Archives for July, 2007

Please note the expression of the blonde on the left. (Full size original)

I was recently in Graz playing around with some Garmin navigators, and when I searched its restaurant directory I noticed that there was an “American” category. I was curious what that would include and laughed heartily when the first result to pop up was Hooters.

For most people the place needs no introduction. Some Slovenes may not know it (the country doesn’t have one yet) in which case it’s essential that you brush up with the aid of Črni’s definitive guide. In short, it could easily be the most undignified place to eat a meal on the planet. Even worse than Arby’s.

You know how cars have odometers? You know how you can push a button and the distance you’ve traveled resets to zero? Well, that’s what happens to your dignity when you eat at Hooters. All your achievements, accomplishments, hopes and pride are instantly rolled back to zero the minute you hear the words “Welcome to Hooters.”

Needless to say, I’m planning on taking a Slovenian friend of mine there in the immediate future. He’s got a bit too much dignity for my tastes, and I have next to none, so we’re good and ready to go.

But to be honest, I’m just interested in the buffalo wings — which is, of course, what every guy who goes to Hooters says. The difference is that I’m the first guy in the history of homo sapiens sapiens to actually mean it. See, I love buffalo wings, and have been denied them for years now. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and nothing’s more desperate than going to Hooters to eat a meal.

I suppose I’m also indebted to Hooters Graz because of the wonderful laugh their official site gave me. Just look at this picture they posted of a happy girl whose gentleman boyfriend took her to Hooters. Her expression sums everything up so perfectly that it hurts.

Hooters here I come!

This truck got stuck in Britain. (source)

The Daily Mail recently reported on an unfortunate truck driver whose reliance on his satellite navigation system ended up getting him wedged in a backroad in Britain. (It’s not as sexy as it sounds) In its story, the Mail refers to the driver as “Slovakian,” which is odd given the fact that their picture above shows:

1) A Slovenian plate; LJ being short for Ljubljana.
2) The words “VOLVO SLOVENIJA” over the windshield.

Reader plavtrg wrote to the Daily Mail to point out their mistake, but so far they haven’t bothered fixing it. But don’t despair just yet! Reader Kris notes that the BBC got it right. So cheers to them! (And cheers to both of them for alerting me to this story)

The final question: would a sat-nav system have helped The Daily Mail get the story right? My guess: Probably not.

(Thanks plavtrg and Kris!)

—> I had to go away to Slovenia for five years and study the language so that I could come back and understand the lyrics to the chorus of Refrigerator Door. And tell the world about it.
An amazing post by Wes about uncovering a secret message on an old American LP.

—> Branding Violations
I ♥ “Crusti Croc chips.” And “Choc me.”

—> Behold this wordpress plugin for Blogorola
Courtesy of ma.tija. It’s even official now.

—> Elvis sighting in Ljubljana’s National Gallery!
Elvis lives!

—> Pictures from the set of Prince Caspian in Bovec, Slovenia
Mostly of the bridge they’re working on.

—> Slovenian bloggers can see Transformers for free (Slovene)
But does anyone want to?

Have a wonderful weekend, with or without any rock ‘em sock ‘em robots!

Ljubljana is the best place for your cell phone to fall off your ear.

Reader’s Digest recently conducted an experiment: They dropped 30 cell phones in cities around the world and recorded how many good Samaritans would bring them back. In the surprise to end all surprises, Ljubljana won.

From the article Excuse Me, Is This Your Phone?:

The highest-ranking city happened to be the smallest: Ljubljana, Slovenia. Twenty-nine of 30 phones were returned in this picture-postcard city in the foothills of the Alps, home to just 267,000 people . The Slovene helpful streak extended beyond the parameters of the magazine’s mission: In one case, a young waiter at a coffee shop returned a phone and a leather jacket accidentally left behind by our reporter.

I still can’t believe it. For me, it’s the biggest surprise since Shanghai Surprise, and the biggest shocker since Wes Craven’s Shocker. My first thought was that people returned it because they’ve already got enough phones and don’t need another. But according to this, Hong Kong leads the world in mobile phones per capita (after Luxembourg) and they were dead last in returning phones. (You can see the complete rankings here. [pdf] )

So what the hell happened? I don’t know. Could it be that this country is changing into a kinder, gentler nation? Sometimes it feels like it. Yesterday, I was making a left turn and some guy actually let me in. He even waved. And it’s been happening more often lately. I don’t think it happened to me a single time in the first two years I was here. Maybe the government’s putting something in the water? Or perhaps the booming economy has something to do with it? I’m baffled. Still, as Tomaž suggested, it would be a lot more interesting experiment if they used iPhones…

(Big thanks to Gregor and Tomaž!)

