Only I was left at the parking area along Highway 20 near Buffalo in the morning. That night cars came and went. I woke up and took a whiz and brushed my teeth. Around 9:30 am I headed to Buffalo and then Canada.
Buffalo has the distinction of the first American metropolitan city to pave all of its roads. They are also infamous for a football team which lost 3 or 4 consecutive superbowls. I didn't stay or stop at all, just took the highway leading to Niagra Falls.
Well, I wasn't suprised when the 2 US Customs official pulled asked me to pull over, and they searched through everything I had, but they didn't find anything. They didn't frisk me though. So my suggestion is, if you are crazy or foolish enough to smuggle drugs over the border, carry them on your person. But then again, maybe it's because I looked filthy; therefore, they wanted no part. At first, I asked one them something thinking they were the Canadian customs, and one of them said, "Don't insult me like that."
The Canadians wanted $2.50 US to cross into their country. I figured they would make it free to encourage people to cross the border. The only thing in Niagra Falls, Canada which Buffalo, New York, doesn't have is a casino. The only thing which Buffalo has that Niagra Falls doesn't have is a lot of crime. Canada is actually a very nice country and this is my second time driving here.
One word of advice about crossing borders: Do not get in a lane behind an RV. I think they are likely to get pulled over since there they have so much room, well at least, I suspected the RV in front of me would get pulled over and it did.
Of course I had to stop into the casino to see the conditions, and the conditions were not good and so I walked around and left. I had parked at a nearby parking lot, and the attendant was very cool: He allowed me to pay $2 US ($3 Canadian) because I didn't have any Canadian money on me. The casino gave an exchange rate of 1.5 with no fees, which is pretty good.
After about an hour in Niagra Falls, I got on the Q.E.W. highway and headed to Toronto, about 1 1/2 hour away to meet up with my friend Eileen. The Canadians in this area play a very foolish game called tailgating. In Toronto, the electronic message board even has to remind them not to tailgate and leave room for caution. Even some 18-wheelers were doing it, like it was a fad. Well, I've always associated tailgating with senselessness (or lack of common sense) because there is really no excuse to put yourself, loved ones, or friends, at risk of a car accident. As I've learned from defensive driving when I was 18: Accidents don't just happen, they're caused by carelessness. Sometimes, I would wonder how long it would take the driver behind me to stop tailgating me in the slow lane and take the open lane- you'd be surprised at how long they will stay on your butt even after the next lane has cleared. They are bad drivers in Toronto, but they were definitely not the worst.
I suppose lack of common sense also explains why drivers speed up to stop signs or red lights, or accelerate on the exit ramp.
(Off the subject, I associate high degrees of common sense with high degrees of wisdom. It's something I don't want to try to explain. I feel common sense is really underrated, and not many people have a high degree of it; so, in this world, I really believe there are only a very few wise people, and in my life, I can say I've only know 3 or four. Myself, I'd like to think I'm sensible and pretty deep, but look how foolish I am for gambling my money away.)
I was able to contact Eileen at a pay phone in Mississigua, Ontario, and we would meet at her workplace. Eileen had to go to work and we would meet up afterwards. I stopped by the nearby Taco Bell and some tacos. Man, I can't recall when I last had a taco, and funny, I'm eating it this far north in Canada instead of southern United States or Mexico.
Then I drove around for a few hours in the blazing heat. It wasn't as hot as Texas, but it was hot. Gas was expensive at 80 cents a litre (3.75 litres in a gallon; a litter is roughly the same as a quart).
I stopped at an elemetary school, no kids around since it was late, and sat in the Cresseida reading the Book of Genesis from Bible. My friend Charles gave me this Revised Oxford Bible including the Apocraphyr Books to read a couple of months ago, and I told him I would do my best to complete it. Some people who are religous have not read the bible, and some people who are atheists have. I've always wanted to read the Bible to understand why people accept God, but frankly, Genesis reads like pure mythology, and I find it very difficult, shocking, and amazing to believe people have blind faith in Genesis as the creation of the life and the universe as we know it.
