Category Archives: Stories

August 23, 2023 · 20:55

A very different oak

OK, to be honest, this dream hit me some time ago. I had it, but I have no idea why I had the dream and I might never figure it out. The event was at Golden Oak Orlando. I was visiting someone and when we got to his abode (a mansion by any other name) we were overwhelmed. I reckon that this is the feeling that all those who ever visited someone’s place in Golden Oak leaves them. It is a little overwhelming. So we got to his place, we were shown the lower part of the house with an inner courtyard. There was a pool, a jacuzzi and a few other amenities making sure that we all felt a little out of our comfort zone. We went to the corner in the inner courtyard and we had something to drink. There were two pitchers of iced fruit-juice and it was wonderful. I went for the slightly more orange one. It was a mix of peached and tangerines loaded with what seemingly a shrapnel of ice parts. It was icy cold and refreshing. My kind of refreshing. The others were talking and I was listening and looking at the details of the courtyard and the kitchen room through the glass. The stove looked old-fashioned but seemingly bursting with high tech elements. A stove anyone would dream of having in their home. After the drink the second part started. We saw the living room, the kitchen we walked through and we saw a large pantry. The living-room was a little spartan but stylish. We all walked up the stairs and we saw the master bedroom. Not sure what the style was, but it looked neat. The walking bathroom was to die for and had everything on a space that is pretty much my living room. There were the two guest rooms and they both had their own style, nice but very different. And I saw the door, the door that would change it all. The door was out of place. It looked a lot heavier and darker, like dark oak heavy. From a distance it stood out, even as the door was deeper into the wall than any other door in the house. It stood out like a bank vault door would stand out in any apartment, it looked that heavy. The door was dark oak as said, but it was engraved unlike anything I had ever seen. The owner then moved a panel in the door and a small opening revealed itself. 

The opening had a key, a very old fashioned one and if I had to make a guess it was a 17th century key, but it looked off somehow. The panels showed us characters from Peter Pan and Mr. Smee (the first mate from Peter Pan) was the center piece of the door. The door opened smoothly but seemingly heavy and the door didn’t open at the end, the door opened with the axial at one third of the door and the door was a lit thicker than a door should be. What I saw then blew me away. The room was almost entirely made from wood, hardwood floors, and I saw to the right what could have been the navigator desk from a galleon. To the left was an admiral’s table with swanky seat. The navigator had its own swanky seat, both a chesterfield design, both chairs build for comfort and I walked in. I saw the small door to the end and I walked towards it, it opened up to a small balcony with seats. The wooden balcony seemed to have been part of a slightly enlarged balcony like the admirals room on a galleon with a small table and chairs. 

I looked around and I was slapped across the face a second time. The walls I can in from were the  rear of a galleon, complete with stained glass and a view of the ocean. The wall that connects to the house was an ocean and the smell of salt water was invading my nostrils. A freakin ocean? I slowly walked towards the end of the ship realising that it was smoke and mirrors (of sorts) the windows were real enough, the sound of a seagull was there, but as I stared closely I noticed the fine lines. The view on the ocean were TV screens 4 meters wide in total, about a meter high. 4 of them. There was a hidden vapour in there feeding us seawater. The sound came from the screen. It was the sound of the ocean with a bird every no and then and the screens were merely showing us the water waves, almost like it would have been were we on a galleon. The walls had pictures. One in heavy sterling with the image of Bill Thompson (the name was engraved in the centre of the bottom side of the frame. I knew the name as I grew up with Disney movies. He was the voice of Mr. Smee in the Disney version of it. There was an image an autographed one of Bob Hoskins, the man who played Smee in Hook and there were more Smee memorabilia all over the room. The navigator desk was a desk, it was fully functioning with a large map of Never-never land. The map rolled up and stayed rolled up. Beneath it was a screen a 32” touch display that showed the Mac screen and applications. There were all the Adobe ones, all the Apple ones and several I had never seen before. I noticed that below it were extensions that came out, for both the keyboard and to the right of that an A4 digital writing pad. The system was super-fast, faster than the average G5 and it looked super intuitive. I looked around to the admiral’s desk which as a large and very nice desk with all kinds of amenities. The top of the desk was wood and I think a strip of leather, for writing on I reckon. The drawers were all engraved and to the right of the desk was a panel like it was some kind of food elevator. The panel was opened and two plates with canapé’s came out. They were delicious. The door I came in through was no longer visible, well not until you go looking for it. I saw the lines of where the door was and it was almost invisible to the naked eye. 

