photo of the day

you may want to move to the netherlands after this :)

my next book

"how to make a trip extremely complicated". it seems i got lots of talent at this but where i am right now after so many years of practice i don't even notice anymore. other people tend to remind me pretty often though.

london trip

i think my priorities were achieved, and i am very happy with the trip which was both a lot of fun and an eye opener.

being a tourist:

• i went to tate modern which i loved, and i have to go back at some point.
• went to the british museum
• walked around the center, thames, st. paul etc.
• went for my favourite walk around camden market
• generally roamed in london and connected the different areas in my mind

meeting friends:
i saw a lot of vivek, fotis, maria, diogo, karthik, ksama, evrim, rado, karan & alina, yumna, jenny and i might be forgetting smn here. but it was all too cool to catch up after quite a while. and it's so exciting to feel i might be connecting with a lot more ppl soon.

on top of that i have already some positive news for my quest for a job abroad. but i am not announcing anything until things are final...in the meantime, enjoy some london photos :)

the british museum

not for the first time in my life i went to the british museum, where unfortunately i didn't manage to stay for a long time as i was completely upset by the excibits. i tried to understand why it's called "british" museum but couldn't fidure it out. can anyone explain? most of the excibits in there are Roman, Egyptian and Greek...

Of course one of the main reasons for me to be upset is the well known Elgin marbles. These are pieces of the parthenon which were taken away from Athens in the beginning of the 19th century, and though they have been claimed back, i don't believe they will ever be returned. they are, among a lot of other treasures displayed in this museum, a main attraction. and i guess this way they will remain.

At the time (1806) they were taken away from the Parthenon with the claim that they will be destroyed if they stay at their original location. So, Lord Elgin, who was saving the world at the time, decided without any personal benefit to remove the marbles and courier them to the UK. how cool is that?

what is lovely is also the fact that they remain in the british museum under the claim that they are being preserved better. what i saw in this museum is visitors actually touching the marbles, and not only them but also egyptian treasures which have survived for more than 3,500 years. there goes the preservation/maintenance argument as well.

anyway it's definitely worth a visit if you value the ancient civilisation of this planet and a few useful conclusions of how the world moves today.

Socrates wondering what he's doing in london.
Inscription explaining how the marbles got to the british museum.
Do these things really belong to london?

stomach not trained

my stomach needs a lot of training still to be able to handle all the indian spices we had last night, with a gang of about 10 indians :) but well, thanks guys, it was a great time indeed!

cowparade in athens

i know i am in london now, but well, i just wanted to mention that i am very happy the cowparade is out on the streets of athens nowadays. i first saw it in sweden 3 years ago and i think it's a very cool thing. a shout for creativity and against the illusion that art "should be serious" in one way or the other. go cows :)

a cow in stockholm:
a cow in athens:

see any differences? :)

london

here i am again. london after 3 and a half years. landed in gatwick yesterday and i can say that my last day and a half or so has been pretty cool so far. met fotis whose place i am staying at, met Rado after almost 2 years, had an assessment day today for a job i have applied for here. it all seems to be going pretty well. even the weather. honestly i prefer 12 degrees and showers from the 34 they had in athens today. too early for that, maybe in july accompanied by swimming, the 34 degrees are more tolerable.

london has always had an exciting feel for me. i have been here almost 10 times in my life, but i know nothing of the city, except how to get around and all the tourist stuff of course. so it's always like a new discovery to me, every road i walk on and every corner i turn to. all the way till monday morning when i leave to amsterdam my main priorities are:
1. catching up with old friends who are here
2. being a tourist

and i've got a feeling i'm gonna stock to them :)

eurovision contest...

is over finally and no more of it from now on. the only thing i have to say is that my favourite song was the norwegian, and unfortunately it ranked 14th place out of 24 :(

joy and confusion

you know how it's like when you are happy but you don't exactly what you are happy about? this is the kind of situation i find myself in right now. of course i have a few things to be happy about: my first trip abroad after 10 months, meeting some friends, having a few interviews, booking my tickets for RHCP, Morissey, Nickelback and Blof at the pinkpop festival. That's a few things to smile about. and the fact that i have now booked all flights and am already packing (leaving to athens tmw) makes this feeling of joy more intense.

