Another linky post

Just as I was about to go to bed last night, I received a phone call with some not very nice news from home. As I’m sure you can guess, I’m very tired today. On top of that, I’m incredibly busy at work again, so I probably won’t find the time or the energy for a proper blog post any time soon. Instead you’ll have to make do with some links to interesting/amusing things I’ve discovered on the Internet recently. Meanwhile, I shall eat my lunch as quickly as possible and get back to entering corrections in a translation. Woe, woe, woe, etc.

• I genuinely laughed out loud at these emotionally repressed Valentine’s cards for British people. My favourite is number 6: You Make Tea Properly!
• This explanation of why the Bible doesn’t actually condemn homosexuality is pretty interesting.
• These Period Panties by Hairbrained Inc. are absolutely hilarious! I especially like the Bloody Hell and Evil Beaver ones. Hahaha.
• According to The Local, German rugby is currently receiving a helping hand from the English. Will we be seeing the Germans at a Rugby World Cup in the near future?
• One for all the travel lovers who have to work full time – On the Luce has written a great part-time traveller’s guide to maximising your travel time.
• If you enjoyed the post I wrote about names a few weeks ago, why not have a read of Daina’s post on Latvian first names?

That’s all for today. Enjoy!

 

A “sweet” workout

*I know I’ve already posted once today, but I want to get this out there before I forget it…*

Leaving work this evening, I passed two students, a male and a female, who were presumably discussing the activity they had just come from. For some reason, they kept inserting random English words where a perfectly good German one would have worked. Here’s the conversation I overheard. The words marked in blue are what they actually said in English.

Girl: We just did a 45 minute hard workout!
Boy: Hard? You mean like situps and stuff?
Girl: No… he made us do crunchies!

At that point, I had to physically bite my tongue to keep from laughing out loud.
For those who are unfamiliar with English chocolate bars, this is a Crunchie:

Cadbury’s Crunchie, showing its honeycomb toffee structure. (Photo: Wikipedia)

Sounds like my kind of workout! 😉

Stamp of approval Saturday: Sardonic Salad

Today I’m linking up with Alex over at Ifs, Ands and Butts for Stamp of Approval Saturday.

Sardonic Salad is a webcomic that I came across after seeing one of their cartoons on Facebook. Once I started looking at the site, I just couldn’t stop! Here are some of my favourites from their cartoons:

There are more, but I think I should stop now and let you go see the rest for yourselves. Here’s the link: http://sardonicsalad.blogspot.de/ (plus clicking on any of the pictures should also take you directly to the specific cartoon).

Seen anything on the Internet that you approve of this week? Then you should link up with Alex, too!

And on an entirely unrelated note, I read today that one of my favourite authors died on Wednesday, aged 69. RIP James Herbert! Haunted was one of the first “adult” books I read (when I was about 13) and it scared the pants off me! Sad to think there will never be another book by him.

Cake and stockings

I made a cake last night to take into work with me*. You see, tomorrow is the last day of my internship. In Germany, when there’s an event, the person whose birthday or whatever it is expected to bring in something yummy for the rest of their workplace. You have to bake it yourself as well mind you – a friend of mine’s colleagues were most disappointed when she took in a cake from the bakers. I’ll never understand why on my birthday I have to give other people something, but never mind. When in Rome and all that. So today I took in a cake. It was another one of those ridiculously hot days where the sun was already unbearable by 8am and by the time I was half way to work I was already roasting. Who knew a simple marble cake could be so heavy? But never mind, both cake and I made it to work in one piece and it seemed to go down well with my colleagues. A brilliant result I’d say.

Oh, and here’s something that amused me today. I was doing a translation about stockings (the black lacy kind, not the ones you get a Christmas). Nothing too difficult, just a few random terms to be printed on the packaging. One of the items on the list was “halterlose Strümpfe”. Hmm, how would we say that in English? I wondered. Not being a stocking wearer I tend not to spend much time reading the packaging for them. An idea occurred to me and I decided to see whether the internet thought it existed. So I type the words “halterless stockings” into Google. A few hits did come up, but right at the top was that question Google asks you when it thinks you might have spelled something wrong…
Did you mean: “shelterless stockings”.
Umm, no I didn’t actually, but I’m quite intrigued now. What on Earth are shelterless stockings? Are those the ones that manage to get lost in the washing machine, leaving you with one half of hundreds of pairs? Are there shelterless socks as well? The mind really does boggle! (In case you were wondering, the actual translation was “hold ups” or in American English “garterless stockings”. I don’t suppose you were wondering though… unless you’re as ignorant about the world of stockings as I am).

*Actually, Jan did most of the actual making of the cake. I just measured stuff… and managed to get it out of the oven on time.