http://www.teamliquid.net/blog/zatic en-us Sat, 04 May 2013 07:17:55 +0900 http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=410943 zatic Bundestagswahl - German General Elections The elections for the German parliament - the Bundestag - will be held on September 22nd this year. I will use this opportunity to give a brief introduction to German politics. As usual, this won't come without a degree of bias, but I'll try to stick to the facts still. The Bundestag is the main legislative body in Germany, with the upper hou... Fri, 03 May 2013 23:58:11 +0900 http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=410943 http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=374728 zatic Things that are cheap / expensive in Germany A couple of years ago Chill asked me about the cost of living in Germany compared to say Canada. When I thought about it I figured total cost of living will probably be very similar - only that you pay for different things a lot more and for others a lot less. So, here is my list of what is comparatively cheap and what is expensive in Germany. ... Thu, 11 Oct 2012 17:54:34 +0900 http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=374728 http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=352779 zatic The Autobahn Speed: It's dangerous, exhilarating, intoxicating. This episode of Random Bits of Knowledge about Germany will feature a German icon: The Autobahn. While the term Autobahn is probably one of the most known German words in the world, there remain many misconceptions about the Autobahn. So let's start by defining what the Autobahn really is. Autobahn literally means aut... Sun, 15 Jul 2012 01:18:19 +0900 http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=352779 http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=349295 zatic So I went to Ukraine for the EURO2012 to watch Germany - Portugal, Ukraine - Sweden, and Germany - Netherlands. It's been two weeks now and I miss it like hell - here are some random tidbits from my trip. Amazing one week. One thing first: Everything negative anyone said about Ukraine is utter BS. The country is amazing and full of the most friendly and nice people. All the concerns about s... Sun, 01 Jul 2012 03:03:40 +0900 http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=349295 http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=328829 zatic Barbecue Since it is that time of the year again, I thought it was a good moment to finally write another issue of my Germany blog series. This time it will be about the Germans favorite past time during the summer: Barbecue. And just like everything German, their version of barbecuing ("Grillen") has a few, well, particularities. First of all, Grillen is ubiquitous in Germany. ... Fri, 13 Apr 2012 18:48:22 +0900 http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=328829 http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=241586 zatic German misconceptions about gun ownership This edition of random facts of knowledge about Germany will hopefully clear up some I would argue myths about gun ownership that are very popular in Germany. This article maybe more educational to my fellow Germans than foreign readers. Well, at least I hope so. I have had a draft of this article sitting around for awhile now, but recent events ... Fri, 08 Jul 2011 17:37:16 +0900 http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=241586 http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=203895 zatic Queuing and Lines On my trip to Blizzcon in 2008 I realized another rather counter intuitive quality of Germans: The complete inability to stand in line. Well actually what I realized is the disciplined queuing that spontaneously occurred there in a foreign country, something that would be unthinkable around here. Blizzcon 2008 If there are no guiding provisions like well set u... Wed, 23 Mar 2011 00:53:30 +0900 http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=203895 http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=202088 zatic BILD and Fear This will be a rather short issue of my series about Germany and will picture (haha) the role the tabloid BILD had in presenting the Japan earthquake and nuclear crisis to the German public. BILD is by far Germany's biggest daily newspaper with a circulation of close to 3 mio. Basically you can not go to a news stand in Germany without being presented with the BILD cover. F... Thu, 17 Mar 2011 20:15:30 +0900 http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=202088 http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=176649 zatic Pretty pretty map designed by our awesome disciple. Check out his recent 1000 days of TL post! This is an illustration of German stereotypes, mapped onto German regions and states. This map was inspired by the European stereotype thread seen on TL a while ago. The idea is to map stereotypes other countries know about Germany, as well as stereotypes Germans maintain among themselves onto the... Tue, 14 Dec 2010 05:34:28 +0900 http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=176649 http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=173858 zatic Sauna I have never been a fan of sauna really. Generally I try to avoid sweating as best as I can, so I didn’t see the point in deliberately sitting in a 90C room just to sweat. However since I spend a lot of my 2010 living in hotels I found a new liking for a relaxing sauna bath after running