Meta - New service at Nothing For Ungood: Unanswered Google Queries

June 18th, 2008

This site is run by Americans, and as Americans we are dedicated to providing the best possible customer service.

It has come to our attention that many people come to this site via a search engine, because they are seeking a specific answer. Unfortunately we can’t keep up, because the answer must have existed online before the question was asked, but we are working on a solution for this. In the mean time, please check the new page filed under the Informations section entitled Unanswered Google Queries, if you have landed on Nothing For Ungood but your question wasn’t answered in a post. There we will answer your question directly.

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Thanks,

The Management

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The American’s guide to the Euro 2008 soccer championship

June 17th, 2008

If you have the misfortune of living in Germany right now, then you are being forced to endure tough times. Right now everyone is focused on soccer, and you probably don’t really know why, so let’s review some things about our second least favorite sport, soccer, which edges out cricket for being a tad less boring by lasting only 90 minutes instead of days.

What’s going on now is called the European Championship, and it’s held every 4 years, always 2 years before the World Cup, so that as soon as they decide the top 4 teams in Europe through this tournament, they can begin deciding again which are the top teams in Europe for World Cup qualifying.

The Euro 2008 is being hosted by Switzerland and Austria, which means these two teams automatically qualify to play in the tournament. Here are some things you need to know about them and the rest of the teams:

Group A

Switzerland Mountainous people that speak 4 languages. Remarkably good soccer team for a tiny country with no flat land.

Czech Republic Pretty good soccer team, and home to America’s favorite city, Prague. Includes star Petr Czech, considered by many to be the best goal keeper in the world have gotten them kicked out of this year’s tournament.
Portugal In recent history a powerhouse in soccer, and a great place to go for a cheap, sunny vacation. Includes star player Christiano Ronaldo, who looks like he needs to be punched in the nose.

Turkey Turkey is not really respected as a great soccer nation, but these guys got pretty upset when they didn’t qualify for the last world cup.

Group B

Austria Mountainous people whose main industry is writing tickets for driving through their country without a €10 sticker. Austria only participates in the European Championship when they host it.

Croatia A decent soccer team, a good place to go on vacation. Cheap with lots of sunshine.

Germany Germany is always a favorite in any soccer tournament, and always the underdog in any friendly match. The Germans only try when it counts.

Poland Poland always has a mediocre soccer team, so they usually show up for the first rounds and go back home.

Group C

Netherlands The Dutch are always a favorite despite almost never coming through. Fans can be recognized by driving slow in the passing lane in a camper.

Italy The Italians are always dreadful to watch and amazingly successful with their bore-the-other-team-to-death tactics. Italy won the last World Cup, and the Germans came in 3rd place, prompting the sale of t-shirts stating lieber Dritter als Italiener. On a side note, the USA was the only team to play the Italians to a draw, making the USA also the best team in the world by proxy.

Romania Not really worth mentioning

France France produces huge stars who end their careers in silly-looking rages of violence, such as Eric Cantona, the originator of the popped up polo shirt collar, who tried to Karate kick a fan and seemed to pull his own groin in the process, or Zinedine Zidane who look liked a huge dork by squarely landing the Glasgow Kiss on someone’s chest to end a brilliant career like a pansy.

Group D

This group is also not worth mentioning, except that Greece somehow won the tournament last time and it is also a nice place to go on vacation because it is sunny and cheap.

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How to cope with foreign water

June 16th, 2008

Different cultures have different preferences, and your first encounter with a foreigner culture may be a bad experience with water, because water is just something you take for granted. You know that if you are going to Mexico and you drink the water that you will probably end up with Montezuma’s Revenge, but Germany is a fairly civilized country, so you wouldn’t expect to have problems with the water there.

Wrong.

You need to know that Germans almost always drink their water from bottles instead of the tap, and that it is usually carbonated. If Germans drink water from the tap at home, then they will probably have a machine to carbonate their tap water, which they call Soda Club, as if some English speaking person would ever want to drink carbonated water.

