And then you are telling me why I support globalization and open borders? Well, that’s why. JBQ is one of the brightest engineers in the valley, and he fully deserves to work with best of the best — which right now this means Google, here, in the US.

I am in distress right now. This shit never ends. We are in this mess since the first day we got here.

Update: There is a way to not get stuck in Europe. We should be able to come out of this mess fine. Crossed fingers.

I believe in my gut that if I had stayed in Greece I would be one of these unmarried friends too. I never had anything in common with the Greek way of life, ideas and beliefs. I was always my own fruit, kind of a banana in a sea of strawberries. I love Greece, but not for the same reasons the rest of the Greeks do. Thankfully, I fell for a person who is very open minded, intelligent, successful, handsome, and so life eventually smiled to me. I hope life smiles to others too.

I personally support the court’s decision rather than the UMP/feminist opposition to the ruling. The point is not that she was or was not a virgin, but the fact that she flat-out lied about it to her husband, even if she knew that this was something that was important to him. There can’t be a marriage based on lies, no matter if the subject of the disagreement is laughable or not. Marriage must have sincerity, and this one didn’t. Therefore, the annulment was the correct ruling, and the feminists should shut up. The woman should accept the specific ruling (because she admitted to lying), but then counter-sue her ex-husband on grounds of discrimination.

On a more general tone, there is no major importance of virginity. It’s something that men invented in order to control women. Humans, like many animals, are meant to have multiple partners — unless they decide they want to stay with one for some time. It is nature’s way to be able to have children from different people, in order to maximize the chances of having your genes survive. The above doesn’t mean that I don’t respect the institution of marriage, but it does mean that we can survive without it too. Except for tax reasons, it’s just not necessary, at least not for the strongest, healthiest and most handsome people who can easily find new partners. If two people decide to stay together for longer, that’s cool too.

I lost my virginity to my first fiance, a few days before I turned 19. While it hurt a bit, he was very patient and super-careful with me, and so I didn’t drip a single drop of blood. Now, how could I explain this to his mother who the week before she was telling to everybody in our small town that after our night together she will take the bed sheets and hang them outside so everyone could see the blood in order to prove her family’s honor?

I won’t be going. In fact, I find anyone who goes to watch such shows brain damaged. Yeah, go ahead, hate me all you want. I just don’t find pleasure going to see four middle-aged women slutting around while looking miserable underneath that glossy exterior and expensive shoes.

What’s the point of that movie? I’ve been alone for years while in UK, without having a shoulder to cry on. There was nothing glorious about that life. It sucked. I’d go out with some so-called friends on weekends, would also buy expensive shoes and sexy clothes, but it all accounted for nothing despite my efforts. At the end I found true love through IRC. JBQ first told me that he loved me without having seeing me yet. 8 years later, we are still together, loving each other every day (except Mondays ).

So why would I want to go watch these poor souls trying to find true love with all the wrong means? Not that IRC is the way to go, but slutting around is not the way to go either. It’s for the same reason I don’t go watch horror, war and prison movies: why would I want to go and depress myself voluntarily? This makes no sense to me.

Update: Two pictures from that era, 10 years ago. It has the word “desperate” written all over these pictures. That was/is so not me.

Last night I was reading on wikipedia about Madonna’s “Hard Candy” and I noticed that minus one song, all the songs I didn’t like on the album were all co-written by Pharrell. All the rest of the songs, which I did like, were all co-written by Timbaland. I found this interesting, and I thought to myself “ok, now I know who ruined that album”.

An hour later I went to bed, and had this uneasy dream about losing my mom in the crowd and not having my iPhone with me to reach her. Eventually, while walking around I end up in an open arena where Madonna was giving a concert. I didn’t have a ticket, but I found a cousin of mine (Panos) and we sat down to listen from afar (somehow I forgot about my mom, heh). Lo and behold, Pharrell approaches us, friendly and all:

Pharrell: Lots of problems tonight with this concert, I was told. The computer started playing the background music out of order.
Eugenia: Gawd, I hate software.
Pharrell: How do you like “Hard Candy”?
Eugenia: Except “Give it to me”, I dislike all your songs in it. I found them lifeless and they ruined the album.
Pharrell: I see…
Panos: Eugenia reviews stuff all the time…
Pharrell: Oh, I see. So you are a music critic now?
Eugenia: No, I am a technologist. I wrote my opinion on the album on my personal blog, not any official medium.
Pharrell: Then what makes you think that you can criticize my work?
Eugenia: Well, everyone has an opinion about music. Is this a difficult concept?
Pharrell: No, but I am pretty sure you are a third rate journalist. Bye.
Eugenia: Wait…

At that point I wake up, and I felt terrible. I had hurt his feelings and the dream felt so real that for an hour after waking up I felt really bad. I guess my brain accomplished its target by sending me such a dream: “learn to shut up once in a while”.

Oh well, there’s always the weekend!

Since the last serious sketching I did was 9 years ago, not even my own husband has seen my work (which I have left back in Greece, and possibly the rats have already eaten it away by now in the cellar). A portrait of Captain Hook was my best work ever, which I completed during a cold afternoon of 1992 in Germany. After that, I did very little sketching and I pretty much stopped in 1999 (except for a quick attempt to sketch JBQ in 2002).

But today was the day. The Marvel announcements brought me some inspiration back, but I was afraid to grab the pencil back to my hands. After all, 9 years without sketching guaranteed a failure. Thankfully, I did better than I thought I would. I finished with a pencil, scanned it, and then used PaintShopPro to just add the colors. Here it is.

1. Friends came by to take me to lunch over at Google, while I was 100% sure that our rendezvous was for tomorrow, Friday. Not only that, but I had told JBQ that it would be Friday, so he was not expecting us at work until tomorrow! Sorry Brent, Amy! I screwed up, I really need to read emails more carefully!

2. A reader asked me if he can license one of my articles (which he linked to his email to me) for his newsletter, and I gave him authorization for a completely different article! Again, I didn’t read my email straight.

3. There’s a good chance I am going to shoot a music video clip for a local indie band soon, and I made some tests locally. The idea was to have the audio sped up 25%, shoot a video lip-syncing to the sped up audio, bring the video to Vegas and slow it down to the point that it lip syncs to the original non-sped up version of the audio. Thing is, when I told Vegas to slow-down the video, I told it to do so at 0.750 rate (75% of the 1.000 playback rate, right?). Well, it wouldn’t sync. I emailed Vegas support, only to come back to me, looking like a buffoon to them, and reply to me the obvious: that the video rate should be 0.800, not 0.750. I suck at calculations.

One Saturday night, I was out with my parents at a local cafeteria which also had coin-up games. That kid happened to be there that night and he wouldn’t let me play Pacman and Phoenix. So, I go to my father who was sitting outside, and told him to come and reason with him.

My father indeed comes in, and the kid gets a pretty macho pose, thinking that he would be able to outdo (and ignore) any lecture that my father would have to give him. But he wasn’t prepared for what my father had in store for him.

He told him: “If you are going to bully my daughter and dishonor her, you will have to marry her. So, I will be talking to your family to arrange the marriage”.

He never bullied me, ever again. If anything, he was avoiding me for the years to come, even after we were both adults and we knew that my father was joking.