EU Archives

The New Summit book is loaded with smarts.

The great Dietmar spotted this wonderful instrument of learning in Germany and kindly forwarded it to me.

According to Dietmar’s own count, the book contains precisely two maps of Europe. Here’s the first one, from page 65:

Slovenia and Croatia mind-meld into one?

You might notice that Slovenia and Croatia are a single blob but, hey, whaddyagonnado? Mistakes happen right? You’re damn right they do. In fact, sometimes they happen repeatedly, like when they mess Slovenia up again on page 92:

Slovenia and Hungary: together at last?

This second map is even better. First, Slovenia’s famous chicken head seems to be suffering from a severe case of elephantiasis. Second, although this book was republished this year, it lists Slovenia (and all the other “new” members) as outside of the EU.

Unfortunately, there’s no time to be smug. Especially when, according to the Financial Times, Germany (and Zimbabwe??) are ahead of Slovenia in overall quality of education. Makes me wonder what kind of awful maps Slovenian kids are studying.

(Thanks Dietmar!)

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!

The now-infamous Lecce school video. Potentially NSFW.

If you haven’t seen them already, some videos have been floating around that were allegedly taken in a classroom in Lecce, Italy. Right now, the only media source I could find that mentions the story is the hitherto unknown Malta Star, whose story is here.

The paper claims that Italian authorities have suspended the lecturer, presumably because she doesn’t react to the boys’ wildly aggressive harassment — even when they take it up a notch, as they do in their second cellphone video. (Again NSFW)

I suppose my revulsion while watching these videos is a clear sign that I’m getting old. The fact that the comments on YouTube seem generally positive and appreciative, while I just feel squicked out, pretty much confirms it. I now belong to the “goddamn-kids-these-days” generation.

The videos also reminded me of a rambunctious cellphone video that surfaced here in Slovenia a year ago. I had pretty much forgotten about it but if you want to see an example of the Slovenian educational system at its not-so-finest, here it is:

Slovenian dingleberries in action.

The video is of some high-school kids (aged 16-17) in Domžale, honing the skills they will need (screaming, arguing, roughhousing) for a lifetime of unemployment and heavy beer-drinking.

I just wanted to remind everyone that the Third Annual Satin Pajama Awards are out and that it’s time to vote!

David asked me to help out with the nominations this year, so I submitted some candidates for the “Best Southeastern Weblog category” (Belgrade 2.0, Balkan Baby, Our Man in Tirana, Neretva River, Anegdote, The Balkan Yankee and Illyrian Gazette) and the “Best Expatriate Category.” (Isoglossia, Loxias, Our Man in Tirana, and The Copy Dude.) I like all of these blogs — and not just physically. I like them for who they are inside. And in case anyone is wondering, I also tried to pick blogs that haven’t appeared in the contest before, which is why I left out some big guns like East Ethnia or histologion etc…

The interesting question now is whether Slovenia can manage a trifecta. So far, there has always been a winner from here, thanks to La Poulette’s rip-roaring victory last year. For this illustrious tradition to continue, Isoglossia would have to win the expatriate category this time around. Right now, he’s trailing Meg of Le Blagueur a Paris.

Interestingly, Meg’s got a ringing endorsement from blogging heavyweight Petite Anglaise. Most of you probably won’t remember this, but it was PA and Carniola that went head-to-head in the first award competition, during which Carniola unwittingly and suspiciously won.

Now it seems that we’re again (indirectly) up against one another. History repeats itself, as they say. I’m not sure if this time will be tragedy or farce but I suppose we’ll see.

At any rate, go show Slovenia and Isoglossia some love and go vote!

UPDATE: It smells like victory. And I love that smell. So does A. Medved, whose victory speech is here. It doesn’t end with a hooah but oh well. Big congrats to all the winners, and hooray for Slovenia’s three consecutive years of victory!