The chair was bordeaux red, it looked extremely comfy. We ate the food and we all were mesmerised on the room. I was not the only one blown away. This was his office space and it was one hell of an office space. It was a few minutes later when we left the room and as the door opened the screens shut down, the sounds faded and to room lights all dimmed but did not turn off. As I left the room I heard the room lock and I heard more clicks, almost like a set of alarms were set to sharp. We went down again and in the kitchen I now noticed the same panel we hd upstairs. A food elevator and a chef was there with plates of food that staff were bringing around. There was a Japanese plate with marinated eel. Plates with what seemed to be wraps with chicken and I had another fruit juice. I took the yellow now, which was I reckoned pineapple with Limes and I guess pear. It was slightly sweeter, I preferred the orange one. Which was my third drink. We sat down in the living room and I was listening. I also figured out I was the plus one of one of the ladies there. She was way out of my league, so no idea who she was and why she was with me and as I was sipping my fruit juice I faded away and woke up in my own bed. 

The dream stuck with me and at first I thought it was the setting for some kind of game, but there was no relation to any game I thought up. Then it could be for TV or movie, but the office space was too distinct. I would have loved to have a house and with such an office, but too much was not my initial desire in office choice, even as the computer clearly was. Sometimes the brain takes you on a meaningless quest, so I might never know why, but that feeling of looking around and watching the ocean still haunts me and I have no idea why.

Enjoy the day, we are now past the 50% point towards the weekend.

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August 1, 2023 · 21:50

Switch the setting

I decided to switch the setting, there is no real reason other than to reflect on some of these TV series that suddenly get another lease of character. The interview episode in the Rookie, the COPS episode in the X-Files and so on. Most TV series have gone through it and now so am I. In this I am reflecting on the script I to some degree (up to season 2) here called engonos. As such I have decided to have a little fun here, I hope you like it. Enjoy

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It was a decent day, as winter is settling n the southern hemisphere, the weather in Dubai was a temperate 36 degrees Celsius. I was looking at the marine, the people and watch people stroll in a relaxed fashion as I was enjoying a cup of coffee. 

There was a scent in the air, it was a little off but it was distinct. Brimstone and sandalwood, there was only one person (if you can call him one) that would leave that scent. It was Al-Malik-Al-Aswad. It had been a little over 900 years, but it was the one scent that stays with you. He was not normal, no person had that level of power and he was here in Dubai. I preferred not to meet with him, for some reason he is always one card short of a full meltdown. He had seen it all as well and he was al old as any Olympian around. But there is something to be said for territory and for the most I have always respected his. Yet I was here out of necessity. I was not taking over his territory, I was more set to making sure that the next phase would include the Middle East and Asia. Europe was done. It was too corrupt and it needed to end and certain family members had been adamant about it. It wasn’t until recently that I started to see patterns, patterns that were as old as the hills. Lord Hades of Tartarus (the man I call grandfather) had found a new ploy to an old curse that he unleashed on a man named Sisyphus. The story was that Sisyphus first captured Thanatos, then he convinced my grandfather to return to make sure that pops would receive the proper offerings. The first I got, the second one I did not, it was almost too ego-centrical. As such the second was shame on him and that went not well in Tartarus, he was flaming fuming for decades. Still he used the ploy on Sisyphus to roll a boulder up a hill which slid back down when it was near the top and as fun would have it, Sisyphus was still at it after all these millennia. He had now a new goal and the setting was transformed. The Americans were all Sisyphus, the boulder was their own administration and the people were hopeless and pointless going from line to line trying to get the forms and as they were near completion the process, the forms would be adjusted and it started all over again. They would compete one line and get one form done and after that within a month they would be at it again. It was relentless and no one was seeing beyond the forms, beyond the lines and it had been going on for decades. All whilst their treasuries were having less and less to distribute. It was a failing of absolute certainty. Political wannabe leaders spending more and more on legal fees, less and less was about substance and it would continue as it was. A stage that had no solution for anyone and all the political wannabe’s were shouting things like ‘It is so complex now’ but that was for tomorrow. And now they were trying to cut up Amazon, the second bastion. First Google now Amazon. And the coffers would be depleted further as Amazon could movie its operations to Dubai for all Middle East operations and as they did that they could regain some of the Asian market. Xinhua Bookstore ruled in China, but with Dubai and Hyderabad India Amazon could regain some of that lost marketshare and as they grew in Europe the American shops would shutdown and the gap that remained could not be reset by anyone making the Americans dumber in the process. As such the Sisyphus routines were working and it was working on several levels. 

But it wasn’t about that, it was not about what my grandfather was doing. It was about how it was being done. I have no idea what my other grandfather was doing. You see Zeus (no other grandfather) had lost a lot of his powers, as did my great-uncle Poseidon. They lost it to air pollution and water pollution. Lord Hades was however all powerful, he had more strength then the two others combined. A millennia of growth and death made that so. In the first century there were about 150,000,000 people, by 1500 it was 500 million and now we are at eight billion and a chunk of that ends up nowhere, as such they end up at the edges of Tartarus and a lot of them end in Tartarus making Lord Hades stronger and stronger. But today was about a new border, a new stage. Yet for that I needed the Djinn, not one, but several and the stage was not to undermine my grandfather, but to ensure the decent people had a way out. China was a separate issue and it was already on route, but the Middle East was more direct and there the one person I had not seen in 900 years comes in. He knows where one of the Zabaniyah resides. I had no clue what its name was or where it was, but that was the problem. Knowing the name of a Zabaniyah gives you power over it and they are not in the market of relinquishing power. But that was the game and that was where Al-Malik-Al-Aswad came in. Convincing him that I was on the level was a whole new problem and I had an idea, but it was a dangerous one, especially if he didn’t believe me. I took another sip of coffee and looked over the marina. There was that smell again and I looked around. Then I saw the man, an elderly man. He was standing there yet no one seem to take notice of him. Strong beard. I was certain that all; the garden gnomes in Dubai were jealous of his beard and there was a strange orange aura around him. I stood up and walked towards him. 

