Here an accent as apostrophe, there another accent as apostrophy – as long as there are more than necessary…
Though the pub (this is an announcement for its opening) is actually called “Bayrisch’s Eck”, if I remember correctly.
(4/2008)
Anghela’s friend Nadezhda
Dating scammers – remember Anghela and once (regrettably without photos) Galina – are, of course, not that rare. This new specimen now does send country-specific mails, but without a second automatic translation – which, on one hand, doesn’t make it that intrinsically funny, on the other hand saves me the effort of trying to translate wrong German into wrong English as I did with Anghela’s mails…
Hello! How are you? I hope that all good for you and you will read my letter with a interest. — Of course I will, but I don’t think you mean the same kind of interest as me. See, I just want to make fun of mails like yours, and you’re a confidence trickster… At least, thank you for not writing such huge mails as Anghela or Galina – even though you, too, seem to know nothing about how to use line-breaks and paragraphs.
I the girl from Russia. — C’mon, there’s only one girl in Russia?? The others all found guys to date and marry in the west? Wow, good luck for me the last one found me and no-one else! 
— My name is Nadezhda. I am from Saint-Petersburg. I have fair hair and blue eyes. — Don’t look that blue to me in the photos. But, well, guess you never know; people have been asking “what color do my eyes look in this picture?” before… Oh, was that you, maybe??
I’m cheerful woman who like to go for sports and do all what like are usual peoples. — No need to hem and haw, say it that you like to do “it”. And, well, I’d do unusual people, too.^^ Or do you mean “do” in the sense of swindle, ruin, defeat? Doesn’t seem that far-fetched… — I am ready for creation family — What “creation family”? There’s no “creation family” here, and since that sounds like creationism-ish crap, I don’t want that.
I got your e-mail through internet dating agency. I gave my letter to agency and they have told that my letter will be send to man in Germany!!!! — Yeah, sure. But hey, you even got the country right, supposedly from my mail address’s top-level domain. Bravo! Then why didn’t you auto-translate this mail to German? Anghela used to do that… you’re not actually aware of the funny, hard-to-understand language these tools produce, are you? 
Some time back I’m with my girlfriend were going to go in your country as tourists for search of men for serious relations. But my girlfriend could not go with me. She had problems with your family. — What?? She didn’t know me – hey, I never even met Anghela – and already got problems with my family? How’d she know them? — It will be great if you can meet me and we can to have relations with you. — Erm, meet you, Nadezhda, or you and your girlfriend? I mean, not that I’d mind “relations” with two women at the same time, but… d’you really know what you’re writing about?
I hope that you will answer to me back it is very fast. I send you my photo. I hope that you will love my photo. — Well, you sent two. Alright, they’re hardly your photos, but anyway… and oh, you really modified your text since you sent it to Canada, (other than changing the country, of course), where it read “I hope that you will love wash a photo.”. Aww, wish I’d reveived that howler…
Well then, can I hope for more mails from you, “lovely_froggy@yahoo.com”, since “nadezhda” means “hope”?
PS: If you, dear reader, happen to own the rights of these photos that the scammers used: a brief e-mail is sufficient and I’ll remove them. Or do you know the actual source?
PPS: By sheer coincidence, this is actually the 419th post in my blog…
Ban! Liberate Virtual Cards!
No, nothing about Tibet – instead, another automatic translation from Russian (possibly via English) into German giving a potentially dangerous spam mail a funny side:
Guten Tag! Bei Ihnen die neue Postkarte. Bekommen Sie nach dieser Verbannung!
Sie haben eine virtuelle Karte erhalten!
Sie konnen die Karte innerhalb von 30 Tagen ansehen, unter der Verweisung gehend:
http://golloret555.xxxx/card/xxxx
Klick der Verbindung auf oder Kopie es zur Adressbar des Internet-Browsers.
–––––––
Befreien Virtuelle Karten!
golloret555.xxxx
Which re-translates to English like this (trying to translate wrong German terms into wrong English terms):
Good day! At you the new postcard. You receive after this ban/banishment!
You received a virtual card!
You can view the card within 30 days, under the relegation going:
http://golloret555.xxxx/card/xxxx
Click of the connection on or copy it to addressbar of the internet browser.