My biology teacher in high school showed the class a movie about a lawyer defending a teacher who wanted to teach evolution in school. I'm not sure if it was Inherit the Wind or not. I've always remembered the one courtroom scene when the lawyer talked about the 6 days to create the earth: He said something to the effect, "If God created the earth before the stars (including the sun), then how could we possibly know what a day is, since a day is a man-made concept of seeing the sun, and night is when the sun disappears." Then he tried to appease the audience in the courtroom by stating maybe a day is millions of years. And now if you ever hear a sermon in person or on the radio, the preacher may say is a very long time back at the creation, and not just "one day."
Well, there are at least 5 other parts in Genesis which I cannot accept: 1) where is that floating sword guarding the Garden of Eden; 2) the snake must not be in the form we know it today, but rather very humanoid since it was able to talk and deceive, and God made it a slithering creature after it tempted Eve; 3) why did God reject Cain's offering of plants and accepted Abel's sheep (if it was me, I would have accepted Cain's offering and not Abel's, since killing an animal and offering it as a sacrifice is not my cup of tea; an explanation is that Abel was a good person and Cain was not); 4) Cain said to God he is afraid others will kill him knowing he murdered Abel (Others? I only count 3 people- Adam, Eve, and Cain now that Abel is dead, so who are the others? One explanation is Cain and Abel were born late in Adam and Eve's lives, and the earlier offsprings greatly reproduced, but the Bible doesn't say this explicitly, leaving too many things to be assumed, and assumption does not always lead to fact); 5) why does God need to rest if he is omnipotent (an explanation could be that rest means he no longer wanted to make any changes and he was sastisfied, not rest as in recovering).
If there is a god, then Genesis cannot be the story of the creation of the universe, but I suppose if a people have blind faith, then there is no need to doubt the words of the Bible. However, I do have some respect for people who stick to their guns and keep their faith.
After work late in the evening, we headed off to Casino Rama in Rama, Ontario, about 1 1/2 hour away from Toronto. This was a very large native Canadian casino. Eileen won $400 at the keno machine after I scolded her about how keno is the worst payback game in casino. She was nice enough to give me a $100 which I lost at the blackjack table along with another $150 Canadian ($100 US). So I'm down roughly $550 for the trip (not including the $100 Eileen gave me). It turns out, Eileen lost the other $300 back, which I'm not surprised since the keno odds are horrible and the casino will win back their money easily in the long run. (I believe the payback is something awful like %75, while many downtown Las Vegas return over 90%. The best place to play keno is not to play, slots too for that matter.)
We got back into Toronto early in the morning and crashed at Eileen's cousin's, Angel, apartment.
Cansino journal: There are 3 casinos within 1 1/2 hour of Toronto: Niagra Falls, Blue Heron, and Casino Rama. On the first day in Ontario, I only stopped at Niagra Falls and Casino Rama. Both these casinos are very alike, but Niagra Falls has $8 parking on site and there are many more tourist attractions in the area.
Blackjack at Niagra Falls, Canada is bad. They play with eight decks and many of the dealers cut away 2 decks. Standard Las Vegas rules: stand on all 17's. Not sure on all the rules since I didn't hang around too long. The casino was rather crowded even during the day. I only like to play with no more than 4 hands at the table- if I'm playing 2 hands, then 1 or 2 other hands is fine. I just notice I do very poorly when playing at a full table. Plus, when the dealer gets a breaking shoe, the players don't get that many good hands after they find out the cards are good.
Casino Rama has the same Las Vegas strip rules, and they play with 8 decks at blackjack. Nothing eventful happened except I was too tired to count again and lost. The game was just played with basic strategy on a crowded table, which I should not have played, but the whole casino was packed on a Saturday night. I was up at the very beginning and probably could have won more and left. There were some college aged guys sitting at my table and they played terrible. One eventful thing, one the guys put his head on another guy's shoulders and that guy quickly pushed his head. I suspect they may have been gay and the guy who pushed off probably reacted quickly so no one would notice.