He looked at me, I think he was sizing me up. As I got within 3 meters I stopped and suddenly noticed that no one was noticing me either. It was an interesting skill. 

He held up my ring, it was on the left index finger and he took notice of the symbol on it. I spoke to him ‘I am Lavrenti of the house of Hades of Tartarus’ I seek an audience with you as things are about to happen that could impact your region and I want to make sure that the Middle East is  protected. Not merely for me, but for all the good people in the world. He looked at me and pondered my words. ‘So what do you need?’ I looked at me and I responded. I have an idea to push the west into a lot of escalations, but to do that I need access to a Zabaniyah and you might know one. It is my only option at present. 

He looked at me and pondered the question. “In the way you approached me, I can help. He is in Egypt, he resides in one of the pyramids. If you can see you can directly spot which one. His name is Sentatayil. This is all you need. I will expect repayment for the courtesy I just showed you and he was gone. I was standing in the street alone and suddenly some people noticed me, yet they shook it off like it was a weird trickle. I walked away, it was time to see the pyramids. I had not seen them in person for over 2100 years. When I visited them, pretending to be a greek writer visiting the court of Ptolemy IX Soter, as such the place might have evolved a bit, time would tell. As such I was on route to Dubai international airport, places to go, people to address. 

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Yes this was a story and this was all my imagination, but I was kind enough to lace it with reality. You need to wonder about a few things and I reckon that every story needs a bit of spice, if only to confuse the avid reader on where reality stops. We all have an evil demon on our shoulders and mine resides on my right shoulder, the one on the left shoulder is an angelic pussy.

Have a lovely day, more reality tomorrow.

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July 11, 2023 · 16:12

Out of the blue

This is what happened. I was walking on the street (as one does) and I noticed an elderly Asian lady talking into the screen of her mobile phone. This is nothing special even as we realise some things, but that was not what it was about. You see I love my Pixel 6, it does what it needs to do and then some, but I suddenly realised something. 

For this we need to go back to a year ago when Sony made a new introduction. It was the new Bravia XR. We can skip all the extra new parts it has and focus on one part. The fact that the speakers are BEHIND the screen, right behind them and for a TV it brings a little extra punch. Yet what happens when we apply a similar setting to a mobile phone? 
Consider the screen below.

Now we consider that we change the small part of the top screen to a (perhaps) thinner solution, water resistant and we put a microphone in the middle part and two speakers on the left and right side of this solution. We have a few less holes (making it more water resistant) and we stop dust getting there and we have a new situation, optionally less resistant to defect.

Now perhaps the boffins at Google have been considering this already, but the idea of transference of IP (outside of its own class) is nothing new. The idea that I am the first one who comes up with this is equally laughable, but I learned that for every 10 ideas I come up with that others have as well, I tend to have one that no one thought of before. Yes it seems hilarious to some, but this is how I came up with half a dozen ideas that no one seems to have in gaming, streaming and 5G (or 5G plus) IP and the moment I make it all public domain the managing dumbo’s out there will come with BS idea that I should have come to them, they would done right by me. Yes, tell me one I never heard one before. The fake it till you make it managers will all be fishing behind the net and it will be for everyone, no patent to make it exclusively. It will be for anyone who wants to make a few dollars. I placed some IP here 2-3 days ago, simply because I could. Simply because I had an idea that no one considered before and I had no skills in that direction. All options that Amazon, Apple and Google missed in the first place (no one cares about Microsoft). As such the world is lacking creativity and I am happy to show them that lesson again and again. For me it is different to some degree. Perhaps it comes down to something else. In 2003 a movie was released called ‘Danny Deckchair’ it was not the act, it was his thought on that pancake breakfast that kept going on in his mind. I felt that way with one of my IP. Even as the value is in the billions, it is nothing compared to my 5G(plus) idea on something else. That could be serious money, but I care about that less. The later IP hits a few bolts on issues I feel stronger about and as such I care about that IP (and keeping it out of the hands of Microsoft). In that same thing I think ideas are nice, but if they have no practical solution to hold onto them, why hold onto them? People will go with ‘It might be worth some, someday’. It is a greed setting and greed drowns creativity every single time. This is why I look at what streaming solutions could do someday. It is because it can push gaming forward and to any gamer that matters. Not more of the same, but more in a direction we never contemplated before and that is where organisations like Amazon and Tencent Technologies are optionally pushing us. The American anti-China sentiment be damned. As such the out of the blue setting is raised, by me more than by some of you. You see, ‘out of the blue’ isn’t that, it is that our subconscious have worked something out and the elderly lady on the phone brought it to the surface for me. Yet if we can see beyond that and learn what triggers us more clearly, we get access to a lot more creativity and that is the lottery ticket we all need to embrace, or at least we should.

