Give Greece a Hero!

CONTEST
From the Ancient times to the modern days, from mythology to reality Greek heroes found their honorable place in history.

It’s time for Greece to give the world another hero to fight the beast that has been plundering and terrorizing our world for the last 5 years.Insinuating at first, she caught a hold on our lives so strong that we can barely breathe.

Her name is Krissia and everybody knows her true face for we see her everyday amongst us causing pain and anguish while harvesting people’s bitter tears. 
Krissia is a daemon as old as time itself but don’t be fooled by her elderly appearance for her powers grow along with the age. Defeated in the old times by knights in shining armor or by cunning witches she retreated in her underground lair plotting against humanity, planning her return and waiting for the best time strike again in a moment of weakness.

Before our time, her moment came in 1929 along with Wall Street Crush. Then, she plunged upon the un expecting world sinking her sharp teeth into unsuspecting victims to feed her insatiable blood thirst. She kept the world in her iron fist grasp for four agonizing years.

Now, she crawled again out from her creepy deep lair to do her worst. 
Stop her reign of terror! Give Greece a Hero! 
 
Play!Play!Play!Play!Play!Play!Play!Play!Play!Play!Play!Play!Play!Play!Play!Play!Play!

CONTEST DETAILS
"Give Greece a Hero"
5.11.2012 - 20.12.2012
Create your own hero:
1. Click on the picture to change it
2. Click on the weapon to change it
3. Clink on the power to change it
4. Click on the name to change it
5. Click on the supra-name to change it 
6. Write the hero's objective - use your imagination
When you found the right combination register your hero by writing your name and email address at the bottom of the game in the specified areas. 
7. Click "Submit"
8. If you're proud with your work, print screen the page and share it on Facebook for your friends to see and give them a change to build their own hero.(this is not mandatory) 

What do you win? 
You get an official "It's All Greek To Me" T-shirt that you can see here:
and half a kilo of siropiasta (Σιροπιαστά) - syrup sweets from Terkenlis. Here is the link, you can start drooling from now.  
If the winner is from outside the European Union, unfortunately we won't be able to send the sweets. 
 
How do you win?
The hero with the most imaginative mission wins. 
Important!
Missions that are outside the purpose of the game or are vulgar will be disqualified. 




 I own no rights over the pictures used in the game.I thank the creators/designers for them. 

And the T-shirt Goes To...

We finally have a winning t-shirt for the blog!!!And that is...... Ta Ta Tam!!!
The Logical Schema design. 
In total there were 18 valid votes, out of these, 8 were for this design. 
 

I want to thank everyone for participating and for helping me choose. To show my gratitude, I decided to have an extra price, a second a t-shirt for the first runner up. 

First of all, the winning number was written on a different blog before the contest started and it is 682. To make sure you can check it here.
 
And now....the winners are:
First winner is Shock  - who will receive a t-shirt with the "Twisted Roads"
First runner up is, who also gets a t-shirt, is Mer who will receive a t-shirt with the winning design.

Stay tuned for the next competition that is going to start in November:) Then you'll get to create your own hero.

Thanks again everyone!

Expressing "Yes" and "No" in Greek

The basic "yes" and "no" words in Greek are pretty simple to pronounce
"yes" is "ne" while "no" is "ohi".
Exactly as the nice lady is explaining in the videos bellow.
 

What no language course prepares you for is how Greeks really use them because here body language is most of the times more important then verbal expression. According to statistics only 35% of the communication is verbal, the rest consists in gestures, face expressions, body language in general. In general, Greeks tend to be expansive when they talk, their hands are restless while their faces very expressive.

Now, getting back to our sheep...Expressing "yes" and "no" in Greece is a bit more complicated then just saying it. This might sound a bit like "Twister" to you because I didn't find any videos to go with my explanation but I hope I'll manage to make myself understood. 

Yes - is pronounced "Ne"- but in a conversation agreeing will probably be expressed by a slow downwards movement of the head on one side while closing his or her eyes. The person might also say "ne" but it's not necessary, the meaning is implicit. 

No - is pronounced "Ohi" - In a conversation though the gesture accompanies or even replaces it. Saying "no" implies a short and quick upward movement of the chin, leaving your head to lean a bit on the back. The movement is sometimes accompanied by the rising of the eyebrows and a short "tz" or "tzouk". This movement may be so quick that you won't even notice it so pay close attention.

P.S Don't forget about the on going contest on the blog
Contest - Choose a T-shirt for "It's all Greek to Me"

Greek Jedi Priests

Today I decided to write another article and I started researching a theme I've been wanting to write about for a long time BUT I stumbled about this picture and I just couldn't help it. I had to post it.

Greek Jedi Priests

 Greek Jedi Priests!

On the holly war of defending their right to not declare or pay taxes since the dawn of Christianity

This picture is taken from uglyshit.net

P.S Don't forget about the on going contest on the blog
Contest - Choose a T-shirt for "It's all Greek to Me"

Pankration the Ancient Greek Martial Art

The Spartans were never known as being the most friendly nor the most welcoming of people but they were known for being the best fighters among the Greek tribes. Their own existence evolved around wars and warfare in general so training for battle was their main activity. 

Pankration was called the martial art the they created that was later on introduced in the Olympic games. But since Spartans didn't know the meaning of "play" or "sport", their only aim being to kill, they weren't accepted in the Olympian fights. 

Don't think that the Olympian games were in any way soft. Death was part of the routine there also. There have even been a player who won the Olympic games post mortem. His opponent got him into a strangulation that he couldn't get out of, giving up was not an option since pride was a man's best value, so with his last strength he broke his opponents fingers. Pierced by the pain of broken bones the fighter gave up and the winner was declared... post mortem. They realized later on that, because of the suffixation, he died. 

So the Olympic games were a pretty serious thing, still, Spartans were not allowed. They had the general tendency of not playing well with others. 


The things we know today about Pankration are taken from literature sources or from paintings and sculptures. Unfortunately there is no continuance to Pankration to these day. Pankration was forbidden from practice by Emperor Theodosios in 393 along with the Olympic games. Most probably it hadn't been practiced ever since then.

The one who reintroduced Pankration to the world in the 1960' was Demetrios Arvanitis. He studied the techniques and introduced it as the first Mixed Martial Arts.

I found some youtube videos that I think is going to help you make an opinion about Pankration far better when whatever I would say.

This could also be interesting to see.

P.S Don't forget about the on going contest on the blog
Contest - Choose a T-shirt for "It's all Greek to Me"

Contest - Choose a T-shirt for "It's all Greek to Me"

I was thinking of making an official t-shirt for the blog and I got so excited about the idea that I made lots of designs. Finally I managed to make a short list of 4 design but I'm gonna need your help to decide. 

To make this more interesting there is also a price. You get to win the t-shirt you chose and liked (even if that t-shirt is not the winner of the contest). 

The whole idea is simple.  
1. Comment at this post  - only comments added at this post will be considered as part of the contest
2. Your comment should contain the following elements:
                      a. your t-shirt preference
                      b. a number between 1 and 1000.

Why a number? Because I only have one t-shirt to give and I will give it to the lucky person who chooses the closest number to the one I've already posted on a different site.

The models are the following: 

1. Logical Schema

2. Maze

3. The Mixed Writing

4. Twisted Roads

The contest will end on the 15th of October 2012. The announcement of the winner will be made at the latest on the 20th of October 2012.

It is advisable to make the comment while logged in your account or to leave some kind of contact info in the comment so I won't find myself in the situation of not being able to trace the winner. If that happens the second runner up will get the t-shirt.