On the other hand there's a lot of uncertainty in mind about where I am going to end up professionally but also which part of the world i am gonna settle in, which is a goal for year 2006. finally have a home of my own. but well, they say "fate leads the willing and drags the unwilling", so for now i'd rather be happy, include myself in the willing make my own efforts and leave the rest to fate.

sounds like a fair deal.

quote of the day

re: the use of a day :-)

"don't wait for the last judgment - it takes place every day" - Albert Camus

can't stop

Can't stop addicted to the shin dig
Cop top he says I'm gonna win big
Choose not a life of imitation
Distant cousin to the reservation
Defunkt the pistol that you pay for
This punk the feeling that you stay for
In time I want to be your best friend
Eastside love is living on the westend
Knock out but boy you better come to
Don't die you know the truth is some do
Go write your message on the pavement
Burnin' so bright I wonder what the wave meant
White heat is screaming in the jungle
Complete the motion if you stumble
Go ask the dust for any answers
Come back strong with 50 belly dancers

[Chorus:]
The world I love
The tears I drop
To be part of
The wave can't stop
Ever wonder if it's all for you
The world I love
The trains I hop
To be part of
The wave can't stop
Come and tell me when it's time to

Sweetheart is bleeding in the snowcone
So smart she's leading me to ozone
Music the great communicator
Use two sticks to make it in the nature
I'll get you into penetration
The gender of a generation
The birth of every other nation
Worth your weight the gold of meditation
This chapter's going to be a close one
Smoke rings I know your going to blow one
All on a spaceship persevering
Use my hands for everything but steering
Can't stop the spirits when they need you
Mop tops are happy when they feed you
J. Butterfly is in the treetop
Birds that blow the meaning into bebop

[Repeat Chorus]

Wait a minute I'm passing out
Win or lose just like you
Far more shocking
Than anything i ever knew
How about you
10 more reasons
Why i need somebody new just like you
Far more shocking than anything I ever knew
Right on cue

Can't stop addicted to the shin dig
Cop top he says I'm gonna win big
Choose not a life of imitation
Distant cousin to the reservation
Defunkt the pistol that you pay for
This punk the feeling that you stay for
In time I want to be your best friend
Eastside love is living on the westend
Knock out but boy you better come to
Don't die you know the truth is some do
Go write your message on the pavement
Burnin' so bright I wonder what the wave meant

Kick start the golden generator
Sweet talk but don't intimidate her
Can't stop the gods from engineering
Feel no need for any interfering
Your image in the dictionary
This life is more than ordinary
Can I get 2 maybe even 3 of these
Come from space
To teach you of the pliedes
Can't stop the spirits when they need you
This life is more than just a read thru

Now will you come to the RHCP concert with me? Why do I always have to negotiate about great concerts (like u2 last year)? Hello? It'll be one to remember. June 5th, Landgraaf, NL.

anything else

just watched anything else (2003) by woody allen, and loved it just as much as most of his movies. describing, well you know, one of those situations that are obvious to everyone else but the person involved, like a person whose partner is cheating or them or anything as obvious as this, but they don't wanna see it.

the movie is filled with sarcasm and ambigues - but still humorous - expressions. one of the best lines is when Falk says:

"i've been thinking about suicide, but i have so many problems, it wouldn't solve them all"

trash tv

η ατάκα του ΣΚ σε μια εκπομπή του EXTRA 3 είναι η εξής: "Σήμερα φιλοξενούμε στην εκπομπή μας τον Βασίλη Βεζυρέα, πρώην επίσκοπο και νυν τραγουδιστή και μοντέλο"!!!

Απλά θεώρησα ότι πρέπει να το μοιραστώ με όποιον διαβάζει :) Μόνο σε αυτή τη χώρα ακούει κανείς τέτοια μοναδικά, να του φτιάχνουν το κέφι.

travel plans

it's been a long time since i've had a travel schedule for countries other than gr. in fact, more than 10 months, since last july when i did everything possible to get a special permit from the army and travel to NL.

it was about time. May 23rd dimitris is in london, spending five days there and flying to the netherlands (May 29th), where i'll be spending time in rotterdam and amsterdam. the final leg of the trip is not yet defined but most probably i will be flying back to athens from brussels around the 6th of June.

apart from the serious part of the trip, which are a few interviews of course, i am trying to combine meeting friends and having some fun. so anyone up for a beer or the Red Hot Chili Peppers at the Pinkpop festival (June 5th), do e-mail me.

i might be unlucky missing my 2001 MCP reunion meeting in Egypt these days (or rather not unlucky but broke) but i guess i can combine work hard/play hard in europe as well :)

May 18th & 20th - the right time to turn off your tv

not that i am firmly against the eurovision song contest (this year taking place in greece) but i am a little bit sick of the commercialisation of everything, and particularly of seemingly useless events. it's just an overrated event, otherwise cool to watch, but still overrated.

i just don't enjoy the idea that it's supposedly sth with a higher purpose (uniting nations? it's not) or a song contest (again according to the voting system, it's not). and well, in this corner of the world this contest has been all over the place for months now (posters, internet, press, tv) with the subtle message that we don't have other issues to resolve in this country other than having this event well organised and keeping the sponsors happy. let along all the futile discussions and panels on tv, gossip shows and news around the contest and its participants. in the meantime, a few people will make lots of money on this, a big part of the event being organised by ert and paid by our taxes, with "superstar" event hosts receiving high bonuses while lots of volunteers accepted to work for free for the event...sounds like a fair deal.

if the organisers hadn't been smart enough to place it on a different date than the champions league final, i wouldn't be saying this: turn off your tv set on those dates. on the other hand, the eurovision has also become a classic to watch every year around this time, so if you do watch it, enjoy it, cos it cost a few people lots of money to organise this otherwise questionable event.

if anything can go wrong, it will

i am sure you heard of them. murphy's laws. it's something cool we like to bring up when things go wrong. in fact i find them more funny (funny "haha" not funny "strange") than serious statements, more like a humorous way to blame sth that's going wrong on sbd else without taking the blame yourself.

