The Holocaust Museum

Went to the Holocaust Museum in DC today. Prior to this, although I had heard about the Holocaust, I did not know why it happened, how it happened, and what is the extent and magnitude of this horror…

It was terrible.

Hitler and his Nazi party managed to galvanize the people of the ‘superior’ race to persecute the ‘inferior’ race, the Jews. I guess most of the people then probably believe it was wrong but everyone, everyone thought it was none of their business and so they kept quiet… they assisted this horrible murder…

These Jews had nowhere to go… the whole of Europe was taken by Germany and the rest of the world denied them asylum. Even the great United States of America decided they don’t want more Jews refugees and sent a full ship of refugees back to Germany where they perished… I wonder how is it like to live without hope… knowing the next day will be your last… knowing that your right to live is decided by another man…

Some of the people in the museum cried… I had tears in my eyes… you don’t need someone to tell you the story to feel the overwhelming sadness…


Holocaust Museum, DC

Coming out of the museum… you will come out thinking about the world and your place in the world. You think about God… you think about conscience and you think about life. It was one experience… everyone has to visit the Holocaust Museum if they ever come to DC!

The downside to the experience is that photography was not allowed in the museum. Anyway, anything less than going to the museum to experience the horror on your own will not do it justice!

Read the wikipedia’s article on The Holocaust here.

Then read about the worst of The Holocast, the gas chambers in the Nazi extermination camps.

Mathematics of Gambling?

After coming back from Vegas… I did a lot of ‘post-combat’ analysis on my gaming in the casinos. Why is casinos unbeatable and if it is unbeatable why do people still flock to play in casinos? Basically, casinos treat their games like an exercise in maths… every rule of a game affects the odds of the game, which we call house edge.

Essentially, almost all games we play in casinos are ‘unfair’ in some way; the rules of the games, the amount of payout per bet and the setup of the game always give the advantage to the house. This means that the house WINS in the long run no matter what. Take for example for my ‘favorite’ game back in Genting, Roulette for example. For a wheel with 38 numbers plus a ‘0’ and ‘00’, the house edge is 5.26% on each bet. Hence, if you have an infinite amount of money, betting for infinite amount of time, you will lose 5.26% of your bankroll.

So what is it about winnings and losses? In mathematical terms they are called variance (sound familiar?). So… bet a large amount of money, you will have high variance aka high win/lose, bet low then you will probably win little or lose a little. In the long term, your winnings and losses will even out to you losing about 5.26% of your total money betted if you bet on roulette!

There are a couple of websites that explains casino games in detail and one pretty good website is www.wizardofodds.com . I guess we should all ‘educate’ ourselves a little from this website if we ever feel an urge to throw some good money away! Rule number 1 for me is: never ever bet in negative progressions... I usually bet double my bets after I lose in a negative progression and I didn’t even know there is a nice name for it: the Martingale System! (a dumb system by the way…). Rule number 2 is: remember Rule 1.

To win in casinos (I mean long term!) you can well play some poker (poker pits players against players, not players against the house, who ALWAYS WINS… did I tell you that before? =P)… so if you are better than the other players, you can take their money! Another way is to card-count in blackjack. But first we got to get our basic strategy right. Basic strategy without card-counting gives a house edge of <1%, which is probably the lowest among all casino games. Now, card counting can turn this 1% to the player's favor, so the house edge becomes -1%!

Card counting can be learnt by anyone! You don’t need to be 双天之尊 to be a reasonable card counter! One simple card counting system is Easy OPP Count System. I think the least card counting can do for you learning it, is at least your memory skills will improve a lot! Still, it takes time and effort to learn it… and it takes even more time and effort to card count to casino play speeds! I guess I won’t be starting on this ‘skill’ anytime soon… but it definitely will be quite interesting to learn something like this!

The Moral of the Story is...