The Apple Store in Vienna A prison in Styria, Austria. (More pics)

If you look at these figures comparing crime in Austria and crime in the U.S. you’ll notice something odd: although the U.S. has higher crime rates in virtually every category (murder, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, etc…) the Austrians triumph in one category: burglary. But why? Why is the rate of burglaries in Austria a whopping 40% higher than in the U.S.? I’ll tell you why: because Austrian minimum security prisons are fucking awesome! If you’re in Austria, and have a working brain, you should be trying to get into one right now!

Commit the right crime, and this could be your cell!

Hell, I live just a few kilometers from the border and I’m seriously considering heading over there this weekend and doing some serious damage. What’s the worst that can happen? Either I come back with a new kick-ass flat-screen television or they send me to some place like the Justice Center Leoben and I get a few months of all-inclusive paid vacation. It’s win-win!

Fun games of ping-pong help show you the error of your ways.

Indoor soccer teaches you that what you did was wrong because it’s like against society.

No costly, monthly membership fees for you at this glorious gym! Feel the burn! Rrrrr!

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking: “Michael, you’ve made a pretty convincing argument so far and, truth be told, I wouldn’t mind hurting an Austrian or two and maybe picking up some new Bose speakers in the process. But what about the fact that you’re restricted in prison? Aren’t you isolated from your loved ones there? That doesn’t sound like fun.”

Well, verily I say unto you: “Guenther (if your name is Guenther — otherwise substitute your own name instead) Austria’s enlightened prison authorities fully understand your concerns and they’re ready to help. That’s why they’ve set up some awesomely comfortable rooms for your conjugal visits.”

Aw, hell yeah!

You see? What kind of five-star prison wouldn’t have a love shack, baby? And afterwards, keep in mind that there’s no time for fighting or arguing or anything. Your partner goes home and you retire to your balcony to rest and reflect on your long day of ping-ponging and ding-donging.

Life can be cruel to people who aren’t in Austrian prisons.

By now you’re probably saying to yourself: “Well, Michael, I’ve got my ski mask on, my crowbar in hand and I’m ready to roll — are you sure there are no downsides to this place?”

And to that I’m afraid I have to say that, yes, Guenther there are. There’s always a catch to everything, isn’t there? For Leoben it’s this: you’ll probably have to spend a lot of time with an Austrian Sozialpädagogin (literally: “one who doesn’t know shit from shinola“) and you’ll have to do a lot of reflecting and do stuff like write poems about why you took that dude’s rolex. You’ll also be exposed to the word “auseinandersetzen”
(to “confront” or “deal” with an issue) thousands of times. Like in some Stalinist show trial, you’ll have to admit that the reasons you stole that kid’s Playstation are: your sense of alienation from modern life, an unsupportive family structure, an unclear concept of right and wrong, Austrian society in general, and the movie Pirates of the Caribbean 2 in particular.

Ugh. Now that I think about it, it’s actually not worth it. And even if you’d like to go, the place is booked to capacity: 205 “prisoners” at the moment. It’s probably harder to get into this place than it is for a woman to join the Vienna Philharmonic.

Still, if you have to go to prison — choose Austria!

UPDATE: Welcome, kottke.org readers! If any of you are planning a pan-Austrian crime spree this summer, let me know because I’d love to come visit you at this place. (Not a conjugal visit, though. Just to see it from the inside.)

Where Slovenia’s euros are traveling to.

EuroBillTracker is:

“…an international non-profit volunteer team dedicated to tracking Euro notes around the world. Each user enters the serial numbers and location information for each note they obtain into EuroBillTracker.”

Basically, i’s like the European version of Where’s George?

There obviously aren’t too many entries for Slovenia yet, at least compared to a country like Germany, which is basically one gigantic, indecipherable smudge.

Interestingly, you can also break things down by city, so you can follow euros from Ljubljana, Maribor, Koper, Murska Sobota, etc..

So far, the site has tracked an astounding half a billion euros. I created an account and entered a 20-euro bill: it immediately told me that it was an Italian note, printed by Banca d’Italia in Rome. My inner geek smiled.

Now we’ll see where it goes.

(Thanks Matej!)

