Landed in the Mac

I swear I'll write more about Niagara etc., but tonight I say only this...

I have landed in Fort McMurray. It seems very familiar, as though I never left. And yet little things have changed. We'll see how it feels later in the week.

The flight was a monster. The lay-overs were too short and there was a lot of turbulence between London and Toronto. Yech. Well, I'm here safely and quickly, so I oughtn't complain.

My birthday is up-coming, too.

On the Moniker 'English Clergyman'

I used to live on Clergy Street in Kingston; of my housemates (the Clergy Men among ourselves, though most went with Clergy Boys), I was the only one studying English. Thus I was the English Clergy-Man, or English Clergyman. That my minor was Religious Studies contributed somewhat.

Niagara Falls and Toronto Trip: the Fallsview Casino

On Thursday we (Jon, Alan, Teddy, and I) went to the Fallsview Casino in Niagara Falls. We went for two reasons: food at the buffet, and so Ted could gamble away his life savings. Also, it was rainy and damp and seemed a good way to get out of the wet.

We had pre-arranged for our memberships on-line, which meant we could eat at the buffet for less. It was still a tad expensive for the value of the food. The pizza, ravioli, pastas, fish, and desserts were good, but much of the meat was tough and fatty.

What I noticed most, though, was what you'd see at any buffet but appeared to be worse at the casino: quite a few people were markedly overweight. I'm not talking about your run-of-the-mill overweight here; these weren't beer bellies or jiggly thighs but forays into obesity. That's the thing about buffets. We commented that the buffet is a better deal for some than it is for others, but in the end I'm not sure how good of a deal it is for the over-eaters, either. But then, I don't struggle with obesity, so I won't pass judgement. What I will say is that it contributed to the overall air of profanity (that is, the profane) that I felt permeated the casino.

After the meal, we went onto the floor, which was a sea of lights and noises. The machines didn't spit out coins but rather tickets, which you could redeem for money. It seems to me that this makes tabulating how much you've won harder. Ted did it in his head, but that took effort. (Well, maybe less effort than it seemed: the way he chose to explain his method was not terribly efficient and confused Jon. Had he explained it more simply, I don't think Jon would have been as unsure of what Ted was doing.) With coins, you can keep all the ones you got from the tellers in one pocket or cup and all the ones from the machine in the other. That would be an efficient way of controlling your input and output. By tracking your balance on a slip of paper, the casino may be making the calculations a bit more difficult and thereby helping people gamble their winnings away. Smart thinking, Fallsview.

We had some trouble selecting machines. Ted wanted 'classic' slot machines. We passed certain ones because they 'had too many sevens' or 'had flames on the seven' or 'didn't have cherries.' They were classic machines, but I suppose Teddy had a particular machine in mind, collected from the representations of these machines through movies and such. After losing some money to these we found some twopenny machines which were far more digital. On our second bank of twopennies (tupence?) Ted won a bit. In the end he was up. In about the same amount of time, Ted went through $20 (but won $28.50, with a net gain of $8.50), Alan went through $10, and I went through $5. Jon didn't play, but instead derived amusement from watching Ted.

Frankly, I had written the $5 off for loss at the beginning. I had thought of it as $5 admission to playing games. A summer or two back I managed to win (net, not gross) $25 at the Boomtown in Fort McMurray, and I usually am lucky at games of chance which involve winning money. I have won $45 before at rip-open tickets (net, not gross). That I left the casino under and not over was a bit disappointing, even though I suspected it would happen. I'm still not 100% comfortable with gambling, and likely never will be. I fear somewhat that it really is a sin.

The thing is, I apparently don't enjoy it very much after all. As we walked through the casino, I saw very few people actually smiling. Most looked bored or surly, punching those buttons. Only one guy seemed genuinely pleased to be there. He was a little old Asian man, sitting at a machine which looked too big for him. He reached out and up and stabbed away at the buttons, grinning like this was the best thing in the world.
I think I'm more average than that; the slots bore me, really. Unless I'm winning. In games of skill, I play to play, not to win. I do derive pleasure from winning, but less than others, I think. The only times I'm really happy that I've won are during games that I usually lose. Others seem to enjoy winning games they often win at; this seems ludicrous and maybe a bit mean-spirited to me. I don't think games should be zero-sum, as far as pleasure is concerned. However, slots really only interest me if I'm winning. In general, I don't think a person should play a game if they only enjoy it when they win. Ergo, I likely shouldn't play slots, and it seems to me that most of the people on the floor shouldn't be playing, either.

Security was tight there. There are cameras everywhere. Also, as we walked toward the buffet, one of those locked and escorted cases full of (presumably) money followed as a short piece. That was exciting; it was like Ocean's Eleven.

Then we went into the mall and wandered around, looking for Teddy's very specific maple sugar candies, which we never did find. I took some pictures of the lights and colours. We also spotted a man with terrible fashion sense. I'm not saying I'm a clothing guru or anything--far from it--but this guy was just ridiculous. Something about the business jacket and the backward baseball cap was incongruous, and that's just where the problems started.

Really, that's all I have to say about the Fallsview. In summary, while I enjoyed the company, and didn't really enjoy the activity itself. Well, I liked the buffet food I chose, even if the others didn't.