–––––––
Liberate Virtual Cards!
golloret555.xxxx
Well, it’s nice to receive something after being banned/banished… but the most harmless things that can happen when you click that link is that the pretended error page showers you with ads (which parts of the source code indicate – I didn’t open it in a browser) – such pages are known for trying to use security holes to infect the computer with lots of malware (cf. German Antispam Forum), so:
Don’t click! There’s no card there!
To Be or not To Be (4): Astro-homeopathy with crayfish
This is part 4 of my finds in the German esoterics magazine “Sein” (=“to be”) I had found on my train (see part 1, part 2, part 3)…
Before we really start…
The word combination in the title doesn’t mean that I am combining multiple topics in this post – oh no, this is, in all seriousness, the topic of the single-page article I’m writing about this time, written by a homeopath named Werner Baumeister.
And exactly this nice back here on the right hand side (© Elena Vdovina – Fotolia.com [affiliate link]) is also used by said article as splash photo (at nearly half of the page’s height) with the caption “When the armor/carapace is gone: vulnerable, unprotected, helpless…“ (everything translated by me) – or did you think I’d post bare skin here without reason? 
What is it all about?
Open Hearts
Astacus, discarding the European crayfish’s carapace
Homeopathy for the predetermined breaking point [Sollbruchstelle] of our life
This also is the title of an evening event which this homeopath organized together with an astrologer (and advertized with this article, since it’s from the March issue).
In the beginning, potentially many people are addressed “personally” right away – like newspaper horoscopes and many other mystics like to do –, people who might feel “disarmored, laid bare, naked, unprotected, defenseless, exposed”, which would apply “in times of massive changes” to many of us – yes, “of us”, the author includes himself into it, since that helps to build would-be trust (emphasis mine):
Self-doubt, dark thoughts about the future, despair, fear to get hurt, and the wish to insure oneself with others, makes us, in this thin-skinned state, welcome victims for numerous self-proclaimed clairvoyants and shady seers.
Oh how right he is – though he “forgets”, I think, numerous astrologers, homeopaths, astro-homeopaths and various other esoteric dreamers…
The crayfish
Crayfish like the noble or European crayfish (Astacus astacus; » Wikipedia) need to throw off their carapace, their armor, to be able to grow while their skin is soft, until a new carapace is completed weeks later. When looking for analogies for changes in life, such animals certainly aren’t beside the point.
But why stick with simple analogies? There can be more in it! Let’s turn this into an “elixir”, somebody’ll believe us – or we believe it ourselves –, we don’t have to care about respectable science, anyway! At least that’s the impression I’m getting here:
Homeopathically, Astacus, the crayfish, helps us when a feeling of being unprotected, being exposed, is in the foreground.
Hey, will a pinch of a pulverized ruler, dissolved in a swimming pool, help if you can’t think straight?
Or are zombies in horror movies so keen on brains just because that helps against sinking intellectual power? 
Enter astrology
But why use just one abstruse psychology–animal–elixir-
Astro-homeopathically, these are moments where Uranus, the liberator and bomb thrower, suddenly hits on our Saturnic encrustations with his explosive force. Analogous to the crayfish carapace, Saturn represents solid body structures such as the bones, the locomotor system and of course the skin as protective organ.
So diluted crayfish does now serve as a shield against bomb explosions? Or rebuilds a shield that’s been blown off, hoping the soft layer underneath has remained unharmed? Tell that to landmine vitims, they’re gonna be happy! Oh, no, in case of doubt these things are just meant as analogies, as symbols, of course. 
The article then just blathers in general more about fear and possibilities (and the crayfish). But let’s carry that idea a little further for ourselves:
Should those who are afraid of being stung by the spiky crescent moon eat a little piece of cheese that’s been brought back by Wallace & Gromit?
Does Mars, the red planet, cause an addiction to Mars, the chocolate bar, and does a pinch of red pepper help against that, resolved in as much water as fits into Hebes Chasma, the deepest canyon on Mars?
If Neptun, named after the Roman god of the seas, threatens to use its influence to fluently flood us, would water diluted in water help?
Does Pluto, named after the god of the underworld, discovered only in 1930 and no longer an official “real” planet since 2006, threaten to end our successes and make us a flash in the pan, and does fine-ground ghost gauze protect us from that?
Who can think of other absurdities? But don’t peek into esoterics or astrology books and websites!
Link tips:
Von Ungeduld, Newslettern und fehlenden Buchstaben
Sorry, but this post is not available in English