I think I know why not. (source)

The euro isn’t even a month old but there’s already some grumbling about it. Among the stranger complainers is this: 1eurobanknote.org, a site that wants to ditch €1 and €2 coins for banknotes. They’ve put up a long rant about it, in English, here. The basic idea is this:

Paying by coins will be considered as payment by „change“, everybody will try to get rid of them, feeling that the two most valuable coins 1€ and 2€ are „only“ change. That is the exact excuse for the unjustified price increases. Issuing both bancnotes of 1€ and 2€ would give back the honour and dignity to the basic units of our money.

There are so many problems with this that I don’t know where to begin. To start with, it ignores the fact that many, no, most Europeans have been perfectly comfortable with the idea of high-value coins for a long time. Germany’s Deutschmarks started with the ten-mark bill — except for those really rare, really awesome five-mark beauties. But the Germans primarily used a 5-mark coin, the equivalent of €2.50. The French had 10-franc coins, the equivalent of €1.52, before taking the euro. The Dutch 5-Guilder coin was worth more than 2 euros. The Spanish also minted coins worth about three euros. Ditto for Austria and their 50-schilling piece. Among the big economies, only Italy failed to mint coins worth more than 50 cents.

But this site seems to suggest that because some Slovenes are having trouble with the idea that coins can be valuable, then the ECB should accommodate them. Ahh, the spirit of Europe.

The petition, despite being an online one, already has about 2,388 signatures, including names like D4rt3r and Tomaž F. It’s certain to impress.

But the other problem (and the reason why there are no 1 or 2 euro bills) is that it’s expensive. That’s why the U.S. government has been trying for a long time now to ditch the one-dollar bill. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) estimated in this report (pdf) that replacing one-dollar bills with coins would save the U.S. government $522 million a year. The report explains:

“Because $1 notes last only about 18 months before having to be replaced, the government has to produce about 5 billion of them per year to maintain the pool of 7.5 billion $1 notes now in circulation. At a per unit production cost of $0.035, this costs $175.0 million, and it also costs the Federal Reserve about $49.7 million to process the $1 notes each year — for a combined production and processing cost of $224.7 million.”

Coins, on the other hand, are more expensive to produce but can last for up to 30 years. That’s why the U.S. will give dollar coins yet another try this year. And why the ECB will ignore attempts like this to go back to paper.

(Via Miami Dreams)

The most confusing bag of rice on the market today.

The EU obsesses a lot about product labeling, and a lot of their energy has been devoted to the subject of genetically modified foods. Europeans generally seem more interested in the subject than Americans. So I can see why clearly labeled goods could be important.

Still, this bag of rice I bought the other day is the most confusing thing ever. I’m just going to write down everything it says on the package. Ready?

On the front:

Rickmers Bali Classic
Quality Foods USA International
AAA - Grade

100% Quality
100% GM-Free
Country of origin is not the USA

Side packaging:

BALI is Best American Longgrain Indica Rice

100% USA
Longgrain Rice
Top Quality

Packaged by: Rickmers Rice Mill, Bremen, Germany
Country of origin: USA
Distributor: Podravka, Ljubljana

They certainly like to use the term “100%” — too bad it’s impossible to figure out what they’re talking about.

Tumidaj, Poland.

There are plenty of places with names that sound funny to English speakers, like Fucking, Austria and Batman, Turkey. The little town of Tumidaj in Poland means “Give it to me here” in Slovene. And, yes, it really exists. Luckily for them there aren’t that many Slovenian tourists or else the sign would end up regularly stolen.

(Thanks Matjaž!)

An RTV report on how well Slovenes know their tolars. (Slovene only)

The tolar is now officially pecunia non grata in Slovenia. Back in October, I did a post about the fact that many people I knew had no idea who was on the tolar bills. That post inspired an RTV reporter to hit the streets and do a short story about it — you can watch it above. (In Slovene only, I’m afraid.)

She later told me that no one she spoke to in the city that day knew all of the bills; but then again, neither did she.

(Thanks Jasmina!)