So what is next? 
For me it is working on some of the stories I never forgot about, but I needed to take a break and hopefully get to a setting where the story becomes less iterative and more innovative. We can be clever about this, or we can try to look at it in another point of view and that leads to new ways to accelerate any story (beyond looking for some clever twist). And to a storyteller this matters. It is not merely that Market Research setting of telling a story, it becomes an approach where the abacus can be as telling as a laptop, which is the push we all need. Those who are pushed by the laptop are set to a motion started by Apple, Google or Microsoft. But the ones who can get there with an abacus are pushed by their own minds and that push can be more powerful and less constraint that other methods hold. But that is merely my $0.0154 (adjusted for currency and economic settings).

Have a lovely day.

 

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July 2, 2023 · 22:14

One plus one makes 256

I got struck by two things today. The first was given to me by the BBC. There (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66021325) we are given something that should not be allowed to happen. We are given ‘Shell still trading Russian gas despite pledge to stop’ this has one part that offends me. You see it is the Royal Dutch Shell. The Dutch Royal family has a majority stake in this and we all agree that we do not under any circumstance support the Russians in their endeavour. In addition, Royal Dutch Shell is not alone. Dozens of American firms are still making money from Russia and allowing them to continue their acts of terror against civilian targets. I am all royalist, yet when something wrong is done I speak out, the fact that the BBC is extremely willing to drop the ‘Royal Dutch’ part in this equation speaks out against the BBC and their setting of informing the public (yet again). In addition to this we are given. “Shell said the trades were the result of “long-term contractual commitments” and do not violate laws or sanctions.” And when was war a reason not to break a contract? How long have certain corporations been doing business with Idi Amin Dada Oumee in the timeframe of 1971-1979? Do they not learn? I think this is the first time I ever speak out against the Dutch Royal family, but this time I see no other option but to speak out. And when we get to “Oleg Ustenko, an adviser to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, accused Shell of accepting “blood money”” I personally would agree with Oleg Ustenko. And with “Last year Shell accounted for 12% of Russia’s seaborne LNG trade, Global Witness calculates, and was among the top five traders of Russian-originated LNG that year” we see just how deep Royal Dutch Shell is connected to all this. 

Yet what you just read is not correct, and I did that intentionally. You see we also have “In January 2022, the firm merged the A and B shares, moved its headquarters to London, and changed its legal name to Shell plc.” So what is the UK doing? You see, Shell is seen as the 15th largest company in the world. You do not give up that position lightly or cheap. So whatever happened in January 2022 has had a massive impact and for some reason no one really knows what was going on (I have no clue), but me separating with ownership of a firm that big is a ‘no no’, so something does not add up to me, would you just shed a company that makes $20 billion a year? I have issues with all this and yes the BBC did nothing wrong, but the fact that this was once the Royal Dutch Shell and there is no indication (does not mean it did not happen) that the Dutch Royal family might still have a large stake in all this is upsetting to me and it would be to anyone having Dutch links. 

So as we say goodbye to that part, we get to the interesting dream I had. I dozed off whilst watching the Rookie (season 4). My dream (or nightmare) took me to Los Angeles and an interesting Terrorist plot to create and unsurmountable amount of chaos to that city. You see, with all the connected and interacting systems someone created an interesting virus/worm/program (not sure which one). This work was pretty ingenious. You see, instead of debilitating IT systems, they did something different. They infected data parsers. In my dream I was hit as I wanted to find places that had in part the term “vectium” and suddenly it all stopped. Systems worked by they were no longer able to give the full details sudden intelligent settings in Google Search, Bing (yes that one too), and all other engines failed because certain subsystems were deactivated and for some reason some version of ChatGPT was merely making matters worse and spreading the problem across the US and hitting the other continents merely hours later. Because certain detection matters were limited to certain main parts and not subparts that damage continued. The weird part was that anyone with IT knowledge and the ability to give complete correct search terms could still work, but well over 200,000,000 people suddenly had mobiles and IT systems that would no longer connect or hand over correct information, like some kind of aphasia. The dream is now fading and I can no longer see the specifics, but at the beginning it had something to do with search terms ‘like’, which then infected more and more systems. After a short time terms like ‘containing’ would stop working and even as the complete old version SQL string would work, it was about the only thing that did and it crippled the metropolitan areas of the US (and Canada shortly thereafter). The more I think about it, the more interesting it would be to set an episode of the Rookie where infrastructures collapse. You see, people are nice when they have their coffee and their hamburger (or cheeseburger), when that stops the niceties do too.

