evolution in technology makes me feel like an idiot

one day you buy sth, say a broadband connection or a cell phone.
a week later (if not a day later) one of the following happens:
1. you can buy it half-price
2. you can buy it on the same price with extra features or peripherals or an extra gadget as a gift
3. you can buy a better device at the same price or lower

the thing is, i always have the sense that i am wasting my money or cannot get the best offer for myself, since there's always a better offer coming along a few days later. and an even better one a few days later than that. and so the story goes...

unease

i am probably a weirdo by definition by saying this, but i have been on a few days on leave from work and i feel i wanna go back, though i am bored to death at work. i just can’t stand immobility though.

the last few days have been great though. we had amazing xmas back in my hometown with my parents and sister, i took time to rest, and now i am back in Athens where the new year is set to be celebrated. last book I am reading for the year: anthony kiedis’ (a.k.a. RHCP singer) life story.

monday is not too far away. getting back to work should get me back to my normal pace.

merry xmas and happy new year to everyone

lets all hope that 2006 will bring more peace and happiness to this world, and that we all manage to enjoy it as much as possible. for all those celebrating Christmas, "merry Christmas" to all of you!

i am on leave from work starting on monday the 26th till friday the 30th, and most probably will be in athens. if you are around, just call me up to go for a drink :) nothing special planned for holidays like a trip or anything, just family time, personal space and catching up with friends.

i can't believe

there's actually a part of the public that reads this as serious news. i found it very funny but the article style not very appealing. if you wanna post this on news, you make a joke about it. pls don't post it as sth serious....

2005 – 10 days left

I figured it’s not really necessary to wait for the last day of the year to evaluate my goals like I did in 2004. I can just do it now, since it’s also quite clear what the landscape looks like and not much is gonna change over the next 11 days.

As posted last year on this blog, here’s the evaluation of my resolution for 2005 (AI MMM style :).
#1: Finish University.
STATUS: done.
#2: Get a job, or at least being close to getting one by the end of the year
STATUS: done. Even though It’s a temp job, it’s still a source of income and got me moving. To be honest I considered this one to be an ambitious goal, and I’m very happy I made it.
#3: Keep and expand my networks however I can.
STATUS: done. All the contact I could have regained with friends, I did. And I got a whole bunch of new friends and contacts from the army, though this was not in my expectations in the beginning of the year. Lately there’s been a lot of reconnection with friends from the past whom I had lost contact with since I moved back to Greece and joined the army.
#4: Think a little less of my own happiness and a little more of other people's around me.
STATUS: this goal is not measurable, it’s more of an attitude which I somehow believe is a field where I improved as a person.

First time ever that I get a 4 out of 4. But how does the year feel? It feels a little bit like it didn’t exist at all. Don’t get me wrong, I am not too strict on myself. It’s just that though I have the army in my mind as an experience, I haven’t got it placed somewhere specifically in time. I still somehow believe that it’s last year when my AI term finished (though it was in 2003), just to give an example of what I mean.

So goalswise 2005 has been a “successful” year, but it somehow doesn’t feel like that. It feels like all that has been done has happened in the past 40 days only. And I still feel that there’s a lot more that could have been achieved during the year, though I can’t put it to words easily.

As I said before, 2006 definitely needs to be more ambitious. And a better year as a whole.

turkey in the eu

i've been wanting to post something on this issue for a long time, but never got the peace of mind to do so...

sometime in september the eurobarometer was out (a survey on the citizens of eu on their opinions on various matters). the short version of the greek survey can be found here. according to the survey, conducted among 1000 greek citizens, some 70% are against turkey and albania joining the eu in the mid-long term. that's an impressive percentage for any survey, and to be honest i wasn't expecting it.

now the deal is i don't know what that opinion is based on. is it based on fears? on traumatic experiences from our relations to our neighbours in the past (all our neighbours as a matter of fact)? detailed information or just cultural misunderstandings? gut feeling? or just the media?

ok so my opinion is that we don't have so much that devides us with our largest neighbour anymore, though there are still some issues to resolve on a diplomatic level. as for the traumatic past, i guess that if both sides are willing to move on, we will. the same happened with germany after WWII, when all the country was under occupation and we were on constant war status. i don't see any hostility between the two countries half a century later. that's been the result of work from both sides.

of course there's a lot to think about when you consider a big country with different realities entering the eu. i don't believe in exclusion because of cultural factors (i.e. religion). i think that the eu countries (especially with the latest enlargement) have a lot of things in common but also a lot of diversity within them. my opinion is basically that if the country fulfils the criteria in the future (social structures, economic criteria, consistent will to improve etc) and has issues resolved with current eu members (i.e. greece) it should be admitted as a full member.

some people say there's a lot to gain and others say there's a lot to lose from turkey's accession in the eu. the truth is, it can be either of the two, depending on the preparation of both sides. both turkey and the eu prepare for the accession. even if turkey is 100% ready to proceed in the future, if the eu hasn't regulated the job market for example, there will be chaos caused by a 70 mln country being added to it. and that's just one the examples. but what i mean to say is that, if both sides are prepared and are clear on the goals of this marriage, then good results will come out of it. that's my call. after all, if there were no benefits for any of the two sides, the issue wouldn't have been discussed and negotiated upon for so long.