and/or fitness in the evening. In comes the key difference of sauna in Germany vs any other cou... Fri, 03 Dec 2010 18:09:09 +0900 http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=173858 http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=173301 zatic Random bits of knowledge about Germany Short introduction: I tossed up several opening column drafts to this blog series I was planning on writing for a long time now. None of them were satisfactory so far, so I just figured I’ll skip an opening all together and just start writing the first column. This will be a series of truly random and arbitrary bits of knowledge about Ge... Wed, 01 Dec 2010 19:49:07 +0900 http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=173301 http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=146507 zatic - At a bar people order pitchers and several glasses. Strelok orders his own drink but the waitress forgets. So he points to the glass and says something along the lines "There is something wrong with my beer, it's empty" - Day9 makes a joke about Morrow ripping off the scalp of his opponents and finds it so funny himself that he is actually rolling on the floor laughing for minute... Mon, 23 Aug 2010 07:58:52 +0900 http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=146507 http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=135727 zatic You know how they say the Deep Water Horizon leak spills between 20000 and 30000 barrels of crude into the gulf per day? Well, that is not even 2% of what The Company pumps out of the ground every single day. Oh yes, it’s all about oil here. They truly fuel the world. Exact numbers are hard to come by, but the non-oil industry is estimated to make up for just about 10% of GDP. Oil doesnâ... Mon, 12 Jul 2010 23:55:56 +0900 http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=135727 http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=123627 zatic After work shopping can be tricky. Catch the wrong time, and you will be locked into the store for half an hour. There are 5 prayer hours a day, during which everything shuts down. By law. And I mean everything. If you are just in the store and about to pay and leave when the Muezzin begins to sing – tough luck! If the store is nice they will warn you a couple of minutes before. If not, t... Wed, 05 May 2010 22:59:04 +0900 http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=123627 http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=123023 zatic A popular online dating site shows 1 entry for the entire country. The poor girl is from Laos or some other South East Asian country. Being a girl sure does suck around here. Women are banned from basically anything. They are not allowed to leave the house by themselves. They are not allowed to drive. Most professions they are banned from. They can’t be anywhere where they could be in con... Sun, 02 May 2010 22:56:01 +0900 http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=123023 http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=122753 zatic An email to all employees this morning reminded everyone to drive responsibly. They send those out every week. After just having once again survived the daily commute this seems like a joke. In 2009 an average 55 people died each day in car accidents. That’s in a country of not even 30 million where drunk driving doesn’t exist and half the population is banned from driving. Entering... Sat, 01 May 2010 23:02:09 +0900 http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=122753 http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=115921 zatic http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zg-bH8Eb7t8 Mon, 15 Mar 2010 01:55:05 +0900 http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=115921 http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=113208 zatic Apparently Bahrain is the friendliest country in the world (source: TL), so I was thinking to do a visit. I will be in Bahrain this weekend from Wednesday night to Friday. Any TL people around that want to meet up? I'd be especially interested in trying some local food so if we can get together for lunch or dinner on Thursday would be great. Hope anyone is still around since I heard the... Mon, 22 Feb 2010 04:32:25 +0900 http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=113208 http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=104273 zatic As many of you will know, Germans love their beer. All over the world Germany is famous for the quality of a) their cars, and b) their beer. Consequently, there is hardly anything Germans take so seriously as cars and beer. And that is saying something for a people as lighthearted as us. We used to take pride in drinking the most beer per person in the whole world - an achievement the Czech... Fri, 23 Oct 2009 22:29:48 +0900 http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=104273 http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=97656 zatic Part 2: http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=92762 Part 1: http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=92690 This part will conclude how I got back to Broodwar and eventually ended up on TL. I am afraid this is the least interesting part actually, since my story is probably very similar to most people who joined TL in the last couple of years. So, before I be... Wed, 15 Jul 2009 00:10:40 +0900 http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=97656