Random randomness

I should be asleep, but I have been watching old Hugh Laurie youtube videos, and I just had to share!





He's really too funny!

You know, the usual

Yesterday we had a general strike, a big demostration in Athens and rioting.

I really wish something would come of it all! I'm so tired and disappointed and depressed with our useless government and the fucking IMF and all the rest of them that just want to turn us into Guatemala.

I have Opinions on the matter, and I wrote a whole giant mental rant about the subject in mind on the bus today, but now that I'm home, I'm just tired.

Constantis, my friend, the revolution you promised is taking too long in coming. The Egyptians beat us to it! Let's hope a bit of their spirit crosses the sea and helps us out.

Misery loves company

It's been an utterly miserable day today. It's been raining since last night. It's still raining. It will most probably be raining tomorrow too.

And because I live in a completely ridiculous country where a little rain creates havoc, it took me three hours to get home from work! Three hours! When it usually only takes one at the most. I want those two hours back, dammit! I missed my dance class because of the stupid rain and stupid useless greek roads.

Anyway, just to bring you down too, here's one of the weepiest songs around.

Sigh

The civil engineer and site overseer in my office was fired yesterday - he was practically the only one in the office I actually like - and I wasn't feeling in the mood. Actually I'm not sure if he was fired or he quit. There was a large amount of irate yelling between him and the boss, that I tried to tune out as I hid by the photocopier, before he stormed out and the boss started calling all his associates to tell them our civil engineer didn't work for the office any more. Great! *sigh* Things are just getting worse and worse…

To draw on a wall, or not to draw on a wall?

It was saturday today! (Still is actually, but the sun has set by now.) What is saturday in my neighbourhood? Market day! Being sick the past couple of weeks, it had been ages since I last went. Did you know it's artichoke season? Which creates the question: should I try cooking fresh artichokes, even though cleaning them is a drag, or should I just stick to frozen ones?

On my way there, I passed through an underpass (because I live near central main roads, bleurgh!) and was hit by the smell, not of car fumes, no, but of spray paint. You know what I mean, sort of sickly sweet and a bit ozony. On the other side of the underpass (near the council housing - or worker's housing as we call it - because I live in a working class neighbourhood, yay!) I came across the youngest taggers I have ever seen (at two o'clock midday!). I think the oldest must have been eleven or barely twelve and the youngest seven or eight. Or maybe they were just all very short and young looking...

So tagging, yeah. What do you think of it? I'm all for graffiti and street art. It greatly improves the dreary dirty grey walls of my city and there are a number of good graffiti/street artists active in Athens.


Case in point:





But tagging? Not so much. It's uninspired, messy and has no discernible aesthetic merit.

Not all days are good

So I'm still sick. I thought I was over it, but today I started feeling awful again. I don't have anything serious enough to stay home and lay in bed all day (doesn't that sound wonderful?), it just bad enough for me to drag myself through the motions of day while lost in an uncomfortable fuzzy headed exhausted daze and collapse into a catatonic heap once at home.

Today was a weird, inauspicious day. It was colder than usual (2C-9C! for us that's cold!), and I had to drag myself out of bed earlier than usual to give in my VAT at the Tax Office (once there, I found myself trapped in an incredible snail-like queue - both in pace and shape -, but that's another story).

On the ridiculously long and winding bus ride there, I passed by a school at the time all the kids were arriving, only to see police cars with flashing lights, an ambulance and a empty stretcher being wheeled out it. You know, the sort of thing that gives you a shock and a strange clenching feeling. I never found out what happened, but my guess is that a kid was hit by car, seeing as the school is right on top of a big busy road.

Later on in the office, as I was trying to overcome the ringing in my head and get some work slowly done, the boss arrives and the first thing he says is "Guess what? So-and-so is dead." Now that was hit straight to the solar plexus! The guy was the architect and head of the Voula town planning office. In other words a man I saw pretty often, had talked to numerous times and who for some strange reason always remember my face and greeted me when he saw me. He was also very good friends with my boss.

Ok, he was practically a stranger to me personally, but yet he wasn't old (in his early fifties), in good health and always in good spirits. A rather handsome pleasant man for his age. He lived alone and it took them two days to find his body. My first reaction to the news was "How did it happen?", our secretary asked "Did they off him?", while our civil engineer said "Did he commit suicide?". That last shocked me even more.

So, um, I'm feeling strangely raw and upset by the death of this man I hardly knew.

Staying in

Yesterday I was thinking of this song on my way home from work.

"I travelled the world for years, you just stayed in your room."

That's me. I feel like I'm spending all my days alone in my room, and it's getting me down.

But not today. Today is a warm sunny day, and once I get the food shopping done, I'm going for a walk. Most probably to look at some shops.