Me, The_Lex. The_Lex, Tired.

FIREWORKS IN THE DISTANCE

Yep, we saw a width of approximately 30 miles of simultaneous fireworks from all the different Western suburbs. You have to remember how flat the land is before getting shocked by this fact. Then again, if like me, you grew up in New England, then the idea of the ground being so flat comes as a very foreign idea.

STARTED TO WATCH CHARLIE JADE

The fiancee, the future brother in law and I watched the Charlie Jade pilots last night. Unfortunately, the two of them didn't get excited by it like I did when first watching it.

A couple other friends I got watching the show had a similar reaction but really got into it once they saw the third episode. It moved a whole lot quicker and engaged the watcher a lot more. Sad, really, that the pilot episodes go by so slowly. These other friends, though, did reassure me that they find most pilots unexciting.

Honestly, I hope they haven't been just humoring me by watching the show.

SLEEPY, TIRED AND INFORMED

Last night, we stayed up until about 5 in the morning, debating mostly and wasting an hour talking past each other. We worked off each other with some great ideas after we go over talking past each other, though.

A couple ideas that really excited us:

+ The only thing that you can change is yourself.

+ To affect change in someone else, you can only bring certain views and ideas to their consciousness and try to disturb or encourage a transcendence of consciousness.

+ You have to make yourself vulnerable to having your consciousness disturbed and altered, too, to try engaging someone else's consciousness.

+ These ideas receive some invalidation, however, when it comes to brainwashing, propaganda, marketing, etc. etc. How do these tactics change consciousness without necessarily making an originator's consciousness vulnerable to disturbance? And, on top of that, what are the real moral ramifications here?

Unfortunately, despite the great and, at times, frustrating conversation, I went into some training with my boss with a headache and feeling tired. We had a good time, and I learned some good stuff, like how to "discover" information about prospects and how to actually listen.

Hearing that I didn't listen actually surprised me, since I had always found myself a good listener. Ummmm. . .maybe I haven't been the best listener lately. I can see how I've allowed myself to drift into a certain fighting for some kind of agenda, even as I try arguing against "non-listening."

Even last night, during my conversation with the future brother in law, I had failed to listen (and, in the terms of the debate, the failure extended to previous conversations with other people, which made it easier not to listen this time).

I also think that, at the same time, since I don't necessarily take the job as seriously as I could, I haven't engaged in the listening as effectively as I could. From looking at the past, however, I can see that I haven't necessarily had the best active listening-conversation skills. I may have been able to listen well during semi-artificial, "clinical" situations but not necessarily during regular conversation, networking or when meeting someone at a party or something.

My boss commissioned to practice saying some stuff in front of the bathroom mirror to see my expression and body language when saying it. I don't know if I will actually do it, but I probably should. It makes a lot of sense, especially if I do want to have success in this job. . .maybe not necessarily success in the form of promotion or getting stature in the corporation, but to earn enough money to have comfort and time to write.

But yeah, this job will do a good job at teaching me some useful social skills. Just the stuff that he taught me today helped me a lot with figuring out how to approach having conversations with people and such. Maybe my goal focuses more on making a friend than convincing someone to taking a tour, but these skills will do a good job at helping me accomplish that intention.

I even used those skills to have some good conversations with my boss and a co-worker. Now I just need to practice and put those skills to work in my everyday life.

SOMETHING COOL

While reading other blogs today in the papasan, Miriya curled up right next to me. Very cute and touching.

SOMETHING LAME

Spending something like two or three hours reading other people's blogs.

SUPERMAN RETURNS: A REVIEW

Superman Returns disappointed me. It starts off relatively well, if somewhat confusing, as it sets up plot and also the theme of Superman coming back to Earth, after 5 years. The movie informs us, through a screen of text, that scientists on Earth had discovered Krypton, so Superman went to investigate.

Personally, I think they could've made a movie focusing solely on Superman's journey to and from Krypton. This movie, however, has nothing more than just text narration telling us about him going then coming back. Disappointing.

From there, the movie shows Lex Luthor hatching his evil plan for the movie and monologuing about being a self-interested Prometheus. Kevin Spacey provides a great performance as Lex Luthor, with a shaved head, deviousness and just the way that he carries him self. Impressive.

The movie starts developing the theme of the people of Earth learning to live without Superman, especially Lois Lane. I really found the world not needing or wanting Superman as an interesting theme, then either having him need to win back their love and adoration and/or learn his boundaries in the world once again.

Unfortunately, I feel that Superman won back the hearts of the Earth people much too fast. The movie then falls way too quickly into a conventional superhero movie. Lex Luthor causes tons of trouble, then Superman stops him with the help from some friends. The movie became way too action oriented for about an hour with a minimal of character or theme development.

Disappointing, even though the visuals looked good, and the acting came out pretty well. The overall movie just disappointed me because it didn't break out of convention and strike out new ground.

And, to think, I'm usually the one who enjoys stuff like this that other people criticize. . ..