loonyblog.

And I feel fine.

I was sitting on the train on my way home from work this evening, when a nice, if slightly drunk man asked me for directions on getting to a G train. I told him, and he sat down next to me. I'm sitting there, trying to read my book, when he nudges me and points to the two children sitting across from us and explained that he couldn't understand what kind of a god would put innocent children into a world like this.

There wasn't much I could do at this point, so I politely nodded my head, and he continued his quiet diatribe. He explained that "it was all written" in Revelations, and that mankind was doomed. So what was the point? And he began to name other signs of our impending grizzly end, including Bin Laden ("who has a bomb ready to blow us all to Hell"), Bush, Saddam Hussein (odd that he chose that order) and that "little twerp" in North Korea with a massive army (he gestured to indicate the unimpressive stature of Kim Jong-il).

I could have explained to him that while his interpretation of the closing chapter of the New Testament is no less valid than anyone else's, Revelations isn't usually looked on as being the fiery end for all of mankind, but rather a portent of things to come for the wicked and a vision of glory for the righteous. And of course, I could have continued to explain that psychopaths, megalomaniacs, despots and all-around bad people are the price we pay for having free will and individual morality.

But I never did any of that, since his stop came up before I had a chance. So instead I got a few odd looks from the people sitting in the same car as me as he walked off, who clearly were surprised that I sat there listening to him in the first place.

On a much different note, yesterday I started doing something I've been meaning to do for a while now, namely bringing my digital camera with me wherever I go. One of the things I'd like to do with this blog is post the occasional photo from around the city. I live in the greatest city in the world, and if nothing else, I want this blog to reflect that. And so, here's a shot I took last night on my walk from my office down to Barnes & Noble. I took a lot of pictures of things I wanted to get shots of, but as usually happens when I try to do anything like this, the best one I shot was totally random. Once we hit spring I'll be able to take some really great pictures of the various city parks at dusk, but for now, here's a shot from 6th avenue that came out a whole lot better than I thought it would:

Posted by jason at February 14, 2003 09:26 PM | TrackBack | Read more: NYC , Photos