A good return of the agent

We all remembered David Duchovny in the role of agent Fox Mulder in the well known tv show X-Files. In this month of August, David made his returning on television after a long time of absence. Californication, is the name of the comedy show that has David Duchovny playing the role of Hank Moody, “a novelist with sex and drug addictions who is struggling to raise his daughter half the time, while having problems with his ex-girlfriend.” This show premiered in August 13, and were already aired three episodes, I already saw the first one, and I have to say that I enjoy it. It’s definitively a show that I will follow from now on. Here’s the promo, so you can have a small idea of the show.

The Chicago Sun-Times classified this show as “Sexy, funny, original – and the best new show on TV in way too long…” and it has my approval! This “first season” has a total of twelve episodes, let’s see if the show is able to succeed (I hope so). The only thing that I know is that I’ll be watching.

See you around,

Rui Azevedo

A changed society

We are in a time where things aren’t as they used to be. No, I’m not talking about this strange summer, where it rains strongly in August, no. Weather problems sure are important, and we must be concern (maybe someday they will be the subject for a topic). But I’m afraid that we’re ignoring other type of problems. Some cultures, identities, ideals and even the people are changing, walking side by side with the weather variations, together walking faster than ever, excited to arrive to their destiny, and where is that? Well, I’m sure that we’ll find out soon enough. Of course that there were some events that might have trigged the process of changing, or greatly contributed to the same. The 11 September Terrorist attack, was without a doubt the incident that speed up the culture and human changing. The coward attack to the western culture had consequences (and we can still feel its effects) in the way of life of many people. Fear was planted in the brain of a civilization, and its eyes started to saw the world in a different perspective. I know that change is a natural thing, even evolution is a natural process, but when we analyze a society or culture and we saw the ideas, the mentalities, and the values being completely transform in a crack of fingers, we sure need to be cautious about it.

Our actual situation reminds me of the cooking experiment realized with the toad. If we pick up a toad to cook him, and we put him in a pan of boiling water, the toad will fight back and try to get out of the pan, but if we put the toad in a pan of cold water and will gradually rising the temperature of the pan, the toad will stay quiet, not struggling before his death. I believe that our on behavior is somehow similar to the attitude of the toad, our mind was so easily convinced and our bodies adapted so well to this new reality, that we’re not fighting back, we’re just laid down in the bottom of the pan, feeling the water go hotter and staying there, relaxing. We cannot live in a culture, that was created by fear and anger, we should notice the hot water and try to get out, trying to establish our new ideas, expressing our own thoughts, changing the course of this society. Another example that I can give is, an High school. Just think about this for a little bit. Imagine an High School, a conservative one, and everyday the teachers and the students do the same routine. In the gym, they always do the same sports, and in the lunch breaks the school radio plays always the same type of music, the same collection of songs. Till one day, one student, during the break lunch, invades the school radio and change the type of music, putting something new coming out of the sound columns. But his colleagues, that are already absorbed by the monotony of their lives, don’t notice the difference and just continued their routines. It’s important that we can be able to distinguish the song.

Well, I hope you understand what I been trying to say (at least you already know that I’m dreamer).

See you around,

Rui Azevedo

When the argumentation beats the reason

Some days ago, I was chatting with a friend of mine, and somehow this subject came to the conversation. Why does the argumentation, sometimes beats the reason? Well, I believe that I might not have the reason on this matter, but I have some arguments about it, that may convince you to adopt my point of view (or not). Of course that it all depends on the psychological condition of each individuals, the ability the listen, to talk and to explain the point of view about the matter are the essentials factors. The good lies only exist because the person who made them, besides having a good creative quality, they had a good argumentative capability, that allowed them to sell the lie for truth. We reach the conclusion that the argumentation, is a powerful weapon that can be used in many ways and to achieve many things. Returning now, to some aspects of the original question (“why sometimes, the argumentation beats the reason”), the most reasonable answer that occurs to me, is that the person and their abilities do all the difference. In the conversation with my friend, she told me that according to a news report, women have most argumentative capability than men, despite that we, most of the times have the reason by our side. I thought about it for awhile, and concluded that I share the same opinion. Based in some personal experience, and taking into account that I’m a good listener and always ready for a conversation, only women (particularly this friend of mine) could convince me of doing something weird like picking up a fork and a bag and try to catch some ghosts in a night of fog, despite that I know how crazy that would be. How can she, do something like that? Well, she’s very persuasive and has a high argumentative capability, she kicks the reason to a corner a shows you another different perspective (and it is a really different perspective). Could we really have found out the answer for the original question? Persuasion and high argumentative capability (most common in women) are really an answer for the question? Well, I prefer to believe that we men, have become more gentlemen and soft hearted along the years (just kidding, but with the right arguments i could try to convince you of that!)