Well that is it for me, for all you others, the end of the weekend is now no more than 19 hours away, make them count and have a lovely day.

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June 25, 2023 · 15:39

Shaping Domestic Conscription

This is the stage my mind has been in for the last 24 hours and yes it is a DC comic reference. You see, the movie Thor, Love and Thunder woke something up in me. It was the mid 80’s and there was a Dutch version of an Avengers comic book I read. In this there was a reference on a ‘villian’ which led to all kinds of things and I remember that in the end there was an image of all in hell for torment felt relieved for a second as Lucifer felt fear for the very first time. It was about the optional undoing of Eternity. The end god in the Thor movie and he was just like the real thing, except for size (the length of his foot is about the size of the Chrysler building) but lets keep this to semantics and creative freedom. Yet these is the stage, it started my thinking. You see, it started at that time and the movie Black Adam merely build on the stage my mind devised. 

I gre up being a huge Batman fan, in my preteens I grew up on the Batman that Adam West gave us and the man was dope. He was the real deal. OK, that is and will forever be the kid talking in me. But as others went for all the other comic book heroes for whatever reason they had and this tainted the thoughts I had. There was a side in that comic book that gave me pause to think, even now almost half a century later these thoughts are still there. What if the villains were right? They might go about it wrong, but what if there is truth in their actions? Joker, Lex Luthor, Ares, sorceress Circe, Lucifer, and that list goes on. So what happens when we create a hidden trap. A mindset where Batman does the ‘right’ thing, but he falters to see what he does is right. The encounter with someone like Eternity brings it to the surface? It allows for an interaction with Constantine, it allows for all kinds of options. And today’s world is all about what is legally right and what could be correct and they are not the same thing. We have all seen versions of that and as far as I can tell the comic movies aren’t digging into that, even though Black Adam gives a nice stage to exploring that side deeper. The creation of Amanda Waller allows for a deeper investigation of that side and perhaps the people behind DC movies should do just that. You see, there is too much polarisation in these movies and for the most we accept this as the villains in these movies are over the top bad. Yet what happens when the hero (unintentionally) overreacts? We see that in some cases, but at times it is some plot twist. What happens when we wrongly hunt down a person and we learn after we stop them that they were trying to set us all free? Consider that we have ben misled by the church for almost a millennium. Now consider that we have an Arabic setting where an Afreet is set free, but that Afreet is tinted by the history up to 1200AD, that character missed out on 800 years and that anger is now unleashed. We want to ‘protect’ and stop that character and we now have a setting that approximates what we are trying to achieve, because we learn of what was done is only now beginning to surface, in this we create a new level of ambiguity. One that most comics never touch on and it is these new borders where we get a much larger setting for who are the actual villains? Perhaps some are tainted through polarisation and recognising that opens a new dialogue, a new stage of more interesting movies. 

Consider an article from 2019 ‘Medusa was punished for being raped—so why do we still depict her as a monster?’ This sets a new premise towards the stage of a Medusa. In the Theogony, by the 8th-century BC poet Hesiod, she is described as being the child of Phorcys and Ceto and she was raped in the temple of Athena by Poseidon and Athena punishes her of all people. So what happens when we see this in a new DC setting, but until the end of the movie we aren’t told of HOW the transgression started and that opens up new doors, opens up other doors too. What if the avenging demon is Lex Luthor, getting aid by Lucifer no less and the stage is that Constantine is trying to figure out what Lex Luthor is up to (and of course Superman gets involved). Yet as we are given a partial tapestry, the loom will see the involvement of others, but until that for example the daughter of Wonder Woman Trinity was kidnapped which starts the manhunt, but at the end we learn that Trinity feared her future and got Lex Luthor to aid in her escape her dark future. Lex feeing for her and feeling his heart for her aids her and it starts a much larger feud all fuelled by Lucifer (which gives us Constantine) and there we have the making of a larger tapestry and the loom involved has the wires in one direction and cannot vouch for the fabric of the tapestry (an Odysseus reference). The stage that still bothers me is how the loom is managed, someone is pulling the strings behind the curtains of the stage and that comes to light after we see parts of the truth involved. It creates new settings of polarisation, not entirely unlike the people choosing team bat (team Cullen) or team hound (Jacob Black). The same is said for the Underworld saga. When the people are left to chose which team is the right one, you get a lot more interaction, a lot more social contribution and that pushes the story and the movies to the top of so many lists. Ambiguity gives us one side, but not all sides. What happens when Ares (opponent of Wonder Woman) is pushed to this degree by the fates Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos? What happens when they are pushed by the future and by someone wielding that side to push towards a reality free of Αion, the god of eternity? We now have a very different setting and we get the question into the open, what makes a hero a hero and a villain a villain?

Just a few thoughts going through my head (its Sunday after all) and tomorrow is another day.

Enjoy the end of the weekend, soon it will be Monday.

