A very interesting little video, which lead me to http://snurl.com/3lh6q, der pennsilfaanisch-deitschen Wikipedelche (thank you, Michael, for the tip). Deitsche Blatznamme has a collection of German street and place names in Lancaster county, including a photograph entitled Tschenni mit Blatznaame Schilder.

As it turns out, it’s not only the weather that is great here – if you’re in need of medical advice, it just cannot get better.

Found in San Gabriel Valley Tribune (sgvn.com)

… could turn into a scary experience – with “Hello Kitty” contacts. This oh so annoying cartoon character isn’t limited to lunch boxes and sweat shirts (or Fender Stratocasters) anymore. You wouldn’t believe all the things that have turned Hello Kitty. Check it out in Hello Kitty Hell.

A bit outside my line of work but not my area of interest, Cinema Babel: Translating Global Cinema, by Abé Mark Nornes, Univ. of Minnesota Press, 2008. More about the author here with a link through to the ground-breaking Kinema Club.

I am maintaining my sister’s website which is a .de domain hosted in Arizona on Godaddy servers. The hosting plan just came up for its yearly renewal and the receipt showed a $9.29 tax amount. There is no tax on services here, so I called Godaddy and was told that as of this year, they have to charge VAT for hosting accounts with addresses in Europe and remit the money withheld to the respective tax authorities. What? I am not saying that people shouldn’t pay the taxes that are due, but isn’t it a bit frightening when a foreign country’s “Finanzamt” can reach all the way into a company in the middle of Arizona and compel them to tax a service even though services are not taxable in the U.S.?