Wedding season…

River season has a contender. Wedding season starts this weekend at Bristol. One of my best friends from uni is the first of the gang to take the plunge. Just 3 weeks after a second one – best mate really- is joining ‘that side of the river’ with me being the boatman aka best man. 3 weeks after another pal from uni is joining the club as well- this time in India. Not a best man this time, but honoured to be invited and really looking forward to the whole experience.

Midweek Clubbing…

Good in theory, even better in practise –especially with a block of eastern Europe birds celebrating birthdays-. The problem ? The day after at … work. Physically you are there – mentally you are … sleepwalking :(

Walking the line…

It is amazing what might be around the corner from the place one has been passing by every day and maybe never realize. I was shown recently that one of the canals in London happens to pass by literally a block from the area of City University where I am based. This weekend, being in another area of London where I hang out occasionally (Sundays for live music concerts mostly), Camden town I followed the paths by the canal and discovered a very impressive root, crossing the London zoo and ending up in virtually the city centre. Further walking along the packed with tourists on a shopping spree central streets, and then the world cup final. Day well spent.

Following the water …

The place ? The London canals (northern section this time)

Time ? noon to midnight. Ok noon to around 15:00 was spent over emails/surfing/coffee. The canal tour started afterwards and lasted till 10ish. It must have been 20ish kilometres. Outcome of the day: A great walk and a not so bad book “Map Of Bones” finished. Cost: 2 pizzas to top up energy at 10ish pm.

It must be the season…

River season that is. After all these walks and explorations of the London waterways – a rather comprehensive leaflet named “Explore the Thames and its waterways” made its way into my hand. It is full of information and great maps. Seems like the exploration season will continue for a while…

Testing Windows Live Writer

So far so good.This nifty application seems to do the trick.. It might be exactly what I need to finally upload all this backload of entries I have in text files..

Once they got it right…

Best movie of the year ‘Crush’ I got the chance to see it recently and I have to say hats off. For once they got it right. A movie that stays with you, in the league of movies such as ‘21gramms’ ‘Inside I ‘m dancing’. Movies that are foremost about the characters and the story. Not about the latest effects or the coolest good/bad guy, the / sexiest good/bad girl

Spoils of war…

Or in other words, perks of the job. One of my best friends was recently in London on a conference. Thus, I had the chance to visit, catch up, run some more the company tab and heard of numerous hilarious stories of what is going on when the company sends them to such conferences…Stories ranging from people supposed to turn to meeting but being to drunk to attend to. Ordering and charging at each other’s room hm well… educational programs on tv. Our project meeting at university seem very very tame in comparison. After a two days of meetings all we got was dinner at a greek restaurant –which well with me being greek comes miles behind mom’s cooking…

The bazaar…

A city of 7 mils and one can not find red shoe laces (for placing them on white sneakers with red stripes), in the centre but such laces can be found in Camden town.

An area in London well known for its open market with stalls selling from leather items to .. anything really. Really cool place to go shopping, perhaps not for electronics, everyday clothing or required houseware items, but go shopping with the ‘primal’ meaning of the term. Go shopping to explore, to discover things that are not required, yet they form this extra something, without being instilled in us through marketing and promotions. The rich variety of food one can get at the stalls, Mexican next to Chinese, next to Moroccan completes the picture with the perfect setting for a lazy relaxed stroll, Sunday morning to afternoon.

Aggregation of coincidences…

Returning in the same places to find them unchanged – only to discover ways in which yourself has changed. So true. I happened to be out the last two Fridays in places / areas of London I have not been for 3 and 4 years respectively. The first place stroke a chord due to its location. London, Hampstead, an area full of memories of certain person(s), and a certain era long bygone. The second place was a club. Guanabara. An excellent brazilian bar/club. This time it was even better, as it had a live band from one of the schools of samba in London. Had a really amazing time, having old memories stirred.

The Right Tool...

It is unimaginable the boost in productivity that comes with using the right tool. “Work smarter instead of harder” relates to that. Sure one can work harder and we often do. But how much harder? Even with 16 hours instead of 8 (say for a typical working day) that is only twice the productivity (assuming one does not burn out after a week or so).