Have fun,

Rui Azevedo

17 minutes to lower or increase your curiosity

In the yesterday’s post, I talked about how excited I was for the approaching of the premiere of my favorites tv shows. Today, I found out that, it was already released 17 minutes of the first episode of the new season of Prison Break. I must say that the second season of the show, disappointed me a little bit. After seeing such an amazing first season, where the genius Michael Scofield (Wentworth Miller) was able to put in practice is amazing and developed plan, but, the lack of control in some run away situations, and some details of the great conspiracy behind all that in the second season, didn’t convince me. But now here I am, waiting for the returning of the show, meanwhile I’m gonna watch this 17 minutes of the first episode (named “Orientación”), that are available in the tv.com, but only if you’re resident in the USA, for you to watch the video try the following link Episode Clip. The videos on the youtube, regarding this same 17 minutes were removed due to a copyright claim by Twentieth Century Fox.

I hope you enjoy it,

Rui Azevedo

Only one month

I finally realized that, I only have to wait one more month. Thirty more days, and all my favorite tv shows will begin their new seasons. House (air on September 25), Heroes (air on September 24) and Prison Break (air on September 17). Considering the final of the previous seasons, I most say, that I’m really curious about the beginning of the new ones. Some spoilers are already on discussion forums, and there were released some promos of the tv shows airing on September. Of all promos of the previous shows, there was one promo of Heroes that I particularly liked, it is the following:

No spoilers are revealed (the way I like), it has a strong and touching visual content, and the coordination between the pleasant song on the background, the visual content, and the voice of Sendhil Ramamurthy (Dr. Mohinder Suresh on the show) it’s very good, definitely my favorite promo. I hope you like it too.

See you around,

Rui Azevedo

Labyrinth of Solitude

If you’re asking the reason for me to pick up this title “Labyrinth of Solitude” for the url of my blog, I can tell you right now. First of all, I choose a few cool names (like for example Bazookarabbit or even orangelobsterofthelake) but they were already in use by others, so I had to stay with the actual. Now, the main reason for picking up such title, well, I can really say that there were two reasons. The first one, I believe that “Labyrinth of Solitude” can be an expression to characterize your state of mind. Sometimes your thoughts and ideas are so disconnected, and even yourself are disconnected from the reality around you, that you feel you’re alone, lost in a labyrinth, and you feel that whatever option you take, it’s another walk in the labyrinth, so most of the time you stay still, hoping that someone will find you, taking you out of there. But, sometimes you gather your inner strength and adventure yourself in the labyrinth, and when that happens, or you come out on your own, stronger than ever, or you don’t come back, and stay lost forever in the labyrinth. The other reason for picking the name, is related to the essay of Octavio Paz with the same name, that I read a long time ago, and has some breath taking quotes, regarding subjects like, solitude and love (the ones that catch my attention, but don’t misunderstand the context of the book by the following quotes, the book, published in 1950, is a reflection of the Mexican society culture, history and identity) like this for an example:

“Love is an attempt at penetrating another being, but it can only succeed if the surrender is mutual.”

Or one of my favorites (and I think it is somehow related, to that state of mind that I initially tried to explain):

“Modern man likes to pretend that his thinking is wide-awake. But this wide-awake thinking has led us into the mazes of a nightmare in which the torture chambers are endlessly repeated in the mirrors of reason.”

I guess that after these quotes, you don’t need any further explanation about the “why using such a title”. I hope you enjoy it, see you in the next post.

Rui Azevedo

Hello world!

This is my first post in my new blog! The only thing I can say in my first post is, don’t expect too much, otherwise you’ll be disappointed. I’m just a young man, who his lives the life in a peaceful pace and likes to share little things about his day-life. This Blog will be wrote, most of it in Portuguese language, but I also intent to write some posts in English, for universal understanding, or just because I want to!

I hope to see you around.

Rui Azevedo