Before you get into a situation where you are extremely thirsty, you need to acclimate yourself to carbonated water, or else you are going to have an emotionally scarring experience when you grab a bottle of water to quench your dry mouth after a sporting event, only to have matters made worse through the burning of the carbonation. The Germans now make bottled water which is less carbonated that you can use in conjunction with non-carbonated water to help strengthen your immunity against this senseless mutilation of perfectly good fluids.

No Fountains

Despite the fact that Germany is loaded with water (Lake Constance, the Isar, the Weser, the Oder, the Main, the Neckar, the Rhein, the Elbe, the Donau, and the Baggersee), the Germans treat water like a precious commodity. The Germans don’t have any drinking fountains in buildings or in parks. The typical office doesn’t even include a water cooler, instead they will have a vending machine filled with, of course, carbonated bottled water. The worst though is that you won’t get water at any restaurant for free. In fact, next to the other artificially scarce liquid in Germany, Coca-Cola, water will probably be the most expensive drink on the menu.

Also of note, every German that comes to America and drinks tap water will act disgusted and say, “Yuck! It tastes like chlorine.”

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Germans love asparagus

June 14th, 2008

Spargel100% of Germans go nuts over asparagus.

The Germans have a special season from the end of April to the end of June where they eat asparagus at every possible opportunity. Although it doesn’t really taste good, the Germans eat this white flavorless stuff loaded with hollandaise or butter sauce along with potatoes (the Germans eat everything with potatoes, of course) and schnitzel or bacon, or if they are really feeling fancy, then maybe with some salmon. If you work in Germany during asparagus season, you will be the only one eating something else in the cafeteria. A legitimate response to not wanting to eat this Spargel is that you prefer to eat some form of pig with every meal, as Germans would normally do in any other time of the year.

Pretty much the only time Germans have all you can eat specials is during Spargel-Season. Here Germans team up to stuff themselves with all the asparagus they can eat for about $15. This of course would never work in America, where we can get all you can eat Chinese food for about $6, which actually tastes good, and even better doesn’t make you almost pass out afterwards when you go to pee.

German asparagus is different than American asparagus, but growing this white variety is back breaking labor. Some smart German politician decided to start a program for unemployed Germans to have the chance to work in the fields harvesting, but no Germans ever showed up for a second day of work, so that task is left to the eastern Europeans. I guess these Hartz IV welfare recipients would rather sit around eating asparagus than be bothered with plucking it.

Unfortunately America’s most trusted news source among 18 to 45 year-olds, The Daily Show, didn’t realize that German asparagus is different to the asparagus we eat. In this clip, you can see that Bush took another trip to Europe to grope Angela Merkel and lie about liking German asparagus.


If you listen carefully there is exactly one audience member that really likes Spargel. Must have been a German tourist.

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Quick Tipp - Germans make fun of you when you try to say stuff

June 13th, 2008

English is easy to pronounce. German is not. We don’t put any dots on our letters, or make weird b shapes and call them a pair of s’s. Germans know their language is filled with sounds foreigners can’t make, so they try to get you to say certain words so that they can mock you. Such words include:

Eichhörnchen - This is the classic trap Germans set for us.

Oachkatzlschwoaf - This is the Bavarian cousin of the aforementioned.

Streichholzschächtelchen - This is the ultimate impossible German word to say.

But pretty much any word that starts with an “r”, such as rechts, is physically impossible for us to say. Avoid these words.

If you decide to learn to speak German despite the ample warnings given here previously, you will have to cope with Germans who will either make you say one of these words to mock you directly and openly, or repeat everything you say to them but in correct German, or worse at parties or on TV shows talk to you with a fake American accent.

For the amusement of the German readers, John presents his fake Bavarian accent in the attached audio clip: Fake Bavarian

deutsche Übersetzung für Astrid ein/ausblenden