yeah. Where’s the new episode, dude?!

Seven things I can do:
1. Say very strange things semi-random such as “my moon-name is Oela-Bikila” and make people laugh by that.
3. Blow up a clap-switch by turning the voltage too high and clapping.
5. Completely ignore the apocalypse while reading a good book or playing a good game.
6. Notice the apocalypse three hours later when my laptop dies from lack of engergy.
1. Uha?
3. *rofls*
Did anyone fix that again by now?
5. & 6. Yeah, that might happen to me as well

Seven things I say most often:
5. “Godverdomme”. It sounds really good, it reliefs when you hurt something and it can possibly offend Christians. What more do you want?
*yawns*

First prize for nudism goes to The Muffin Man.

Seven things I plan to do:
3. see mel naked.
4. see alba naked.
5. travel to europe(and do more than see mel naked).
3. & 4. Long blonde hair turns you on, eh?
5. Do we want to know what else you’d be interested in there…?

Seven things I can do:
5. i can call people assholes in german. this i know, i met a german chick and asked her if i was properly saying it.
6. take off my clothes for mel.
5. Indeed, I can at least vouchsafe for his ability to type it (almost) right.
6. *whistles and stares at ceiling*
You forgot number 7…

Seven things I can’t do:
1. get mel to take her clothes off.
But does he learn and just leave it be? Of course he doesn’t….
*sighs*

First prize for posting on a current blog goes to Granny Weatherwax.

Seven things I plan to do:
7. Finish knitting the second sleeve of my yellow pullover so I might manage to sew the pieces together and start actually wearing that thing before the turn of the century.
*rolls eyes*
The never-ending story…

Seven things I can do:
3. Start knitting or crocheting big projects that never get finished.
6. Fool around with pics and .gifs. You should see my FishOnSpeed.gif. ;o)
3. see above
6. Ohhhhh, the fish .gifs……………

Seven things I can’t do:
1. Remember anything I’ve read. Remember ANYTHING, come to think of it.
Excuse me; who did you say you were?

First prize for tardiness goes to Drew and Julien for not being done yet.

*frowns menacingly*

Edit. Scrap that last prize. It only goes out to Julien.

First prize for forgetfulness goes to Drew.

“oh yeah! I forgot about that!”
Yeah, I suppose the sun overheats people’s brains Down Under, eh…?

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Drew has kindly pointed me to a very interesting web site.

I was not aware of this religious movement. Or rather that more people are aware of the true Creator of our universe.

Sadly, they got it all wrong, but what can you expect from meat eaters? They only see what they want to see.
Of course the Flying Spaghetti Monster always appears in the shape of Italian (pure durum wheat) pasta with wheat meat sauce!
I shall have to elaborate on this some other day.

But the important thing is that they actually wrote to school boards, demanding that teachings about the FSM be made a part of biology classes equal to ID, and even go out into the streets, trying to convert the heathens.

I dare say that our cause is important enough to put schisms aside and work together for the common goal.

Talking about meat - more often than not I am very glad that I’m not eating any meat products these days.

I’m not quite sure about the time anymore; either late last month or early this month it was discovered that some companies in Bavaria had sold meat that was not meant to end up in human food, but was destined to become pet food. Which is not a happy thought either, as the meat in question mainly consisted of rotting garbage.
The meat did not only end up in German sausages and the like, but was also sold into a couple of other European countries.

It took the authorities quite some time to follow the meat trail (while people would surely have preferred to hear some names as soon as possible…). In the end they announced that they had been too late, and that the products in question had all already been sold and very likely been eaten as well. (Still no brand names were mentioned. Hey, some people use their freezers, you know…)
The public was informed that during production the meat would have been heated so high that there was no danger of people getting ill from eating the “meat”. (Well, that’s a relief at least…)

And what do I read in the paper today? It was already known in July that this garbage had been sold to human food companies.
Thank you Bavaria for keeping a lid on that info long enough for people to buy all the garbage. Excuse me, but I’d really like some heads to roll there.

In other news: Heino will finally stop making music after the current tour. Hooray!!

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Well, looks like I have been tagged for this chain blogging kind of thing by this Canadian dude. I don’t know why, but it sounds like it might be fun, so here we go:

Seven things I plan to do:
1. Think of a nicer job.
2. Find a nicer job.
3. Meet a couple more of the people I met online.
4. Buy hundreds of books.
5. See every Lost episode there is and will be now. Yes, I am an addict.
6. Go and see Disturbed when they’ll be playing their replacement gig in Holland in March. (Well, that’s more the hope of people returning their tickets, as the show that was originally gonna take place the day after tomorrow was sold out already. )
7. Indeed, Mad Canuck. See a bit more of the world as well.