Only ? Well, if we assume that a tool increases productivity of a task tenfold (at least) and one
spends more than an hour performing this task in a given day well… The math says that that is
54 minutes gain in this hour alone. If this trend follows for the rest tasks / hours, the 8 hours of
work become 15 without the extra effort. With the extra effort….

What is the catch ? Well getting /creating the right tool. Depending on the job it could be a new steam iron to cut down iron time in half to writing some scripts to automate packaging and deployment of Web Services (something I have been doing dozens of times a day for the past 2 weeks). The lesson is: ALWAYS spent time in the beginning to furnish yourself with the right tool. Don’t be lazy, don’t go for the quick and dirty approach. The former will pay off .Even if in some very rare cases it doesn’t, well considering ALL the cases collectively it still does.

Hard Candy...

Nothing to do with sweets. The tile refers to a newly released movie. It is promoted to follow in the footsteps of ‘Hostel’ (gore-wise) and the basic idea is that a paedophile brings a 15 year old girl to his house, but she drugs him instead.. The hunter becomes the hunted… Interesting idea, both from the role switching point of view as well as the social issue it deals with – in light of what can be seen in the news everyday, from individual cases to campaigns to change legislation.

Two interesting points. The gore or more precisely the lack of it. There is some violence yes, but what is particularly upsetting is what the audience perceives it is happening, without it being shown in graphic details. It gets better afterwards, as it keeps dealing with pain, in particular the contrast of physical vs. emotional, showing how much deeper and intense the latter is. Certainly not a film for the light hearted.

In the heart of darkness...

Alternatively, visit to a goth /electronic/ punk club. Quite an experience I have to say.

First the place was a well run down multi-store warehouse – yet at a quite central location: Islington, London. Supposedly it is one of the best in Europe. Slimelight.com.

Second the people. Or should I better say the costumes. Mostly people were dressed in black,few in white – bits of red here and there. Spikes, lots of garter belts, fishnets (every seen an elbow fishnet?), tatoos.

Dancing styles varied from ‘to the beat of the music’ (if you can say that), to thrashing around like an eel, rave style, and the all times favourite slow and raunchy (for the ladies).

Best costumes of the night was a blonde lady, in a Moulin Rouge style dressing but all in black – quite distinct and a bold guy who was dressed like a Vatican priest in black and wearing a huge metal crucifix – we dubbed him the exorcist. He was spooky, he would talk to people and we could actually listen to what he was saying from 5 meters away over the music and the bass… The sound of poltergeist, literally.

Quite a few people were holding multi-colour light sticks and they were giving quite a show on a couple of platforms there were available. On these platforms there were metal cages were typically ladies were getting in and dancing.. Mostly in twos – the slow and raunchy style… A friend described the whole thing appropriately as soon as we got in, she said: “Have you seen Blade II? Well the scene at the club- that is where we are” - in a nutshell.

An “180 degrees turn”

Isn’t this what they say (always this ‘they’) for people, situations things that basically re-invented themselves.

This trains of thought departed from Ritchie Blackmore (member of
Rainbow and Deep Purple) and his turn from his rock roots to medieval music (for the lack of better description ) with his last group Blackmore’s Night (He and his fiancée really, Candice Night).

Well their last album (can’t say it rocks – that would be an oxymoron) but it is a damn good one – unusual interesting sounds and definitely full of an epic yet subtle element, plus the very chromatic and distinct voice of Candice.

Reinventing ourselves in our work is perhaps not so hard or even unusual. What about our lives? Is it reinvention or merely evolution? If that is the ‘way forward’ what is this magic spell the past have over us that keeps us mesmerised? Old movies, series, songs, the 80s, 90s, X0s (replace according to your age) let alone memories…

I want...

“I want what all men want – I just want it more”: a memorable line from a movie based on a story thousands of years old.

Is this true ? Is it as old as mankind ? What do we really want in the end ? Power ? Glory ? Something else ?

Is it the same for everyone or does it differ from individual to individual? Can we ever really obtain it ? At what cost ? What sacrifices does it require?

Assuming it is true, does the same or (more likely) something analog hold for women? If so is it the same with that of men (unlikely) in which case is what every woman wants compatible with what every man wants and vice versa ? If not how do these two can be reconciled?

The archetype says that Achilles falls for a woman…What is this fall ? Where does the glory lies ? Is it in the rise ? Or is it in the fall ? In the death or the re-birth of the Phoenix ?