Πρέπει να διαβαστεί…

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And a post in Greek, just because I want to.

Ο Γιώργος έφερε στην προσοχή μου ένα καταπληκτικό άρθρο του Νίκου Δήμου που εκφράζει απόλυτα αυτό που πιστέυω και εγώ για την σημερινή ελληνική χριστιανο-κοινωνία.

Το προτείνω ανεπυφύλακτα σε όλους τους Έλληνες αναζητητές-φιλόσοφούς.

Οι προσωπικές μου σκέψεις σε αυτό το ζήτημα είναι προφανώς παρόμοιες.
Δεν είναι δυνατόν, με τις σημερινές μας γνώσεις να κυριαρχεί ακόμα τέτοιος σκωταδισμός στην Ελλάδα απο χορτάτους παπάδες που δεν θέλουν να αφήσουν την κότα με το χρυσό αυγό.

Είναι δυνατόν, ο νέος ο κόσμος ακόμα να χειραφετείται απο της απαρχαιομένες απόψεις των γιαγιάδων μάς; Γιατι μόνο οι γιαγιάδες πιστεύουν αυτές τις παπαριές ακόμα.

Πώς είναι δυνατόν ο κόσμος να αμύνεται τόσο σθεναρά στην απόκτηση κριτικής σκέψης και να αρκείται στο να βλέπει fame story το οποίο καίει εγκεφαλικά κύτταρα.
Βλέπω καθημερινά άτομα να παρατάνε τις ασχολίες και τις παρέες τους για να πάνε να παρακολουθήσουν, αν είναι δυνατόν, Eurovision. Εκπομπές επιπέδου δηλαδή.

Έχω καταντήσει να διαβάζω ένα βιβλίο Ιστορίας και να θεωρούμαι διανοούμενος σε σχέση με τα μουλάρια που το θεωρούν χάσιμο χρόνου. Δοκίμάζω να κάνω μια συζήτηση με φίλους που θεωρώ λίγο πιο ψαγμένους και μόνο ένας στους τρεις δεν θα το γυρίσει στο χιούμορ ή θα αποφύγει την συζήτηση. Απογοήτευση σου λέω.

Κανείς δεν αγαπάει την φιλοσοφία πια, κανείς δεν μαθαίνει απο την ιστορία. Κανείς δεν κρίνει. Απλά τα καταπίνουν όλα αμασητεί και λένε και ευχαριστώ

Σε μία χώρα γεμάτη με ειδιμονες-ηλίθιους (idiot-savants εν αγγλιστί) οι Θρησκευτική εξουσία κόβει και ράβει διότι κανείς δεν κάνει τον λόγο να μάθει τι σαπίλα κρύβεται απο πίσω. Όλοι φυσικά το ξέρουν κατα βάθος αλλα κανείς δεν τολμάει να αντισταθεί ενεργά απο φόβο οτι είναι μόνος. Ναί, υπάρχουν φωνές στο Internet που τα χώνουν και τους χαίρομαι αλλα είμαστε στην αφάνεια ρε γαμώτο. Ο κυρ Μήτσος ή έστω ο Μιχαλάκης ο φοιτητής θεολογίας (έλεος) δεν πρόκειται να τα δει ποτέ.

Αλλα πώς θα γίνει κάποια αλλαγή εαν αυτοί που φέρουν την φωνή της λογικής (εγώ και εσύ δηλαδή) σιωπούνε απο φόβο; Θα μου πείς τώρα, όταν το κράτος μπορεί να καταδικάζει ξένους συγγραφείς επειδή έγραψαν σάτιρα για τον Ιησού, φαντάσου τι μπορεί να κάνει αυτή η θεοκρατική χούντα σε έναν απλό πολίτη…

Ελευθερία του λόγου my ass!

Hey look at me, I'm Ian Anderson!

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Ian WannabeHeh, well, not really 🙂
This was taken in Μανώλης’ place with a flute-like instrument.

Now that I mentioned this, yesterday was a day at his house, where I went shortly after fixing some partition problems on my system. While there I copied a heckload of movies and pr0n* and finally took my pr0n* T-shirt back! The bastard had it for almost a year!

On my part, I brought him two games and the firefly series which we tried in vain to copy.

