melkathi

The Yes crowd wants to see them gone but knows we don't really have any worthwhile people to put in charge. Honestly, Venizelos is probably the best man we have right now. But he could never unite a government behind him anymore. When PASOK had to decide for a new party leader in 2008 they started an internal slander campaign against him that he'd never recover from. But as a friend of mine said the other day over a game of Blood Bowl Team Manager: "You know I have always voted conservatives, but not even I will pretend that Samaras could lead this country." The thing is though: the previous government was terrible. And one had to ask "How much worse could it get?" Well, now we know. Right now the Yes supporters are not asking for a good government. We'll settle for our simple bad one please. Just take away the dreadful one.

I am firmly on the Yes side. My social circles are split between Yes and No (though more in the No) and some undecided or abstaining. The people I know that vote Yes do so for one or more of several reasons: 1) Knowing the party and the people in the government too well 2) Being in the private sector 3) Having been in the "party" since forever (which I guess comes close to 1 above) Which all boils down to not trusting this government to do a thing right and hoping a Yes vote will get rid of them. The No crowd among my circles seems rallied around: 1) Wounded National Pride 2) Bravado 3) Having no worries as dad pays the bills anyway Mind you this is my circles. I am certain there are people who have reasonable cause to vote No. I even have a friend who seriously believes that a No here will change the whole of Europe for the better. The uncertain / abstain crowd basically has one line of thinking: If we are voting on whether or not we accept those specific terms, how can the referendum be held when the deadline for those terms is already passed and those terms are no longer on the table? If the question is moot, how can one vote at all? Overall, the No crowd is far more social media savvy. They are also far less opposed to cyber-bullying. Or real life bullying. The other day a friend was chased and verbally abused all the way from the metro entrance to the train platform for throwing a No-flyer into the bin.

Heh. My mother (who is visiting at the moment) just came back from Lidl. There were three bags of rice left in the whole supermarket. Pasta was mostly sold out, with only two kinds left and those again only a couple of bags each. She said that the place basically looked like the aftermath of a crowd on a panicked stockpiling mission. What people think really depends on where you are. SYRIZA's core voters are better off inteligentsia (my architect colleagues), civic servants (who migrated over when the socialist PASOK party, which had been buying their support since the junta, fell apart) and teachers. So those are fervent NO supporters. They are starting to lose ground with the teachers since they assigned Baltas as minister of education - he has never hidden his disdain for the common teacher and for public education, and has been a slap in the face for the people who fought to have the party win the elections. Private businesses and especially the tourism industry are mostly in the YES crowd. The tourism industry here is ironic. The NO crowd talks about the raise in tourism taxes being a reason to say no, yet the ones who'd pay that tax support the yes *shrug*. Probably alongside my line of thinking: "Lower taxes don't do me any good if I have nothing to be taxed".

Before Bruce asks me to post in here as the off-topic resident Greek: Hi! And that's mostly all I have to say. But... My family has always been extremly politically active. We left Synaspismos when the party mutated into the dreg that is now known as SYRIZA. Many other traditional left families have done the same. As a result there is little of the Left left in that party. A reason I keep out of such discussions. It is a party that labeled itself as Left without any relationship to the believes or ideology. They are an opportunistic pack which realized that a left party was easier to usurp. Yes, because the Greek Left is what Monte described: a bunch that got stuck at student union rethoric level. Greece is a small country. We know each other. Heck, I had lunch with some of those ministers, lounging in a beautifull garden of a mostly illegally constructed summer house. So I'll not try to talk all high and mighty about what economic policies are right or wrong. Pretending to know better than you lot because I live here. But as a friend I'll say this: don't believe much the Greek government is saying. They are untrustworthy, power hungry twerps. Heck they openly admitted only calling for the referendum to sort out inner-party conflicts.

The so called left government here seems to be preparing to do a coup should they lose the referendum even though they are rigging the vote already.

I don't think you are supposed to hold it anyway, rather you should lounge in close proximity and drink cold beverages of your choice.

A few more pictures: From the hotel, having friends round for dinner (the aftermath. Also, this is before the clean-up, that's why there is moss...) http://i.imgur.com/9ZUPtiw.jpg Athens by night: http://i.imgur.com/vCppu23.jpg (I'll need to learn to properly use the camera. Might have to nag Woldan for advice) http://i.imgur.com/gkP0I2Z.jpg

Old potter's / ceramics workshop most likely

Sitting in the bus. 7 hours ride just started so might as well use the bus wifi to upload a few pics. Bedroom upstairs apartment: http://i.imgur.com/TeKkTCS.jpg http://i.imgur.com/nKK4KWm.jpg Upstairs apartment: http://i.imgur.com/i042jAm.jpg Ground floor studio: http://i.imgur.com/hgRLF0A.jpg Bathrooms: http://i.imgur.com/SwduOo5.jpg Doing work in the garden: http://i.imgur.com/Fs1C7Q2.jpg http://i.imgur.com/tUW0Bcr.jpg My dudes working on the new gates (yesterday) : http://i.imgur.com/BCIyZIP.jpg http://i.imgur.com/gkTt5BK.jpg (which we need to paint tomorrow) And noticing the typo after we put up the sign :/ http://i.imgur.com/ariQdc0.jpg Rest of the uploads failed... meh. Another time

How can anyone recover by arguing on the internet? By realizing that as much as the physical pain hurts, it can always be overshadowed by the sheer amounts of human stupidity out here?