Seven things I can do:
1. Watch tv while chatting and messing around in Paint.
2. Listen to people.
3. Build a HD into my computer. (Note to all the nerds who don’t know me: Bought my first comp around 2.5 years ago, aged 29, so consider this before telling me that’s no great accomplishment )
4. Sleep anytime, anywhere, at any noise level. (Ok, except for the first night at Frenzie’s place.)
5. Type good night in Dutch. (Still a bit wobbly concerning pronunciation.)
6. Read a good book in a day or two.
7. Pose in a sexy way on the sofa for the Muffin Man. (This has been suggested by Frenzie I have to admit.)

Seven things I can’t do:
1. Speak more than maybe ten words of Turkish.
2. Remember much of my school French.
3. Get up early in the mornings.
4. Find into bed early at night.
5. Remember stuff for more than five minutes. (I’m soooo senile!)
6. Put a good book down before I’m done.
7. Convince Programmer Craig that I am not “the abusive German person”.

Seven things I say most often:
1. “Pfffffft.” All round comment. Can mean anything from “Nooooot funny” to “Can’t think of anything witty to say right at this moment.”
2. “Dingens” (thingy) Default my brain throws up when being away fetching the next sentence while I’m talking to family and friends.
3. “*pat pat*” Self-evident I guess?
4. “Bluh” Must be contagious. Thank you, Muffin Man, for another all round comment.
5. *”shrugs*”/”*schulterzuck*” From “I dunno” to “That’s people for you…”
6. “Sheesh!” Causes the occasional raised eyebrow from absolutely non-English people.
7. “Yup”

Seven people I want to pass this tag to:
Unfortunately I don’t know that many bloggers, and of the few I “know” one has passed this assignment on to me, and two others have already been named by other people. Dang.

1. “Granny Weatherwax”, my sister
2. KrankImKopf, who will never own a blog, so he’s allowed to use the comment section
3. Frenzie, who doesn’t have a blog at the moment; so maybe this is a reason to hurry up with the new one? Or revive a dead one….
4. Alba, die Wurst, cos I’d really like to know some of the answers. (comment section)
5. Drew, the crazy Australian, cos I wanna hear from him again. (see above)
6. Julien, who is surely too busy to have a blog, so… see above.
7. … and to give the thing back to Canada: The Muffin Man. Go on, little Newf, you’re spamming my comment section already anyway.

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I discovered something very disturbing yesterday and today.
We are selling a Schnappie game (you gotta catch Schnappies out of a pond with a sort of fishing rod) and a Schnappie figure; you know, the kind you put in the back of the car which nods its head.

*wails*

In other news: Dear sister of mine, the Christmas department has finally been opened. Come and take a look around.
Do come anyway. Maybe you need some cheap towels or sheets or stuff. For the first time ever we’re selling those with 30% off!!!!

Which is the reason why I bought myself a (dreadfully brown) fluffy blanket.

Oh, and still no sign of Orlando.

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… as we Germans say.

Today I read an article in the newspaper about the Creationalism/Creationism/Intelligent Design in America.
These Creationalists (or Creationists; no two sources seem to be able to agree on the name…) believe in Genesis.
By careful study of the Bible and doing some maths over the genealogies they arrived at the conclusion that this here world that we’re sitting/standing/lying/lounging on is 6,000 years old.

God created the world in six days indeed, yeah, and if the saurian fossils aren’t just decoration then we were all trundling about on this world together back then, humans and the T.-Rex side by side (no clear opinion on those two possibilities either it seems; the newspaper article mentioned the latter).

Let the faithful believe what they will in their churches you might say, but they don’t intend to keep it in the churches.
They don’t want their own children to learn the “false” Theory of Evolution at school, and get likeminded people to sign their petitions. And they’re sneaky and get not very well educated people to sign as well, by asking questions like “Do you want your child to only learn about the Theory of Evolution, or would you like your school to offer differing theories as well?”
Now, either you believe in Creationalism and don’t need a twisted question like that, or you paid attention at school, and know that the only other “theory” is religion, which has no place in biology classes. Or - unfortunately - you did not pay attention, don’t understand what the question is implying and blissfully say “Why, of course I do. My child should learn everything there is to learn.”
In some places these petitions already bore some fruit. There is the odd school that has substituted Genesis for the Theory of Evolution on their biology syllabus, and in some states like Georgia (thanks to Fizzy for that info weeks ago) biology books must bear the sticker “The Theory of Evolution is just a theory”.
Which seems to allude to a saying of theirs, i.e. “if the Theory of Evolution is just a theory, it obviously isn’t right”.