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May 31, 2023 · 07:42

The Gimmick

Every game needs to have one and during the night I contemplated how much more important it is to have one when you are replaying a game. This was all set in motion when I was replaying an RPG (which one does not matter), as such to enjoy replayability the game is either massive or (I will say AND) it needs a gimmick. Not something that the game has, but a gimmick it can hand to you to make it yours. You see, we all have these recollections whilst playing a game and we sometimes make notes. Yet what happens when the game is intelligent enough to make YOU a notebook whilst in the game? Your journey is set to paper every time you play that game again? Not just text, but drawn illustrations of what YOU saw in the game? One drawing that is added with every day of playing and that text can be saved to a USB in PDF form? Literally no RPG game has this and you can print it at home, n a much better printer in the office or at university or something like that. The font will be some version of Dancing script, Caveat or Pacifico and that too changes every time you replay the game, with make and female versions, small changes that make it unique. As such you and your neighbour would get two very different versions of their notebook. A story that is a journal and is added to the game as you play with you deciding how social you want to be with that journey. No game has it and if Microsoft  or one of its houses copy this idea, you will see what a losers they are (internal LOL added). 

My main thought is why no one considered this. It isn’t a hard thought to have and I feel certain I am not the first to think it, but no one added this to their game (not in all the RPG games I ever played). So is this a fluke and the idea is bad? Consider all the notes you make on games you play. Now you have a journal that keeps track on your progress, and in the game I designed here (title: Generations) that step makes more sense. The added evolution your as a gamer face in the game would benefit even more. As such the next generation (in the game) would start book 2 and you create a chronicle. Even more when we add mapping to the equation. No matter how you see it, one gimmick is nice but not enough. So where is gimmick number two? Well, I have to sleep on that one, but if my mind can evolve one gimmick, it can do so again and as I evolve this game and leave it for designers and programmers to make a new unique RPG for Sony Playstation/Amazon Luna/Logitech G Cloud and optionally Nintendo Switch. Microsoft will then have a new problem. It also supports my setting with Microsoft getting the Wooden spoon for being dead last. Even though I though it would finish behind the Google Stadia, now we have Tencent in the mix and that could spell more disaster for Microsoft. There is nothing like a console and a game pass (which is a good product) to be left on the road as the others have no need for it. For that you need GOOD exclusive games and over the last few years Microsoft didn’t add any and Redfall is apparently seen by a lot (I never played it) as wasted hard-drive space, which would equally apply to cloud space.

I just had another idea, but more about that hopefully tomorrow. I need to mull a few things over for that. You see, I wrote about part of it (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/02/25/the-stage-of-commerce/) when I wrote ‘The stage of commerce’, but what happens when we have a select group of NPC that we can evolve? We could apply it to all, but the game would become too messy. What if some NPC’s become cogs in the commerce machine? What happens when we enable them to be more by OUR actions? Not just a shop having more cash, but some NPC’s that become more powerful as we enable them to get education or skills? We would enable a larger dynamic in the game. How? That is the part I am mulling over at present. Schooling and buying business (or upgrading it) is merely one side and I think more could be done. Yet the how is in my mind at present. I feel pretty proud. I added several sides to RPG gaming that do not exist at present, as such the new developer could really come to the game with a massive bat to wield. A good stage to be in I believe, but that is what every innovator believes, the believe that self will prevail, I am in that regard no exception. We all have a similar stage to see this.

Enjoy the day (it is almost the middle of the week).

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April 27, 2023 · 01:51

Blocked or deserted?

That is where I felt I am. I have been bending over backwards to get season 4 of Kenos Diastima started or moving. In part is was a new cast to set in motion, in part it is the setting to connect throughout the story two very different parts, but I always go back to the foundation. The end of season 3 was an open ending. I reckon it would be the ending people like Terry Gilliam would reflect on with ‘Nice!’ And in his case nice would be a huge compliment. Still, I tried and I am coming up short. So I was retracing my steps. I avoided the first script, because that is locked at present, things need to happen before I continue. The second script is where I got to and stayed at. The script ‘How to assassinate a politician’ was my answer to certain people offending Islam. So I am putting it here, so that someone at Al Saudiya could do something with it. 

Prologue
In Dammam a man and a woman are sitting in front of the TV. It gives them the news and that a Dutch Politician named Geert Wilders is revived a Prophet Mohammad cartoon competition, both are angry and outraged on the insult to Islam and they talk about it for some time. She is the teacher at the Girls First High School in Dammam, whilst he is a teacher at the Boys Education College. It is the net morning that they have decided to hold a writing competition. They both asked if the news was seen and that starts the essay of the day. In English they have to write an essay on how to punish such an insult to Islam and the students are told that they will be competing against the other school and the two best essays go into the finals. The children start writing.

We hear narrations of children’s voices with parts of their essay. 

The winners are announced at the end of the day and both winners will get personal speech training from their teachers, so that they can present the story as good as possible. The winners are Ibrahim and Saad for the boys, for the girls they are Ayasha and Nura.