The Most Remarkable Noise

In the computer room in Sebringville we have a door that opens onto the deck in the backyard. At the moment this door is wide open (allowing the dog easier access in and out) through which I can hear birdsong. Moments ago I heard a beautiful sound like bells and birds and maybe alien spacecraft. Utterly unable to place it, I looked out to see that it was a plow tilling the field behind our property. Assorted metal joints must have been squealing against each other, but the result wasn't horrible, as you'd expect. It was lovely.

Niagara Falls and Toronto Trip: The Ontario Science Centre

Rather than engage in creative writing or play computer games, I suppose I will write the first post about my trip (in response to Kay's insistence on this).

On Wednesday, Jon, Teddy*, Roz*, and I (all floormates from first year of university) went to the Ontario Science Center. I had heard from Jon the day before that Teddy was exceptionally excited about everything that week--Ted had been staying at Jon's and being a tourist since the Saturday before--and we saw ample evidence of this at the Science Centre. As we went from one room to another, Ted would run ahead of us, and then come back and stare at us as though wondering why we took so long. He was like a kid. In fact, all week Jon got nervous whenever Ted left his sight. Roz was also silly in a controlled way some of the time.

Anyway, on to the details... I will get the order of the exhibits wrong, but I'm sure you can manage.

My experiences with a pseudo-tornado earlier in the week came flashing back when we saw the mist-tornado at the Centre. It was quite interesting; we got lots of pictures. Apparently waving your hand through it sometimes breaks it up, but I didn't experience that: when I put my hand through it, it stayed about the same. I wonder what the misty-substance was. Dry ice? Watery mist? Not sure.

One of the temporary exhibits when we visited was a spy exhibit. Some of it was sort of kiddie, but other parts were fun. At one point, there was a big wooden crate which had warnings and 'use gloves' and 'have flea powder ready' and pictures of big cats stenciled on the sides. It also had a whole in the side with a flap. The others wouldn't put their hands in. I did, though I can assure you that I pulled back a little at one point. Here's the funny thing: when I heard the purring/growling start, I thought for a second that if it were a live lion and it clawed my hand off, it would have been worth it just to pet one.

The spy exhibit also showed lots of spy gear and had assorted games you could play. There were facial recognition scans and all sorts of cool stuff. There was a large prosthetic leg which could be switched between a repelling hook and line, a shoe and leg, and a large metallic tentacle. If I ever lose a leg, I want one of those suckers. It would be awesome.

There were cases of bright poison dart frogs. I struggled to get a good picture of one. My efforts were thwarted somewhat by Jon insisting I come over to the waterfall for a picture right at that moment.

There was also a robo-fish that ran on solar power. More accurately, there were assorted types of solar-power run robo-fish, based on the movements of real fish. If you put your hands on the case so your shadow covered the solar panels, they'd stop swimming.

There was an exhibit about Middle Eastern science. I had known some of it already, but I was generally happy that they acknowledged that the Islamicate Empire made considerable scientific advancements as a part of their religious practices. Did you know that while Europe was suffering from malnutrition and thought that disease came from swamp air, a man in what is now Iraq was performing the first eye cararact surgery? For some reason, though, they included the boat of Zheng He, who was Chinese, not Middle Eastern. Still cool.

In another room, there were assorted optical illusions and sound or frequency tricks. One used angles and false optical cues, in conjuction with the two-dimensionality of a camera, to make people appear different sizes on a screen. Roz became far taller than she has been before, while Teddy became far smaller.

In the same room, Ted made weird loud noises like a heron or egret to vibrate strings. We all got videos, but Jon's has the best sound. Whenever Jon needed a laugh, he's play the video. He'd chuckle for ten minutes after that.

One of the more note-worthy exhibits (at least to my mind) was the face-fusion one. The exhibit uses semi-reflective but transparent glass. Like any other one-way glass, it depends largely on the comparative light levels on either side of the pane. On each side of the 'mirror' in this exhibit was a seat and lights arranged as in one of those mirrors for doing make-up. You could adjust the light levels on either side, changing the transparency. If the light was the same on either side, then what you saw on the glass was a 50/50 blend of transparency and reflection, or what was on your side or the other side. If you get a person sitting on each chair, and if the people line up their faces and adjust the lights, their faces 'fuse.'
Roz and I did this. (Roz is a girl.) We did it twice, actually, to see if the effect was different depending which side we sat on. Once I wore glasses and once I did not. The effect was bizarre. Actual, I might want to use the word 'uncanny,' because it was both familiar and unfamiliar. I could recognize myself in the reflection and I could recognize Roz. The strangest part was in the eyes and the brow, which blended most. Also, when Roz moved her mouth to speak, it seemed as though her teeth appeared and disappeared from my mouth. As we played with the levels, she said it looked at one point as though she was wearing glasses and had my ears poking out from her own (our heads are different sizes). I which we had a picture of it, but, alas, I didn't think to get one. Ted and Jon did it, and Ted said they looked like a monkey.

At the end we saw an IMAX movie about the Alps. Not much to say there. We also meandered through the gift shop, but bought nothing.

Oh! Nearly forgot! We saw raccoons which were surprisingly tame in a bird-watching area. They were cute big fellas (or ladies, possibly), notwithstanding what the kids thought.

That is all for now. Later, I will tell you about Niagara Falls--the Casino, the haunted house, the hotel, and the Falls themselves--and about the miscellaneous adventures we went on around Toronto.

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*Names have not been changed due to general laziness.

And return

I am back, and I have all sorts of material to write posts about. For a first, though, I will add a picture of mist...