Also, they seem to have made it a hobby to visit museums and drive employees there wild by contradicting everything they say.

Their “teachings” apparently reached and convinced an appalling number of people. Surveys show that 54% of U.S. Americans do not believe that humans ever were anything but human.
54%! of the population of that huge country that thinks it is better than anyone else and can tell the world what to do does not believe in the simplest scientific facts!
I did some research on the net just now, and a lot of blogs and forums popped up on the search term. If they’re anything to go by the surveys are right. There’s bundles of people out there in the U.S. of A. “arguing” Genesis and laughing every counter-argument off or burbling out some pseudo-scientific crap that would make me laugh if the whole topic weren’t so sad.

Now, although I personally do not believe in anything godly anymore I’d be the last person to grudge anyone the “God nudged things along though” view of evolution. Fine by me. Faith is faith, and you can’t mess with that. But this 6,000 years and no relation to the apes thing…… I mean, come on, Bible Belt, wake up to the real world!!!

I’d like to conclude this with a quote I found in another blog, and which I just loved. Apparently one Arthur Naebig wrote in some paper:
“What the argument comes down to is the scientific evidence balanced against no evidence. Scientists collect evidence and attempt to formulate answers to the questions about our world, but admit they may never have all of the answers. Creationalists (Intelligent Designers?) collect no evidence and state that they already have all the answers. A thinking person should have no trouble deciding which group to believe.”

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I know I promised you yesterday that I would post today, but I don’t really have any idea what to post about.

I could ramble a bit about my day, what do you say?

How about the boss quote of the day?
He discovered 3 rolls of plastic freezer bags that someone had pulled some bags out of. From the middle of the roll of course. So while he was unrolling and re-rolling them and muttering I said: “Well, now, Mr G., if the poor people didn’t know what a freezer bag looks like….” Mr G.: “True, they surely don’t know that in the Ukraine.”
No further comment.

Still no Orlando shopping at the store; he must really have read the blog….

Oh, and a colleague made me smile today. After having unpacked some Halloween decorations she was muttering about not liking Halloween at all and not giving the kids anything. Then she asked me when Halloween was anyway. Me: “October, 31st.” She: “It’s always pretty close to All Saints’ Day, isn’t it?” Me (mumbling): “Yes, that’s why it’s called Halloween.”
Ahhhh, I should be more generous towards people who don’t speak English. But regarding her age she must have had it at school….

Last, but not least, I can proudly announce the harvest of all of the ripe peppers, plus their cutting in half, scraping out the pips and freezing them.
Now all I gotta do is remember not to rub my eyes……..

Hey, wait a minute, this is a post!!!

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While I was mulling around the facts that led to today’s first post I was slaving away in the garden.
Summer has returned for a few blessed autumn days, so that I was only wearing a sleeveless shirt while pulling weeds.

No, no, Krankie, weeds, not weed; you can put away your cigarette paper and grinder.
No, really.
There’s a good boy.

Anyway, I hope it will really stay that way for a while, so I’ll be able to get the garden back into shape.

Hhhhm, writing that other post exhausted me a bit (loooong planning and writing and re-reading), so I can’t think of any more witty things to say.

Good night, dear readers, wherever you are.

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During the time of National Socialism here in Germany most people and institutions either agreed or kept their mouth shut out of fear.
Not least of all among these was the Church. Lone priests sympathizing with the resistance pretty much were on their own.
The priest Dr Max Metzger for instance was sentenced to death in 1944 for doing what he felt right while his bishop, Archbishop Gröber, did not just keep silent (as one might understand and even excuse) but wrote a letter to judge Freisler who was responsible for Metzger’s (and many other enemies of Hitler’s) death sentence, complimenting Freisler and distancing himself from the “crime” that Metzger had committed.
Even the pope kept silent when 1000 jews (most of them women and children) were being deported to Auschwitz from practically under his nose in Italy, close to the Vatican.
Resistance only took place when the Church felt the need to protect their own interests (marriage laws, crosses in classrooms, etc).