Intereuropa disgraces itself with its lousy map.

One could perhaps forgive a foreign company for messing up a map of Slovenia. But what about a Slovenian one? Yes, my friends, it’s true. The ultimate disgrace in mapmaking is upon us. The Slovenian logistics company Intereuropa (one of the biggest companies in the country) boasts a map of Slovenia on its homepage that wrongly includes Croatian Istria and is missing the “chicken head” by Hungary.

To add insult to injury: some hackers managed to deface part of the site. I think it’s since been fixed, but previously clicking on “Slovenija” led you to some quasi-literate “Bush is teh sux, Turkey rulez!” page.

It’s a dark day in mix-up history.

(Thanks David!)

Europe’s climate in 2071: Get ready to feel the heat. (Click for original)

I don’t know about you guys, but I spent most of last week repeatedly having my face melt off like that Nazi dude at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. It was wicked hot. But then, that wasn’t really the problem. It may have been hotter than cinnamon balls outside, but the real problem is that here you actually feel it.

I grew up in New Orleans, and have lived in places like Atlanta, Savannah, Houston and Memphis. These are cities that get seriously hot. But I was never in agony thanks to the glories of near-universal air conditioning. Not only that: Our house in New Orleans also came equipped with ceiling fans in every room, and since no one there is scared of drafts, you could actually turn them on and cool down. Basically, the only time you would feel the heat was when you stepped out of your car somewhere and walked into a building.

But it seems that in large swathes of Europe, there’s widespread hostility to air conditioning and a strong belief in relying on natural methods. That means building energy efficient houses and using stuff like double shutters and other techniques that work well until it actually gets really hot. When the mercury starts pushing into the 40s (or 100s in Fahrenheit)… well, then people start cooking to death. That was actually the case in 2003, when the wealthiest parts of Europe lost 35,000 people to a heat wave. To put that in perspective: That’s the entire principality of Liechtenstein, dead, because of a lack of air conditioning and general carelessness. Think about that number, folks: 35,000. That’s ten times more deaths than the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

About a year later, in June 2004, two scuttlebutts named Fredrik Bergstrom and Robert Gidehag, of the Stockholm-based think tank Timbro, published a gloating article entitled “EU versus USA.” (pdf) Their conclusion: If the EU were a state in the U.S., it would be among the poorest. As conservative commentators gleefully noted:

…In the U.S. a large 45.9% of the “poor” own their homes, 72.8% have a car and almost 77% have air conditioning, which remains a luxury in most of Western Europe.

Anyone who has spent time in Europe will see the problem here. And it was the reason why I had such a rough week last week. Namely, many Europeans just flat-out don’t like air conditioning. It’s not that it’s an unaffordable luxury or something: they just fucking hate it. They think it spreads germs and many of them will immediately start complaining the minute you turn it on. So using A/C as a measure of wealth is ridiculous. I could just as easily write a report tracking the number of bidets in Europe and the United States. I only have anecdotal evidence, of course, but since I’ve never seen one in the U.S. and see them in virtually every house and apartment here, I’m willing to guess that Slovenia has more per capita than America. And if there’s any Slovenian think tank ready to sponsor me, I’ll gladly write my own dumbass paper and include something like this:

“Although many Slovenes enjoy the advantages of both a toilet and a bidet, the bidet remains a never-to-be-experienced luxury for the average American. The average American is forced to make do with simple toilet paper to clean their perineum, whilst Slovenes can scrub themselves clean immediately after vacating their bowels.”

It would be a sensation I tell you. I would also point out that Slovenes have a higher rate of home ownership than Americans (82% vs 69%) and I would stress how this is clearly a sign of greater wealth and prosperity. The original authors make a big deal of home ownership in their paper.

And the rest of the report is full of similar flaws in thinking. You almost can’t believe that it was written in Europe. And you definitely can’t believe that these guys got paid to write it. For example, isn’t it safe to say that car ownership is lower in Europe because public transportation is generally bodacious, especially relative to the United States? And not because Europeans are dirt-poor hobos?

