Blog of Leonid Mamchenkov

Yesterday I heard the story of toasting origins.  It sounded interesting, but somewhat unrealistic.  It turned out to be true:

The practice of toasting originated in Ancient Greece, at a time when fear of poisoning was a significant concern. To put guests at ease, the host would pour the guests’ wine from a common decanter, take the first drink to demonstrate its safety, then raise his cup to the guests and invite them to drink in good health.

I’ve mentioned it to a few people already, and I wrote it here and there, but not, well, here. I’ll attend Greek Blogger Camp at the beginning of the next month. It’ll take place at Ios, one of many Greek islands, between 2nd and 3rd of June (that’s a weekend). I’ll fly from Larnaca to Athens, than take a ferry to Ios, and then will come back the same way on Monday. Expect lots of pictures, a few blogging posts, and plenty o’Twitter…

This trip covers a few items on wishlist in one go:

• Attend a blogging event (conference/exhibition/whatever)
• Meet more cool online people in real life. (Matt Mullenweg is one of the people I hope to have a pint with during that weekend).
• Visit another European country. (Yes, I’ve heard that most Greek islands aren’t all that different from Cyprus, but it still counts as another country).

Also, considering that there are some pretty cool developments in the pipe for the Cyprus Blog Network, I thought it’d be fun to listen to smart guys before making a whole lot of mistakes (not that I will avoid making a whole lot of mistakes now, but at least I’m trying).

Next item on my (imaginary) todo list is:

• Try using less brackets and parenthesis.

The bright one among you have probably guessed by now that my name is Leonid. Well, in Greek and Cypriot culture there is no such name. There is a variation though. It is Leonidas.

As with many other names there was once a hero named Leonidas. In Greece, he was called Big Leonidas. I suspected it, but never got to learn the story until recently.

One of the aging Cypriots asked me if I know the story of Big Leonidas after he learned my name. I had to answer negative. The guy looks at me, relaxes in the armchair preparing to tell a long and noble story and tells me this (word in word):

Once there was a warrior. His name was Big Leonidas. Five hundred… no… one thousand Persians attacked him. And they all died.

He than gave me one of those looks that demanded appreciation. He spent the whole twenty freaking seconds educating me. Wow. It took me another twenty seconds to realize that the story was over. I thanked him afterwards…

About two hours ago, an airplane of Helios Airlines has crashed 30km off Athens. It was flying from Larnaca, Cyprus to Althens, Greece carrying 115 passangers and 6 members of the crew. According to RBC news there are two versions of what happenned. One of them says that the plane crashed into the mountain when the pilot lost control. By another version, the plane blew up before it crashed into the mountain. The control tower lost all communications with the plane and that’s why it was followed by two fighter jets. There are also more details about pilots missing from the cabin a guy in the mask seen throught the window. This version doesn’t sound very authentic, but we’ll have to wait for the official version anyway.

I’m sure the tradegy will be all over the news for the next few days. Chances are that there were plenty of Greeks and Cypriots on board.

Update: Google news has about 300 stories already.