Arcadia

Nope, the nearest Metro station is about 40 minutes from here … and unless you get there before 8 a.m., there's no parking. At least, during the week. I've used it a few times on the weekend, it's nice. There's another station a little further out where you can find parking at a nearby mall, but then you have to take a shuttle from the lot to the station, which adds another 20-30 minutes to your travel time. The upshot is … it's easier to stay home. 😞 The train's far more convenient, it just doesn't go very many places, or very often.

I'd never heard of it either, but it looks pretty sweet...

See why I don't travel? Seriously, it's stuff like this that makes me choose to drive my car 99.9% of the time. I've been planning to use the train to visit my brother, I may have to rethink this....

Whew! I was just assuming that by the time S5 came out, Watson would be bald. So relieved to know I'm wrong.....

Interesting. I don't recall a course like that, mine were more the study of religious history and beliefs, and not debating them. I think I would have enjoyed the latter, though. There were some ethics classes mixed in there somewhere too, I remember I really enjoyed those. I just wish I could remember what I learned.

I always liked it too. Anyone remember the name of the neighbor? Y'know, the guy you never saw except his hat, because the fence was in the way.

It's odd, perhaps … but I'm more inclined to favor the "rules" when it comes to spelling and grammar. At least, in formal communication. I guess I don't much care the rest of the time.

Interesting conversation! Although I do feel impelled to point out that my question was "is psychopathic behavior okay if society came to consider it as normal behavior" and not "is it okay to be a psychopath." But it sounds like we've basically reached a consensus, anyway, which is ... it's okay to be anything as long as you don't hurt people. Of course, then you could argue about what is and isn't hurtful … (Philosophy, the ultimate rabbit-hole...…) (Actually, my minor was "Philosophy and Religion" … the first was all about never finding a definitive answer, and the second was all about accepting a definitive answer. It's amazing I survived to graduation. )

Actually, it has 3 vanishing points, which is why you'll never catch me trying to draw it. Ugh.

Yeah, I'd love to be able to ride the trains more, but I don't really have a reason to go most of the places they go. However, they did recently establish direct service between my town and the city where my brother lives, yay! There's only one trip per day, it's at night, and travel time is about the same … but it's so nice to let someone else do the driving! I'm definitely using it from now on. Otherwise it's a four hour drive that I don't often feel like making. Do you mean Union Station in DC? It's retail in the building upstairs, but if you go down into the bowels where the tracks are, it's still a very busy rail station. It's cool. I don't think there is a Union Station in Boston (?) The couple times I went, I went into, I think, South Station. (There's also North and Back Bay.) Same deal … the station itself was mostly retail, I can't remember where the trains were. Not underground like in DC, though, I don't think. It seemed busy to me, but this was about 15 years ago.

I'm curious, how do you think it should be done? "The address' first number was three." Hmmm, I see what you mean, that doesn't look right. "The address's first number was three." Better, you sure that's not right? Not that I would write it that way. I'd say: The first number in the address was three." Isn't English fun?

So it's finally coming out? I'd all but forgotten about it. I admit I've lost my enthusiasm for it. I saw the trailer for 1917, and even if BC weren't in it, it looks like something I might be tempted to see. As long as it's not too graphic. Plotwise, it reminds me of Saving Private Ryan, which I barely survived. In defiance of my rant (elsewhere) about not putting much faith in "people's" reviews, here's my review of Ad Astra: save your money! It's pretty slow and my poor friend was sooooo bored! For myself, I thought Brad Pitt did okay, and I appreciated the metaphorical overtones … but the failures of science and logic that permeate the script … OMG. If I hadn't been in a theater I would have been shouting back at the screen most of the way through it. Aggghhhh! An exercise in frustration from start to finish. Zero stars. Maybe even minus a few stars.

Not as high-functioning sociopaths? That brings up an interesting point … if we began accepting psychopathic behavior as "normal", would that also make it "okay?" I mean … I was raised to think homosexuality was a sin, but now that it's widely accepted, I accept it too and think the sin is to demonize it. I just had to see the other side of the story to see it another way, but I'm well aware that many people still see it as a sin. Can we both be right at once? Or is one side actually "wrong" to believe what they do? If psychopathy became widely acceptable, would people like me start to think it's okay? Interesting to think about, eh? (Don't look to me for answers, though! This is the kind of crud my philosophy professors used to torture us with. Thank God it was my minor and not my major. )

I'm not VBS (obviously ) but I would agree with the idea that some people are just pure evil, know it, enjoy it, and make no excuses for it … someone like Ted Bundy comes to mind. Thankfully, I think that sort of person is extremely rare; but I do believe they exist. I appreciate your point about moral relativity, but I hope the concept of evil is not entirely relative … that is, I hope we can universally agree that certain acts are unjustifiable under any and all circumstances. Child molestation, for example. But I'm aware that moral boundaries can get pretty blurry in some circumstances (such as war). But I'm more comfortable believing some things are still absolutes, even in this day and age. That's probably considered pretty old fashioned, eh?