Story One, Ibrahim
The mans walks through the street of the Netherlands (set in Amsterdam), he sees the people walk, the cars ride and long boats in the canal. He looks at the street signs and the trees, he is not used to trees and he admires them for a moment. He looks like a prince like the prince in Aladdin with a face like a young Sylvester Stallone, with a large moustache. He walks through the street and sees Geert Wilders. He pulls out a machine gun (like in First blood) and he shots the street, the cars and Geert Wilders. Then with his blinking red eye he looks at the street and it states (0 faithful hurt, from Terminator 2). He walks over to the body of Geert Wilders and states, thou shalt not insult islam infidel. He then walks away, and as he walks away his weapon vanishes, as does his outfit, he suddenly no longer looks like Aladdin, now he looks like Ibrahim and Ibrahim walks straight over to a Turkish kebab shop. He orders a kebab whilst he sees policeman running all over the street looking for a man who no longer exists.

Story Two, Ayasha
We see the view from a person’s point of view, we think it is Ayasha, but we cannot tell. The person walks the streets of Amsterdam, we see him turn right into a smaller street and we watch as Geert Wilders walks out of a door. The person walks and wherever he steps we see grass grow, we see flowers erupt and the chirping of birds. We see Geert Wilders take a long look at what approaches him and he falls to his knees in tears. We hear him state “Forgive me” and the light increases and his head explodes. The person is suddenly gone and whilst policemen are blocking the streets, the people see a street covered in grass and flowers and one person with an exploding head, no one can tell who he was.

Story Three, Saad.
This starts somewhere in Egypt. Saad is watching a pyramid and makes calculations. He measures every part of his journey and at some point he starts digging. He digs for hours and then he stops. He has found a crate. He opens a crate and he finds an ancient oil lamp. He cleans it with alcohol and as he cleans it, the writing becomes clear. The text issues a warning. “Here is imprisoned the Afreet Apep, do not break the seal” the boy opens the seal and a serpent comes out, no larger than a worm. ‘What is thou wish’. The boy clever as he was. ‘The man Geert Wilders, an infidel insults our faith, for your freedom you will kill him, you will never harm any islamic person and this freedom is yours’. The serpent nods and whispers ‘As you wish’ and bites the boy. The serpent continues. The poison will make you sick, but it will not kill you, as you heal you will hear the voices of scorpions and snakes, they will never harm you and now you can keep your family equally safe. He snake slithers away. It made a long journey and in The Hague in a house, Geert Wilders takes his coat of and sits on a sofa. As he sits and reads papers he has no clue that he is surrounded by snakes and scorpions. The scream wakes up the neighbours. When the police walks into his apartment they see it overrun by snakes and scorpions and in the middle of a room, unrecognised with poisons is the body of Geert Wilders.

Story Four, Nura
In the softness of the desert, in a well to the north of Dammam is a secret. Its secret was well hidden by clerics. But her grandfather was a cleric, he was killed in Iraq whilst attending a sermon. His death weight heavily on her and she has never forgotten the pain. She carefully walks into the den that was sealed and she chisels away on the wall. She gets into a room that holds a cage with a despicable creature, after centuries he no longer has a real body. The creature is skin a bones. The creature looks at her and she speaks ‘Can you understand me?’ The creature nods. She continues ‘If you go north past the seas you will get to the old christian places. Do you know them? The creature nods again. Under no condition are you ever to come back. What you do there is your business, but one thing you must achieve. The creature looks at her. In this bag and she hold up the bag is water, some bread, some meat, a map and a photograph. That person resides in a place called Wassenaar a part of The Hague. When you get into that country you can do whatever you need to to regain strength, but this person must be taught never to insult islam again. Humble him, make him your slave, it is up to you. Do you accept. The creature nodded. Nura opens the cage and the creature slowly walks out, and grabs clumsily the bag, he has a sip of water and a bite of food. She then hands the creature a parcel of beef, he accepts and walks a few more steps. He notices that it is dark outside, he climbs the wall of the well avoiding the waters and leaves. Nura leaves the place to go to bed and dream of these people insulting the prophet with a terrible fate. In the meantime the ghoul regains strength and by the time he is in Belgium centuries of captivity are undone, he is again the ghoul he one was and he has no issues getting anywhere. When he gets to the address he casually walks in, Geert notices him and asks him what he is doing in his house. Geert merely hears ‘Never insult the prophet’, the Ghoul grabs his hand and bites it clean off. Geert Wilders screams and dis of blood loss. The ghouls seeks out the nearest cemetery and decides to feast on the corpses of the non-believers. He never believed, he was too old, but the delight of rotten flesh was never forgotten and now it lies fresh in his memory.