The same - or almost the same - seems to apply to the then Bishop of Münster.
His father being a member of parliament for the Zentrumspartei (very right wing party) Clemens August Earl von Galen himself always felt close to that particular party.
He strongly criticized the Weimarer Verfassung (Constitution of Weimar) and was known as being both anti-liberal and anti-social.
Even though he denounced “The Myth of the 20th Century” by chief Nazi ideologist Alfred Rosenberg as pagan, racist and anti-Catholic in 1934, he still found a lot to agree on with Adolf Hitler.
Von Galen called the Spanish dictator Franco “the Spanish liberator”, expressed his relief about the attack on the Soviet Union - citing Hitler’s word about the “Jewish-Bolshevistic control” in Moskow - and endorsed the war on Great Britain (”God allowed the sword of retaliation against Great Britain to be placed into our hands. We are the executors of His just will” - Catholic church paper for the Northern Münsterland, March, 9th, 1941).
In 1944 he still considered the German soldiers martyrs who fought against the “godless Bolshevism” and the “Antichrist”. The godless Bolshevism in Spain was “defeated with God’s and Hitler’s help” according to Bishop von Galen.

At no point in time did he publicly denounce the killing of Jews.

The wars he publicly embraced.

What he did was to condemn the National Socialist’s Euthanasia Program. He clearly stated those so called “mercy killings” of the mentally ill, aged and disabled to be murders which - according to the German law - ought to have been punishable by death.
It is even thought that his sermons on that topic were responsible for a momentary pause in the Euthanasia Program.
The only thing that saved him was that Hitler and Goebbels considered the killing of a bishop and thus creating a martyr as a bad thing to do at that point in time. So his prosecution and execution were put off for the time after the “end victory”.

For that he surely deserved praise, especially considering that he fully expected to be killed for it.

Instead he lived to publicly call the Allied Forces in Germany enemies and to be “promoted” to Cardinal, an honour which he only enjoyed for a few days, as he died shortly after that.

More schools than you can shake a stick at bear his name even today.

Cardinal Earl von Galen, our glorious “Lion of Münster”!

And still that was not enough for the Catholic Church.
In 1955 he was suggested for beatification, which - finally? - was approved of in November 2004.

And today he was beatified in a huge ceremony in Rome, before the eyes of thousands of righteous pilgrims.

Now, I can understand that the Church (and not only the Catholic Church but also the Protestant Church) would rather forget the sad little chapter of church history under Hitler, like so many other people would.

And I do understand that the Church would like to have people know that there was resistance (even if it was minimal).
Well, there are those who offered resistance; name and praise them! (Which, to be fair, they did.)

But to beatify a man for opposing Euthanasia, implying - more than subtly - that he opposed National Socialism as such, while in truth he only denounced the bits of National Socialistic ideology which he considered to be pagan, never spoke up for all the Jews who were being killed (in order to prevent worse harm, supporters claim) and publicly welcomed World War 2 is just so plain wrong! Shouldn’t people who get beatified have been…. well… more holy?

a puzzled pagan Protestant

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Today was another one of those days….

Late in the morning two veiled women entered our store together with two kids. They weren’t quite wearing burkas, but were dressed and veiled in a way only one step beneath that. All black, flowing garments, only the smallest possible oval of a face peeking out of the huge black, flowing headscarf.
That is very rare around here so I couldn’t help but seriously notice these women when I passed them on my way to upstairs. Didn’t see their faces then as they were both studying merchandise and had their heads turned away from me.

Upstairs, shortly after that, the boss’s wife deposited something she had brought along, then informed her husband that two deeply veiled Arabs had just entered the store, and that she was heading downstairs now. Or - to put it in less ambiguous words than hers - that she was going to make sure those women did not pocket any of our merchandise.

Which meant that Mrs G. vanished for about 1.5 hours, as the ladies seemed to be slow shoppers. Furthermore it seems no attempted theft could be reported.

Shortly before my lunch break I heard a girl in the till region loudly and repeatedly calling “Anne! Anne!” and whining a bit as anne supposedly didn’t buy something the kid wanted.
When I finally left the store and headed to my car I heard the same girl on the parking lot, whiningly inquiring something of her anne, who turned out to be one of the veiled ladies.

“Anne” is Turkish and means “mommy”.

Seems our “Arabs” always come in all disguises…..

On a slightly different Turkish note, A. is a bad boy!
He had dropped by on his free day to open the store as the boss was being fashionably late, and upon leaving again mockingly invited us to have breakfast with him should we get bored (I’m sure the boss would appreciate our heading out to breakfast at A.’s….) so I asked him if Ramadan did not apply to everyone. His - admittedly brilliant - answer was that Ç. and S. were fasting, which was enough. So our Muslims are on fast sharing, lol.

On a personal note, I look like a grubby Christmas decoration. My shirt was all covered in bits of cardboard and silver and golden glittery dust. I brushed myself off as best as I could but you never get totally rid of that glitter stuff, short of showering. But at least I managed to check and correct a lot of the prices of last year’s Christmas stuff.