The Garden of Discordia

The Return of the Dread German Bureaucracy

2011-09-05T16:49:31Z

a.k.a. The Exciting Sequel to DM Trying to Register as a Resident of Berlin. Subtitle: The ~~Rebels~~ Exchange Student Is Victorius!

So, today after some online research and preparation, ( off I went to visit my third third Citizens Office... )

Feeling emboldened by this sucess (btw this paperwork has cost me a total of 4,5 hours of waiting, some phonecalls, four subway tickets [of which 3 were basically wasted] and considerably aggravation) and some pizza I bought in the subway and put away in record time, I decided I'd attack the next hurdle to a free and painless life in Germany: Getting a bank account and an EC-card.

( Because whoever said VISA works everywhere, lied )

*phew* I feel much better after this tl;dr whine. Although I thought it was supposed to take three months before you got to the "raarh stupid foreign customs why must you be so aggravated"-stage.
Ok, this is a bit of a hyperbole. I know Swedish government agencies can also be painfully slow - after all, I had a delightful five-hourish wait for my new passport this summer - but at least they are doing their very best so that you never actually have to park your butt in their offices, so I'm not used to quite this level of aggrevation. Not quite.

* obligatory whinage of Swede used to do 99% of government contact electronically/by phone now follows: OH LORD WHY CAN'T THE WORLD START USING OBLIGATORY NATIONAL ID NUMBERS ALREADY

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Also, government forms. In German.

2011-08-28T22:26:27Z

The headline says it all, but oh-em-gee, how many forms do I have to fill out and what do they even mean? My adress, my former adress, my previous adress in-country, ~~my adress in 1939~~* and then I have to hand it in and ~apparantly~ the only have a bookable time at 8.15 the morning after I arrive or after school has already started well thank you so much dear German bureocracy. At least we don't have to take the car for two hours out in the middle of some bloody field somewhere, as we did when I was living in land Brandenburg.

I want to believe it is a bit easier in Sweden, but I have the nagging suspicion that most of our ease is due to the personal numbers. And that foreign students are most likely required to jump through a billion hoops before they receive said personal number.

* obv. not relevant to me but still a little bit baffling to find. (ETA: No disrespect meant, it took me about 0.2 seconds to realize why that part was there but, y'know, first moment of bafflement) Also surprising was the place where I could fill in my "order" name. Good for all nuns, I guess?

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Ho. Ho. Ho. [Video goes KABOM]

2011-05-26T20:51:13Z

I have reached the weak-but-bored staged of my illness. So it may be a good thing that I don't have any lighters in the house.

( Shiny Youtube embed below the cut )

Or a blender >D

After all, it is a truth universally acknowledged, that a science geek in possession of common household appliances must be in constant temptation to blow them up.

ETA:
( Although I think even McGuyver would wear gloves before he tried this... )

But it's like I always say - you can't stop people from making explosives at home, because it's darn easy to blow shit up. The best you can do is make them unable to buy stable, "aimable" explosives in the supermarket

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breaking (non) news

2010-11-17T14:33:25Z

Regarding One Piece: Japanese women want to fool around with Sanji, but marry Zoro.

However, what I feel they missed asking, is how many women want to see Sanji marry Zoro...

(though that was a rather small poll, wasn't it? oh well, amusing on a grey afternoon)

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Anime talk: Oh joy, oh hope, oh teh fail

2010-07-29T20:52:52Z

This post is basically about my reactions for three anime things lately.

The first refers to the fact that Shojo Kakumei Utena is going to come out, remastered, on a US DVD box. I sincerely hope that this means an eventual UK release, because then I shall break my rule of not buying useless physical storage media that demands specific hardware to be viewed* and splurge on it.

Everyone should give Utena a chance. Anime fans, feminists, fandom fans, people who love storylines, people who have prejudices towards anime, those interested in film (for realz, the anime is a brilliant example of limited animation techniques used really well), fans of psychidelica and swordfightin and roses and Freudianism and awesome music. Basically, everyone should see Utena. Then they may go out and hate it (how???) but damn, give it a chance. It's a classic. It's p-r-e-t-t-y. It's slashable (male and fem both) like whoa, and that not counting the canon couples.

Alternate names for Utena are Revolutionary Utena or La Filetté Revolutionnaire, so hey, francophiles are another target audience.

The "oh hope" refers to the fact that Toei has started optioning out the rights for the Sailor Moon anime again. And, I mean, hot damn if Sailor Moon doesn't hit all my nostalgia buttons. The manga is gorgeous and good - I have a review in Swedish here. Also so damn out of print, I'm happy that I own it in both English and German.

Anyway, the anime is less gorgeous, lots of examples of not-so-well used limited animation and general budget restraints, but it's also got good music & girl superheroes who fight for love, justice and friendship.

I would totally shell out some serious money for a DVD box. Unfortunately, I'm not quite as serious as the japanese (un-subbed) reprint boxes demand: Between 7000 to 10 000 yen = 580 to 830 SEK (remove a zero to get euro prices) for each box set, plus freight and most likely 25% swedish VAT. Especially there's two box sets pro season and five seasons.... Naaaah.

But hey, it's apparantly on TV in Italy and Albania already, so hopefully it will show up in a slightly cheaper DVD set soon. With, uhm, subtitles in a language I understand kthnx

The fail & blahrgness refers to the Hetalia dub, which is 1) changed and more localized, and apparantly manages to be more offensive than the original and 2) just a bloody dub, so why care?

Of course a US company screwed up the dub. They tend to do that, to a greater or lesser degree and the more they change things, the higher the probability for complete fail.
(to be fair, Swedish dubs are also crap. And don't get me started on the anime subtitles, oh lulz the fail)

The moment I heard that they'd dub Hetalia with accents I knew it would get bad, not just "meh".
It's not like the nations actually all speak English or Japanese (there's even a joke about that in the manga) soooo why would they have accents?
What we do get in the original manga is an accent on China, which is pretty fail in its own way. In the manga there's a whole bunch of regional dialects which are all part of the characterization. These aren't accents - these are, for the most part, tropes in anime and japanese television. Various English accents would have worked much better to convey the same feeling

Then there is of course the parts of the US fandom acting as if the English dub is as important and canon as the original. Um, 'kay, this might work if it's an exact translation and if they do some kind of effort to find similar voices to the original (which they rarely do).

Otherwise? Who gives a damn. There's a japanese Harry Potter dub out there somewhere, it doesn't affect the original movies in any way. Neither does a potential, oh I dunno, Swedish or France or Russian dub of Hetalia. It's a translation, sometimes a localized adaption. And in my not at all humble opinion, localization generally sucks - it sucks if it's done in books, it sucks if it's done in movies and it definitely doesn't suck less just because it's done in anime.

So, please, watch the sub unless that sucks too. Then just stick to the fansubs

* as opposed to, um, books. Which only demand that I keep my eyes

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...to LOL or boggle?

2010-03-03T20:48:26Z

So, alright, I understand that even if one wants to sell a risque calender there are limits.

But honestly, if you call it Porn for Women 2010 Wall Calendar I'd expect more than one shirtless pic. Gosh, I think I've bought completely non-porny anime calenders that had more of a pin-up feel in their pictures

And the text, then!
Finally, wall-worthy eye candy for the ladies! Steamy enough for the bedroom yet tame enough for the office, this calendar features alluring (PG-rated) photographs of hunky men doing what women really want them to cooking, offering massages, asking for directions, and more. Hubba hubba!

Yeaaahh... That's exactly the kind of porn women want. Uh-huh

/goes back to reading her slashfic

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