This was printed last summer. It's yesterday's "page a day" comic.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

(It says "Holy crap! I'm retiring tomorrow!")

Comments

[udoswald.livejournal.com]

If that's true, it's a huge coincidence. Color me skeptical in the time of Photoshop though.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

I got it from a source I believe, and coincidences happen?

[udoswald.livejournal.com]

It's entirely possible, I'm a skeptic by nature. I'd need to see the actual calendar to be convinced. It's way too easy to fake things these days.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Fair enough. For me, this falls into my "one big wacky coincidence per year is TOTALLY within the margin of error" filter. I'll update if I get a better confirmation.

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

Here's the article from Germany.

http://www.rhein-zeitung.de/startseite_artikel,-Papst-Ruecktritt-Cartoon-Kalender-wusste-es-schon-am-Sonntag-_arid,553270.html

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Strohsack. I love German. lol.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

("Holy Strawbag" doesn't have the same ring to it in English, especially when the reference to the Austrian politician is lost. So I translated less literally and more meaningfully.)

[telemann.livejournal.com]

You're fluent in German? That's pretty cool!

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Not fluent, but I speak a little, read more, and this wasn't that hard. "Mein Deutsch ist shreklich. Sprechen sie Englisch? Nein? Franzosisch?" was probably the phrase I used most when I was in Munich. Combine that with "was costas das?", "Zwei bieren, bitte", "wo ist der Waschraum", and "Entschuldigung, ich bin Canadian." and you've covered most of my conversational German.

But simple German, especially written? I can usually read that.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

A friend of mine lived in Salzburg for a few years, and for some odd reason, he has a Swiss German accent. And the most difficult German he barely understood was in Stuttgart, I even think it has a dialect called Swabian.

[deborahkla.livejournal.com]

Yes. Rommel was Swabian.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

I lived in Germany with about that much German and got by fine :P

[farchivist.livejournal.com]

"Mein Deutsch ist shreklich"
Mein Deutsch is schlecht.

"was costas das?"
"Was kostest es?" or "Wie viel kostest es?"

"Entschuldigung, ich bin Canadian."
Kanadien.

Sorry, being pedantic. :D

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

See how I said "not fluent"? I know just enough to get "me no speak German good. Me am not jelly donut. Where is it can be pooping?" which was actually really enough to get the general idea across most of the time.

[deborahkla.livejournal.com]

I'm the same as you--speak a little German, read more. I wish I was fluent in it, so I could read Goethe in the original German. It helps that I have a little Yiddish as well. Did you know that German, like Yiddish, has its roots in Hebrew? I always wonder if Hitler ever knew that. Personally, I think German is a wonderfully expressive language. No other language has such a range of marvelous, virtually untranslatable neologisms.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

(For example, I had to interpret "kündige" from context, but "in the morning I will kündige" and the winning lottery ticket made that easy. And then I checked.)