Read one blog entry from a friend’s friend blog (fi)… the story of “King Arthur and the Witch”. It was one interesting story! (with many twists!) … check it out =P

King Arthur & The Witch

Young King Arthur was ambushed and imprisoned by the monarch
of a neighboring kingdom. The monarch could have killed him but was moved by
Arthur's youth and ideals. So, the monarch offered him his freedom, as long as
he could answer a very difficult question. Arthur would have a year to figure
out the answer and, if after a year, he still had no answer, he would be put to
death.

The question?...What do women really want? Such a question
would perplex even the most knowledgeable man, and to young Arthur, it seemed an
impossible query. But, since it was better than death, he accepted the monarch's
proposition to have an answer by year's end.
He returned to his kingdom and
began to poll everyone: the princess, the priests, the wise men and even the
court jester. He spoke with everyone, but no one could give him a satisfactory
answer. Many people advised him to consult the old witch, for only she would
have the answer. But the price would be high; as the witch was famous throughout
the kingdom for the exorbitant prices she charged.

The last day of the year arrived and Arthur had no choice but
to talk to the witch. She agreed to answer the question, but he would have to
agree to her price first. The old witch wanted to marry Sir Lancelot, the most
noble of the Knights of the Round Table and Arthur's closest friend!

Young Arthur was horrified. She was hunchbacked and hideous,
had only one tooth, smelled like sewage, made obscene noises, etc He had never
encountered such a repugnant creature in all his life. He refused to force his
friend to marry her and endure such a terrible burden; but Lancelot, learning of
the proposal, spoke with Arthur. He said nothing was too big of a sacrifice
compared to Arthur's life and the preservation of the Round Table.

Hence, a wedding was proclaimed and the witch answered
Arthur's question thus:
What a woman really wants, she answered....is to be
in charge of her own life.
Everyone in the kingdom instantly knew that the
witch had uttered a great truth and that Arthur's life would be spared.
And
so it was, the neighboring monarch granted Arthur his freedom and Lancelot and
the witch had a wonderful wedding.
The honeymoon hour approached and
Lancelot, steeling himself for a horrific experience, entered the bedroom. But,
what a sight awaited him. The most beau tiful woman he had ever seen lay before
him on the bed. The astounded Lancelot asked what had happened

The beauty replied that since he had been so kind to her when
she appeared as a witch, she would henceforth, be her horrible deformed self
only half the time and the beautiful maiden the other half.
Which would he
prefer? Beautiful during the day....or night?
Lancelot pondered the
predicament. During the day, a beautiful woman to show off to his friends, but
at night, in the privacy of his castle, an old witch? Or, would he prefer having
a hideous witch during the day, but by night, a beautiful woman for him to enjoy
wondrous intimate moments?

What would YOU do?...



What Lancelot chose is below.

Noble Lancelot said that he would allow HER to
make the choice herself.
Upon hearing this, she announced that she would be
beautiful all the time because he had respected her enough to let her be in
charge of her own life.
Now....what is the moral to this story?



The moral is.....
If you don't let a woman have
her own way....
Things are going to get ugly

Whatever Happens in Las Vegas, Stays in Las Vegas!

5th Apr

This almost felt like a page from the ‘Amazing Race’… I had a major screw-up… went to the wrong airport for my flight to Las Vegas! Somehow I got mixed up between Ronald Reagan National Airport and Dulles International Airport. With 45 mins to go… I had to pay $85 ($75 + tips) for a private fast car to Dulles.

Still, I missed my 9.30pm flight despite reaching at 9.25pm. The good news is, I may be able to squeeze into the 8.15am flight in the morning. In the meantime, I will have to sleep in the airport!

6th Apr-7th Apr

I barely made it into the 8.15am plane… if there was one more seat available, the couple that was in front of me in the waiting list would have left instead of me!