now, of course there should be no discounts on criteria set for entering the eu club. the fact that the eu has proceeded in enlarging itself by 66,67% (10 countries entering a 15 cy club) shouldn't mean that accession is easy or can be done massively. and for the skeptics in my country lets not forget what kind of chaos greece was when we entered the eu in the beginning of the 80's and how many objections we faced. today we are a much better place than we used to be, with still a lot to work on. but we have been helped by the union and the accession process, and i believe we have offered to the eu as well.

once the decision has been made for turkey to be a candidate country, everyone needs to put their best effort not only to fulfill the criteria (it's too big an investment to just let it fail) but also to defy prejudice, resolve remaining issues and pursue objective and fair information flow to all sides.

2006 - year of big decisions - part I

is there a year when you actually don't make any important decisions at all? i think not. in fact, even things that seem trivial might sometimes change our lives in athe most drastic way.

i know for sure that 2006 is going to be the year of important decisions, ambitious goals, and big leaps. it just has to be this way for me. there's quite a few things on my mind and options on what i could be doing professionally, personally and otherwise in my life. it will all fit into place soon.

photo of the last few days

i was lucky enough to travel to Chalkidiki, Serres, Naoussa and Edessa in northern greece these days, with my work. there's a few good pictures that i took, but this view i enjoyed the most, since you can see5 mountains in the background, during sunset. unfortunately it cannot be captured on camera as beautiful as it is in reality...

for my greek friends only

somewhere in naoussa...

i don't know whether some people keep writing things ridiculously wrong. either because they don't care/know or just to attract attention if their shop is on the highway.

anyway, this one gave me a good laugh :) enjoy it!

bomb blast in athens

i don't know much about it, since i only heard about it on the radio yesterday, but what i do know is that the place where the bomb blast took place is in the city center, and that half an hour before the blast i was at Syntagma square myself, taking the bus to the airport. Freaky, no?

Luckily no victims have been reported, as it was very early in the morning (6am).

dimitris is officially a graduate

it's true, i also have a photo to prove it, from december 8th! in case you wonder who the other guys are, they're my parents :)

xmas in thessaloniki

xmas is coming everywhere and decorations along with it. check out this huge (you can't tell from the photo though) boat made of lightbulbs in aristotelous square, thessaloniki. It's some 30 metres high!

photos from mt. Athos are finally here

and you are welcome to visit :)

urban life

there is a thought running through my head for the past couple of weeks, for the time i have been working, that is. people have never been so close before in terms of connectivity opportunities (transportations, telecommunications, internet etc) but so far apart from each other. i don’t know what’s exactly wrong, but I have a few ideas:

1. work. no i don’t wanna sit around for the rest of my life by winning the lottery. but I have observed that by working 5 (for myself) or more (for a few other people) days a week, ending up at home in the evening, you feel like doing nothing. this results that in the weekend most of the times you just wanna rest to be ok for the rest of the week (when you will be working) and end up not seeing anyone or having any kind of serious social life.

2. big city lifestyle. when I travel with my work, it’s all fine, cos i am in smaller places. i finish work and within half an hour the latest i am back to my hotel, free to shower, eat, arrange meeting with friends in the evenings, read. but when i am in athens, if i finish work at 6 i am home at 8. same goes for the mornings, i have to leave much earlier to work. my day ends up being 21 hours instead of 24, losing three hours in traffic. and it’s not just the traffic. it’s the fact that this doing nothing and waiting and moving through all this noise actually makes you feel like a wreck in the end. the result is that you just wanna spend some time on your own in the weekend…

a lot of people i know complain that they feel alone in big cities, but they still wouldn’t quit this lifestyle for a smaller place. it’s more of a professional choice (opportunities offered), than a lifestyle one.

i feel i am one of the lucky ones. lived in 4 different places in my life, lamia (my hometown), athens, thessaloniki and rotterdam, all of them with pros and cons. and i know that, as much as i enjoy the advantages of a big place, i’d rather live in a smaller one and have access to the bigger place than spend my life there and be miserable throughout it.

so this becomes one of the big questions to decide on in the coming months: where i want to spend my life. it’s just about one of the most important decisions to make, along with the professional path i am going to follow.

till then, a temporary measure towards personal decay in this environment is to “force” myself to be active during weekdays and weekends, that is engage in activities i enjoy and socialize with friends, in other words, go where i want to go and not where the current of work and lifestyle take me.

AEK - PAOK: 2-1

it's been 10 years since i last went to see my favourite team - AEK - play football, 1995 was the year. so tonite i went to the athens olympic stadium along with another 25,000 people and a friend from the army, and well, we won.

that's not the best thing of the evening though. i liked the feeling of being in the stadium again, i was impressed by the olympic stadium, which i visit for the first time and i found to be an amazing site. this might be one of the scheduled activities for my next few weekends...