I was at Toys "R" Us yesterday to get myself a cheap rear bike light. Someone stole my old one, or maybe it just dislodged itself from the chassis. Anyhow, as I was queueing up, the 4 year old kid before me was holding a large box with a Darth Vader inside. There was the da da da dada da dada da music coming out, and the Light Saber was glowing. It was very real, and I could immediately sense a disturbance in the Force right there at the cashier.
I said to the father, "That's bloody cool!" He replied, "It's a ripoff! For his birthday..." It costs $60. Wow! The Dark Side really is strong in that one...
Another Dark Side story is the casino which will open in Singapore soon. Just yesterday, the announcement was made. So today, Channel News Asia released a 6000-word essay by a former finance manager at APB (the folks that make the famous Singaporean Tiger Beer), currently serving a four-decade sentence for cheating banks more than $117 million to fuel his gambling habit. It's essential reading.
Personally, I'm not against a casino. I think it can be a nice place where people go and have fun, just like any other entertainment venue. The problem is when folks misunderstand the purpose of a casino to mean a place to raise revenue rather than a place of entertainment. I've seen friends who are devastated by this simple misunderstanding; addiction can then result from this, leading to very much worse things.
What intrigued me about the finance manager is precisely the fact that he's a finance manager. He's an expert in the technicalities on money. He should be familiar with basic statistics. And yet he fell to the Dark Side. In his essay from prison, he recounts the critical point when 'he lost it'. I think at this point, no amount of intellectual analysis can rationalise things. Actually, nothing seem to help, the desperation, despair, depression. So please, everyone, read up before you try your hand at the dices. And never, never underestimate the power of the Dark Side...
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