Finally we tried to play some Empire Earth but failed miserably. Even though we were all using the same version, on computer kept thinking it had another…pretty strange!

Defining Characteristic

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I just read this piece which at the end has this specific thing to say

“I suppose we all do it to some extent, base our self-perception on a single characteristic and cling to it with every ounce of solid matter in our bodies.”

Now this is a very interesting thought and it got me thinking about what could possibly be my own “special characteristic”. I know for sure that isn’t something ephemeral like beauty or physique and it isn’t something like “being always right” or “perfect worker”, no. And instantly it came to me.

I’m Good

I define myself from my high personal integrity and generic altruism and consider that I do things in the best interests of everyone involved. I try to take the right side in every conflict, not lie and not badmouth others.
This is also where I attribute the good luck that I frequently encounter, sort of like a Karma effect.

As a result, there is no single most easy way to get me worked up than to insult my precious personal integrity. Call me ugly, stupid, lazy, whatever. I don’t care. But call me a double-faced, backstabbing lying sonova and you’re got a heated argument on your hands.
There is just no easier reason to make me do something than to call me egoistical for not doing it.

I don’t know if such a thing should be considered good or bad, but imho you can’t take the good without the bad and I choose to believe that the good in this case overwhelm the bad. If I had to choose that special characteristic, this would be my choice once more…well ok, perhaps “Sex God” sounds good as well 😉

Vampirefreak? Moi?

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The last few days have been…interesting. Things have been turning up for the better and I couldn’t be any happier.

First a new road opens in my professional career, and just at the right time for my current psyche. You see, I’ve started to get bored and drudgerous which for me isn’t so good. Then as I was thinking of ways to spice up my life, my sisters comes and offers me an option I had previously turned down (at a time where I was happy with the way things stand). This time however it just clicked. Even my sister was taken aback for a while after I said “Great idea!”. She was prepared for a convincing argument and failing that, some good old fashioned name calling.
So I’ve talked to a few people and it seems that within 3 months things will be quite different. We’ll see…

I’ve also registered over at Vampire Freaks (VF Henceforth) which was a result of recent developments in my relationship tab.
However I’m neither a “vampire freak” nor a goth or anything like that. au contraire, I’m actually quite the happy-go-lucky guy with a perpetual smile on my face. I did make an attempt at a melancholy theme (and I even danced a bit at X-cel club this Saturday, just for the kicks) but my registration is mainly just a means to an end.

What I came to understand about VF is that it is a ego-boost galore. The fact that you can see who has rated you makes that the rating system complete off-base. People use it both as a bribe and as a threat. If you dare rate someone with anything other than 10, you’d be sure not to get a 10 yourself (and let’s not even dare contemplate what will happen if you rate them under 7). If someone rates you as a 10 on the other hand, he most likely ask you to rate them a 10 as well as a thanks, in effect throwing all unbiased voting to the wind. That’s why in the end, all the rating you see are over 9.5 even on truly ugly people.

As a result of my VF registration I also took the WoD [tag]test[/tag] and the result amazed me.
I mean, mages ARE my favorite WoD type but I didn’t try to be rated as one. I just answered the questions truthfully and what do you know….

You Are A Mage

…amazing!

Napoleon Dynamite

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A while ago while surfing the blogosphere I saw this movie mentioned. It immediately caught my attention because I was a big geek at school and I always had a special place for nerd movies.

(spoiler)

Well, this one was nothing I was anticipating. The protagonist was a total looser, as was expected of course, but for the whole movie I kept waiting for things to change for the better, you know, in the classic Hollywood legacy.

They didn’t.
And that’s the beauty of the movie. It’s a movie about boring people having boring and all too mundane lives. The movie made me cringe at times from the way Napoleon was reacting to situations. I mean, I was a nerd but never of that magnitude.
In the end however I couldn’t help but cheer for the underdog.

This movie is a true “In your face” film against all those classic Teenage movies or Hollywood tripe like “The Revenge of the Nerds”. Although I was surprised on how boring it was at times, after it ended I couldn’t help but liking it (the 80s pop music helped immensely as well.)

I don’t think this movie is for everyone but it is worth watching just in case you like it.