• If anything can go wrong, it will, at the most inopportune time
• If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong
• If anything just cannot go wrong, it will anyway
• If you perceive that there are four possible ways in which something can go wrong, and circumvent these, then a fifth way, unprepared for, will promptly develop
• Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse
• If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something
• Nature always sides with the hidden flaw
  

Cool or what? :p i was surprised to see how much of this stuff exists online, there are even sites competing about the accuracy of the laws as far as expressions as concerned, their origins, and also specialised sections (murphy's laws on love etc.)...

another weekend is over

in a somewhat tiresome but cool way. mainly because it looked like a weekend again. driving of to athens, hanging out with my best friends, just having fun, drinking, going to a party, watching football in the OAKA stadium, talking till sunrise on all sorts of philosophies and plans.

a friend told me that i'd better get used to what a weekend is, cos very soon i'll be working again. very true that when you don't work days start losing their previous meaning. a weekend or a holiday tends to mean nothing at all to me for the past couple of months now.

al bundy syndrome

life acts like making fun of you...remember that episode in "Married with Children" where Al hears this song on the radio and misses the title? the entire episode is centred around the way he looks for the song everywhere, hums it, goes to the music store etc and still cant find which one it is.

that's kinda what's been happening to me with a song for 2 months now. i've been hearing on the radio, in the cafeteria every now and then and nobody nknew how it's called. after several internet searches with a couple of lines from the lyrics i finally found it yesterday: twoface - "fire in your eyes". was worth it :)

insomnia

is it possible that reading stephen king's insomnia actually brings you insomnia? i wouldn't call it a direct relation but a weird coincidence, as over the past 3 evenings my sleep hasn't been the most normal of 'em all. especially when it comes to falling asleep and sleeping in intervals, rather than waking up.

i think the worst night was the last one, when i went to bed at 2am, ended up sleeping after 4:30am and woke up having a nightmare at 7:45. i reckon it's not the best time to begin my week but well, i will try to have a good week! and i definitely hope that my good old sleepless times are not back for good.

blogger templates search

here's the deal:

i want to give this blog o mine a facelift but am not very happy with the standard blogger templates. i need help on finding free blog templates online and the instructions for installing them.

Can anyone help?
e-mail me or post here :)

wired

i can't believe it - this is the day my broadband connection was finally activated - and in fact it's so cool i am sitting at the kitchen and posting this using a wireless connection after such a long time.

it looks like i have become an internet animal after all, i feel much better when connected :) i guess it's some kind of modern sickness, the version of the mobile phone i luckily escaped!

see you online!

quote of the day

from "Annie Hall", which I recently watched:

"I'd never join a club that would allow a person like me to become a member." - Woody Allen.

blaze of glory

do you think that if songs had a soul they would be jealous of other, cooler songs? In which case, there's few songs that would have cooler lyrics than this one :)

I wake up in the morning
And I raise my weary head
I got an old coat for a pillow
And the earth was last night’s bed

I don’t know where I’m going
Only God knows where I’ve been
I’m a devil on the run
A six gun lover
A candle in the wind

When you’re brought into this world
They say you’re born in sin
Well at least they gave me something
I didn’t have to steal or have to win

Well they tell me that I’m wanted
Yeah I’m a wanted man
I’m colt in your stable
I’m what cain was to abel
Mister catch me if you can

I’m going down in a blaze of glory
Take me now but know the truth
I’m going down in a blaze of glory
Lord I never drew first
But I drew first blood
I’m no one’s son
Call me young gun

You ask about my consience
And I offer you my soul
You ask if I’ll grow to be a wise man
Well I ask if I’ll grow old

You ask me if I known love
And what it’s like to sing songs in the rain
Well,I’ve seen love come
And I’ve seen it shot down
I’ve seen it die in vain

Shot down in a blaze of glory
Take me now but know the truth
’cause I’m going down in a blaze of glory
Lord I never drew first
But I drew first blood
I’m the devil’s son
Call me young gun

Each night I go to bed
I pray the lord my soul to keep
No I ain’t looking for forgiveness
But before I’m six foot deep

Lord,i got to ask a favor
And I’ll hope you’ll understand
’cause I’ve lived life to the fullest
Let the boy die like a man
Staring down the bullet
Let me make my final stand

Shot down in a blaze of glory
Take me now but know the truth
I’m going out in a blaze of glory
Lord I never drew first
But I drew first blood
And I’m no one’s son
Call me young gun
I’m a young gun