Vases from around 600-800 BC. Wasn't allowed to keep those Old marble gravestone with a relief of the deceased. Wasn't allowed to keep that either :/ Parts of the old aqueduct. Re-buried underneath the foundation. Wasn't allowed to take pictures either and they aren't even giving me the pictures they have to display those All I got to keep were bits of walls and a large build storage urn thingie. Constructed stuff - no artifacts. Getting a proper collector's permit is a true pain. Hard to get and comes with a lot of responsibility. Still, would have loved to keep at least a couple of little things. Maybe next time.

And being an architect I mostly hate their guts for making my life hard

Depends on where you are. In theory most parts of Greece now you have to have the proper permit from the ministry of culture's archeologists that you are allowed to build. In areas of greater itnerest such as the city centre of Athens they (used to) do "patrols". We got stopped before we even started to dig, when we were just clearing out garbage that had been thrown over the fence by passers by. Law says that they have 6 months to check and make whatever decision. Reality is that they do not have the manpower for that... and that they are slower than a webbed, petrified PC, heavily encumbered with too much loot, who had their strength reduced to a tenth the original value by a curse. To clear out the rubble from the pre-exisitng basement and dig ~40cm for the new foundation took a year and 107k euros not in the original budget. We then made an agreement to keep some finds in the corner of the garden, underneath triple (basically bullet proof) glass. With some spotlights for the evening. I had to make a proper architectural proposal which they had to accept. A few streets down, a neighbour heard what I was doing, thought it was a good idea and asked to do the same. They refused, so those finds got mostly demolished and what was left buried under his foundations. In theory they need to do annual checks that everything is ok. Reality, my last check was 2011. But I got a good relationship with the local agency, so I kinda drag them in to make sure everything is in order. I invested too much money to have the thing that is supposed to make my garden special fall into ruin. So for me it took about half a week for them to set up the inspection - which they basically said they only did to put my mind at ease. And a week and a half after that for them to come do the maintenance.

Wrapped up most of my gardening for now. Need to let the soil settle before adding more. Got the archeologists coming 'round tomorrow though to do a cleanup of the dig. Once that is done I'll be pretty much set out back. All I'll need is to actually open and get guests

A bit funny how the IGN guy never seems to understand how the whole thing is scripted.

Good luck! Let us know how it went.

Athens, Greece. Opening my own tiny hotel once I sort a few last things, such as the new bank account and a way to accept credit cards.

Only managed to move in recently and it's my first completly own house. Before, living on my own I was renting a flat. Kept it clean, but it wasn't mine to do "stuff". This I build myself from the ground up (or supervised the people who did the actual building ) Now hopefully I'll be done messing around in the garden tomorrow, and hopefully the ironwork I have ordered will be done the day after, so we can install the gates to protect the facade.

It is strange how having your own place has you doing wierd things without even noticing: Second day of gardening and tomorrow I'll buy 1 or 2 more bags of soil to finish the work.

Salvaged is now on Steam Greenlight and would welcome your vote (Yes, that means You). They even have a new trailer just for you http://steamcommunity.com//sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=245612441

Fretting over Booking, trying to set up my tiny hotel there. Looking at what photos to upload. What data to enter. Bah...

Not logical, yes. Ideological, no. The current, self-styled leftwing government has no ideology other than a mix of grandstanding, corruption, nepotism and tons of incompetence. The populist far right coalition partner manages to get some of their ideology through, but that has nothing to do with the economy, just their mania to persecute minorities. And I keep reading garbage from leftist foreign media that tries to show how the Greek govenrment is that noble underdog and I want to strangle the idiots. It is not the "I live in this country, you don't. so I know, you don't" thing. Plenty of people live here and don't (want to) know what they voted into power. I grew up in the party that mutated into this thing. My family knows most of the government on a personal, human level. It is a small country after all - buried skeletons aren't that well hidden... And just because I think someone makes a good BBQ and is a great host, doesn't make them a good minister :/ Just as changing from one party to the other does not make a person less corrupt than they were in the previous party. Governor of the central bank is now being sued for presenting an independent report to the government that did not reach the same conclusion as the government. Birthplace of democracy, yeah.

Getting worried with the political situation here in Greece. Worst, most corrupt government since the military dictatorship. And when you think it can't get worse and that the country is already down the drain, they try to jam it further.

Steam sales used to be more "fun". When you had to do stuff in-game to get prizes. You bought soem dead cheap game like Toki Tori and fooled around for a day or two. Still you got out more fun of those games than a lot of other sale purchases that got lost in the backlog.

You are missing out on one of the better games of the past couple of years. But I understand the feeling. I do own a couple of UPlay games, but I prefer to own them directly on Uplay and not have to log in to log in to play a game