Rock Concert in Nicosia Intercollege on May 22

It came to my attention that there will be a rock concert in the amphitheatre of Intercollege‘s Nicosia campus. Anyone interested should probably call them for information (reception tel.: +357 22-841500).

All I know is that one of the groups will be Katastrofa. This is the first time I hear about this band, but I got fortunate and received some information from one of the members – Andrey Shvachko. Katastrofa was founded in 1997 by two Russians and two Yugoslavians. Nothing special was happening to them until 1999, when after the concert (in the Intercollege again) they have recorded their demo CD with three compositions (distributed by “Virgin” shops). Later their vocalist left Cyprus and the band didn’t have any activity what-so-ever. In 2001 they’ve got a new bass guitar player who became also their vocalist. Katastrofa started to experiment with different styles. In spring of 2003 they performed at Rockathon music festival under the name of “Night & Day Project”. They have few compositions of their own now. They also play music by Led Zeppelin, Marilyn Manson, Metallica, Deep Purple, and other well known bands. I’ve also got fortunate enough to get a sample song – “Katastrofa – Mister P.mp3″ (6MB,160Kbps) – very not bad considering the “home made” recording.

Amateur Song Festival on May 15

Picture from ASF 2003
On 15 of May, there will be a second gathering of Amateur Song Festival. Mostly there will be Russian people and, of course, they will song mostly Russian songs. Gathering place hasn’t changed – picnic place of Kakomalis. There are a couple of threads at forum.russiancyprus.net discussing preparations for the event. Here is the map of the areaa (picnic area signs are around Kalo Chorio village, which is on the Agios Filaxeous exit from the highway).

Last year October’s event was a total success with almost 100 people present. There are a lot of pictures here (I’ve borrowed one for this post). This year there will be more promotion on the radio and in the newspapers, so, theoretically, more people should show up. The only problem that I see is with the date, which clashes with Cyprus stage of the World Rally Championship. I am not sure that I will make it there, but I will try my best.

Filoglossia – Learning Greek as a foreign language


Someone pointed out a site of Filoglossia program that helps one learn Greek language. There are 10 lessons on their web site accessible freely. I don’t know how good the software is, but the site looks promising. There both WAV and MP3 versions of all sounds. There are visual materials (animated GIFs). There are both grammar and vocabulary. Few exercises are also present for those who enjoy the challange. :)

Here are few other resources on the subject:

  • Learn Greek at Kypros.org – requires free registration and somewhat slow, but has forums, audio materials in RealAudio, notes, etc.
  • Greek Through The Internet – very simplistic and small. On the good side – there is a nice collection of simple words (numbers, relatives, colors, food, etc) and phrases (Christmas and Easter themes, etc). Worth to note that they provide not only English/Greek interface, but an Italian/Greek one too.
  • There are also few lessons for Russian speakers at Cyprus Advertiser.

NovaMail

This script is an attempt of improving NovaStor NovaNet 8 notification system. It allows for different messages to different roles (backup administrator/IT manager/etc).

This code is very old and I haven’t looked at for some time now. I am also not using NovaNet anymore, so you are on your own.

novamail.tar.gz