The sliver lining on this large gloomy dark cloud was that I was rewarded with the magnificent view of the Grand Canyon from air when we are 15 mins from Las Vegas! The Grand Canyon would be impossible to see at night… the $85 and the 12-hr self-induced delay was probably worth it! (plus that back-breaking sleep in the airport!) I could never quite imagine the scale of the Grand Canyon… endless valleys cut into the red barren ground… I couldn’t even see the limits of these valleys when we were so high up! I guess this is gonna be one main highlight of my trip.


The Grand Canyon from the sky.... wow....

From the McCarran International Airport (Las Vegas), I took the cheapest option to my hostel by taking the public CAT bus (bus 108) (the bus stop was well hidden in a corner of the airport!). My hostel (USA Hostels Las Vegas) is located in downtown Las Vegas which is a good 45 mins by bus away from the major casinos on the Strip. (This is backpacking for you…) Unfazed, I walked all the way from downtown along the Strip (also known as Las Vegas Blvd) and killed my legs in the process!


Las Vegas welcomed me with it's money-sucking tentacles......


My hostel in the seedier part of downtown Las Vegas...


Downtown Las Vegas... the whole ceiling lights up at night with music in the Fremont Street Experience!

The casinos are mostly located on the southern Strip… the more interesting thing of note along the northern Strip is the numerous wedding chapels here! There are even drive-thru wedding chapels here! I saw one wedding chapel where rock star, Bon Jovi got married in… cool!


One of the numerous little wedding chapels on the Strip... this one wedded Bon Jovi!


Proof!

Walking on, I pretty much checked out all of the major free attractions along the northern Strip. All the major hotel-casinos have free attractions to attract tourists and would-be gamblers. Among the best for me are:

1) Fountains of Bellagio (impressive! Outside Bellagio)
2) Sirens of TI (very Las Vegas! Outside Treasure Island)
3) Volcano Eruption at Mirage (why is there even a volcano?! Outside Mirage)
4) Fremont Street Experience (not too bad… this is in downtown Las Vegas)


What the hell?! This Mirage volcano blows flames!

There were more that I have seen and some that I missed… I’ll probably come back Las Vegas to check them out again sometime!

The hotel-casinos there are really quite amazing… you have Venetian, which is modeled after Venice (including those gondolas!); Bellagio, with the spectacular fountains; Paris-Las Vegas, shaped like the Effel tower; New York-New York, with the exterior that looks just like New York City’s skyline and Luxor, which is the famous pyramid hotel!


The Venetian... wow...


The ceilings of the Venetian are all like this....... wow!


Paris-Las Vegas... there are hotel rooms in that 'Eiffel Tower'!


New York-New York and its crazy roller coaster!


Treasure Island.... the 'Sirens of TI' shows here at dusk!


The Mirage


Caesars Palace... so big that I got lost inside!


Excalibur...


Luxor's pyramid-shaped hotel complete with a Sphynx!

The sad thing was… I lost quite a bit of money without even planning to gamble in the first place. This is the danger of Las Vegas… you see casinos everywhere that you can easily get hooked by them! There are even slot machines right in the airport! (basically, you can’t run away from them!). I would have been able to afford a decent hotel stay, eat nice restaurant meals and probably catch a good Cirque de Soleil show with the money I lost!

Aside from gambling… Las Vegas did have some interesting adult-themed attractions but … whatever happens in Las Vegas, stays in Las Vegas! I guess I’ll visit Las Vegas again sometime!

I am Funky...... Panties

Well... I may be a funky guy but I am actually a pair of funky panties! Luckily I'm luminous blue, not red...... else some crazy guy might just come around and play 'pretend superman' with me!

You Are Funky Panties

You're stylish, trendy, but not over the top. You know how to look good - without looking like you're trying too hard. Men think that you're cute, friendly, and approachable. And you've got a spunky, feisty side that comes out after a while!

What Kind of Panties Are You?

National Cherry Blossoms Festival at Washington DC (2th Apr)

Cherry Blossoms at the Tidal Basin; look at the crowd!


Cherry Blossoms everywhere!


Under a sea of cherry blossoms!


Painting the cherry blossoms...


Close-up of a cherry blossom flower