Visits from the south

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Τασος Ζαχαριάδης visited me this Weekend. He came to buy some machines for Tattoo and I kept him company while he was here. Saturday he slept at my place (after we came home from some late night drinking) and Sunday we hand around a bit while I wrote him a heckload of pr0n and then headed out for cofee.

We ended up at Navarinou Square drinking Ouzo with 3 girls, with one of which I had something going for a while at the Summer. She seemed very friendly once again.

After a glass or so, we decided to head out to the Silver Dollar where a friend of mine I met on the road notified me was a Rammstein night. Kewl!

There we met a hosts of people but the highlight of the night was one guy who I initially started talking because he thought Power Metal was retarded. Then after a while Τασος joined the conversation which gradually degraded from friendly talk about jazz to which instrument is better and if the Bouzouki is gtp. Now, I know I can be absolute and strong willed at times, but I am as agreeable as a girl scout in heat in front of Bon Jovi, compared to this dude. They talked for 3 hours on this subject and this guy followed us to the Souvlaki parlor in order to continue the conversation. I’ve never seen someone so obsessed on proving his point.

Yeah, ok dude, you’re an expert on guitar and can play popes, but that doesn’t mean that the rest of the instruments don’t have a reason to exist. Jeez!

Ubuntu

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I’ve finaly brought Ubuntu where I want it. I now have [tag]amaroK[/tag]-svn, Firefox 1.5 and nothing has crashed for a few days. I seem to be on stable footing finally.

For the last few days I’ve been tweaking the Smart DJ in order to make it work as I want it to. I’ve converted all my .mp3 collection to .ogg, I’ve vorbisgained everything and had the script analyze everything.
I got it working after a few tries but it still brings some pretty stupid matches now and then. Until I know how its tempo/style slider works I don’t think I’ll be able to use it to its full potential.

However I have written a small guide for Ubuntu here that I hope may help someone.

Junkie of the Old Republic

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These past three days I’ve been hooked in front of my computer screen in a marathon of gaming I haven’t taken in a while. The source is of course knights of the Old Republic 2 which I took from the local video club on Friday as I was sitting bored.
What started as a way to pass the idle time ended up in a full blown activity that held me home even on Saturday night. I mean, I actually played from 4pm to 8 am on Saturday and then from 4pm to 1am on Sunday which amounts to 25 hours within two days, and that’s not even counting my Friday and Monday sessions…ugh!

However I don’t expect to be hooked for much longer, my short attention span will take care of that for me. If I haven’t finished it within the week (which I fully expect to do) I will probably get bored with it.

Monday was not so much of a gaming session (although I played for a full 4 hours as well) as a restore session on my PC. After failing in my tries to copy the game without needing a no-cd patch I ended up restoring my windows partition from the ghost image I took after I installed and everything seems fine now. I still didn’t make the perfect image with both Alcohol 120 and CloneCD but since this is just a single player game I don’t care as much.

B-day

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Well, I’ve finally turned 1/4 of a century. I don’t feel too old.

It seems however that my lj writing has taken a break for a while. I just don’t feel like writing at this point.

This Monday I send SMS to various people I know to come over at the [tag]X club[/tag] where I’ll be hanging out tonight. Today most of those canceled 🙁 Still, If at least one or two show up things should be fine. I also plan to drink a lot (at least for me)

Happening this last month:

We finally solved the problem with the AD at work. The security policies had been corrupted and we restored the default ones. Pericles and I have become friends and go and eat crepes together.

I’ve once again failed at romance. A girl I thought was mine, changed her mind in the last minute. At least she continues to talk to me…

I’ve played F.E.A.R and finished it. I Started playing UFO Aftershock and I’ve already grown bored with it (Although I still like it a lot).

I used duct tape to fix my broken [tag]firestaff[/tag] (duct tape rulez!) and started double-twirling which is much fun. Unfortunately the weather screwed me up and unless I find a place big enough to use (or risk freezing to death) I won’t be twirling for a while.
Here’s some (not-so) nice pics as well. I turned one into my avatar as well 😉

I’ve formatted and reinstalled Ubuntu from the start. I got tired of stupid crashed and bugs. Still experiencing those. I’m waiting for Fedora 5 now.

That’s for now