If I look at the table of domestic appliances on page 16 I also notice some things that could use explaining. For example, we own a dryer. Now ask me if we use it. No, we don’t. Thanks for asking. Want to know why? Because my wife prefers hanging our laundry up outside. It smells better, she says. It’s fresher, she insists. She also hates microwaves and would never dream of using it to prepare a meal. I’m getting anecdotal again, but I’m pretty certain that these kind of things go a long way towards explaining why Americans have so many more appliances than Europeans. In short, many of these things are not economic questions but social ones. And frankly, anyone who thinks that the average Swede is worse off than the poorest American is a jackass. I’m looking at you, Timbro.

I’m reminded of a story I heard a while back. A professor in Maribor invited some exchange students from Virginia over for summer courses. He later told me that the Americans and Slovenes constantly fought over the temperature of the classroom. The Americans wanted to turn the air conditioning on full blast; the Slovenes kept insisting it be turned off. One of the Virginians ended up going back home because it got to be “too hot” for him. Nevermind that Virginia is hotter than Maribor (summer average in Maribor: 20°C/68°F, summer average in Virginia: 30°C/86°F) it’s that he actually had to deal with it.

That’s just a different experience altogether.

Protesters have had enough of this site.

I know, I know. When bloggers are away, readers will stray. Even The Wall Street Journal knows it. But I have family in town and must attend to them. Besides, I don’t think there’s anyone left in the entire country at this point. I walked around Maribor this weekend and it was absolutely dead quiet with nary a soul to be seen.

But no matter what others may say, I’m not dead. I will return MondayTuesday. Cuz it’s hot. Or something.

—> American tries Laško beer; is “a bit disappointed”?!
But he liked dark Laško, so we don’t have to dismember him, yet.

—> Lampposts are falling in Maribor!
The picture almost looks like something out of Mad Max.

—> David was in Denver, tried the new Microsoft Surface.
Let’s dismember him. Now.

—> Slovenian Health Care Needs a Fundamental Reform
“Slovenia ranks 18 out of 22 in terms of efficiency”

—> Pengovsky’s Guide to Summer Tourists
Here’s part two.

—> The most sought-for blogs on Slovenia’s main search engine
Carniola is ranked higher among blogs than Ms. Verboten is among Slovenian women?!? Get your goddamn priorities straight, people!

Ralph Stayer (1915-2007)

I regularly hear from Americans of Slovenian descent, and I also like reading about what some of them were up to over there in the New World. One such interesting case is Ralph Stayer, who helped popularize bratwurst in the United States and was, unfortunately, recently the subject of a New York Times obituary.

His story is a good one. During a picnic in 1945, he noticed that a lot of people were throwing away their half-eaten sausages. Recognizing an opportunity, he and his wife drew upon their Austro-Slovenian family recipes to create a sausage that kicked so much ass that he was soon leading a multimillion-dollar company: Johnsonville Sausage Co. They now sell sausages from Mexico to Hong Kong and employ more than 1,000 people. If you eat a sausage at an NFL game, for example, chances are it’s from them. (And if it tastes bad, that’s probably the Austrian influence shining through. Ha, ha!)

The company also hosts a festival called Brat Fest in Madison, Wisconsin, during which people devour about 200,000 sausages over the course of a long weekend. That somehow struck me as the most Slovenian-inspired detail of the whole story.

Stayer left behind 21 great- and grandchildren, a decidedly nontypical Slovenian thing. You can read a bit more about him here.

(Thanks Mark!)

“Who is the most beautiful?”: The wisdom of crowds prevails!

In Slovenia, sonček (literally “little sun”) can be many things. It can be a travel agency, an association for cerebral palsy, an online shop for baby stuff or a risqué online magazine. It’s the latter that is the focus of today. They have some curious surveys, in which I learned the following facts about Slovenes:

* 85% watch pornography every day

* 67% think missionary is the best position (By far the most popular choice; none of the others break the 10% threshold.)

* The majority of Slovenes (55%) lost their virginity at 17 or younger

* Christmas is the best holiday (39%)

* Nearly 40% will go to Croatia for their summer vacation

* Nearly 40% think Natalija Verboten is the country’s greatest femme fatale (I told you)

* 35% hate the United States (Only 9% love it)

* 41% think Slovenes are “very okay” (18% think Slovenes are “not alright”)

* Slovenes want “sex” (33%) more than “happiness”, “money”, “health”, “love” or “success.”

Any questions?

(source)

(Via Sex, which is never sfw)