Looks like there's no end to unethical practices in Greece; one finds those at all levels.

Latest example I came across is cartel pricing on certain popular electronic products by, it seems, all major store chains in Greece.

Is who you are a question of genes? Rich and successful people would certainly love it if everyone else believed so - simply because that would make their position seem natural and inevitable. But is it so? What if losers did not give up when thy lost? What if they were convinced they can get all the way to the top. Would things be as easy for the rest?

One of the things that has always bothered me about Greece and Greeks is their apparent conviction that one can actually make up for originality by exaggeration. A typical example is this famous (in Greece) Greek singer, who trying to innovate when it comes to her presentation chooses to wear a mini-skirt that is actually shorter than those one would see in a strip bar or a bordello.  Mind you this is actually a live event. I simply don't get it...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUkYKivAXX4

For the past year I have been noticing a new kind of spam in my site's comments. I should say spam attempts as my site uses a moderation queue (and not CAPCHA) for all submitted comments and other non-registered user new content.

When I saw the almost ruined 1967 photo of my mom (below, left-side) I got a flash-back of my little hand scrubbing a coin on its surface. I can't begin to fathom why I had to do that some 35 years ago but I did know I had to do something about it today; enter picture restoration and photoshop...

I entered my cat Farofa in a fund raising pet contest:

http://photocontest.humanesociety.org/contest.html?page=viewInd&id=65225&contestId=2

Go vote for her if you can!

I went to help my sister buy an LCD TV today at a big electronics chain store in Greece. The salesman was the typical Greek: loud, pushy, absolute in his views and of course completely wrong. My sister presented him with the following dilemma: should I buy a 32inch LCD TV with Internet@TV, and a 100Hz refresh rate or a 37inch LCD TV without the aforementioned features? He recommended the 37inch set. Here's the reasons he gave:

Here is my post on the BBC news site's forum under that heading:

So, what would be the rationale behind a one hour diff between weekdays and Saturday super market closing hours? In my opinion, there's no rationale; this is just a relic of a battle long lost by the Unionists - yet, it is still observed in countries like Greece as it is required by law. All that it does however is cause frustration and inconvenience by having everybody remember (or not) two sets of times, instead of just one, while the benefit to the employees is insignificant. This is very detrimental to the simple rules based determinism that modern societies thrive on.