Story Five
A man walks through the streets of The Hague, he walks slow with a staff. He is Arabic and he hears how he is called Gandalf and sometimes Saruman. The names mean nothing to him. He walks from Mosque An-Nour into the city. Looking at the streets and the people. Whilst walking he knocks over the boombox of a person and when it falls it breaks. The man is all apologetic, the cleaning man shrugs. ‘These things happen, not to worry’ the man curiously bows to the man and apologises again and walks away. It is later when the man returns holding a box, the cleaning man  looks at the box. ‘For the damage I caused’ the man states, he bows and walks away. The cleaning man opens the box, only to see a new Sony boombox. He smiles. It is much better than the one he has and he slowly walks towards his work. The man cleans in a Dutch government building and he cleans the corridors and offices. It is well paid work and he is happy to do it, he can send more money to his family then he thought and that makes him happy. Whilst he is cleaning he notices a man with white hairs and two security people following him. He sees them every day. The man ignores him and goes into the men’s room. The cleaning man is in an office when suddenly his boombox becomes very loud. It takes him a second to come to the cart and he lowers the volume. He shrugs at the security people. ‘New radio’ he states and the security people smile. He continues his route only to hear shouting a few minutes later. 

Saruman/Gandalf is standing in a room. Across the street from a governmental toilet. His stick and water flask have been transformed into rifle, the angle was perfect, the flask was high powered air and the scope showed him more accurately what he is aiming for. It is a man with white hair in a toilet. He takes aim and he presses a button that maximises the boombox volume, he can even hear that radio and pulls the trigger. Straight in the head, the politician is dead before he realises what hit him and the man quickly disassembles the rifle, the cane is a cane again and he walks out towards the train station. On route he sees a water dispenser, he is about to fill the bottle. He hears ‘Stop!’ He looks around and a policeman takes the water bottle. The man points at the water fountain. ‘Yuck’ he states and signals a man in the shop behind him. The man hands him a bottle of water. The policeman fills the bottle and hands the water to the man. He nods, the policeman takes the few remaining sips from the water bottle and walks away. The man walks off to the strain station.

Epilogue

In a room with two people we see a window, in the background we see Azadi Tower. The first man speaks ‘Are the Dutch blaming the Saudi’s?’ The second person nods and says ‘Just as we expected’ we might not have a school, but we can act against infidels. Both man smile and drink their coffee

The end

I came up with that story in a little over an hour. I had some delays with the fourth story as it was too similar to the third one. The fifth story evolves between the four stories, with the hit happening after the fourth story is finished. I think it is nice to be creative and it was done as until that moment I never knew that making an image of the prophet was a taboo (or unacceptable). We were never told too much about islam in primary school and what we were told about the Crusades were too much of a lie. Anyway, this was my response. I hope you liked it, Geert Wilders might not, but I kind of don’t care about that part.

Have a lovely day, and let’s see what we can do to Microsoft tomorrow.

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April 12, 2023 · 07:13

A weird choice of thoughts

I have them at times, not merely during the daytime, at times the ones at night are even weirder. I was in what I think was a Google location. It was extremely sunny and warm, as such I think I might have been in California. I was in the foyer of a building, it was open and spacious. Almost like a circle, there was a circle in the centre where receptionists were working and assisting people. Around me were windows, they had a lower part and an upper part. The lower part was about 80% of the height of the room, the upper part was about 20%. The upper parts were different, they had stained windows, each window had a Google logo in stained glass style, the logo was surrounded by milky white glass. It had an interesting effect on the foyer, the foyer was bathing in colours. Each logo was adding colours to the room, one part was a little less bright, this logo was not surrounded by milky white glass, but by black glass, it was the Stadia logo. As I looked around the foyer I saw the Drive logo, the YouTube logo, the cloud logo, mail logo, calendar logo and several more. I started looking at the people and they all looked stressed, they looked worried, but I could not see a reason. The circle only had 2 of the 5 computers switched on. I started to walk around and I walked up the staircase. People looked frantic they were talking, but they were also looking though papers. I saw in one hall that only one row of computers was switched on. The conference rooms were empty, TV’s were not switched on, the coffee corner had its coolers switched off, or so it looked. There were people all around but it was a population of less than 10% of what was made room for. 

As I walked around I saw more and more people nervous, some scared but not of each other. It seemed to me that there was a massive shortage of electricity, an energy crises unlike any one I had ever seen. I had seen the energy issues on Crete, but it was a minor issue, this was a lot worse and a lot more intense. I could not feel the het, but everyone around me was sweating. The rooms had a distinct Google feeling like I had seen them in Sydney. I looked outside but I saw no ocean, perhaps the angle was wrong. On the other side I saw high rises nearby, at least a dozen buildings. Not sure where I was and for some reason I could not any of the conversations. It was almost like they were talking alien, or I was not hearing correctly, but there conversations were not meant for me, or I was not part of that side, I was merely there to see, to watch and to observe. People were massively underdressed, dressed like they knew it was a 40C degrees day, thin flimsy and mostly covering their bodies in this both men and women had taken heed of slight covering is better than melting away, and with the obvious lack of cold drinks they were relying on water, or so it seemed to me. This is nearly all I saw, I merely heard the words ‘That’s enough’, the only two words I heard in the entire dream. Was someone showing me what will be? It was only a dream and I have no idea why I saw this. I had seen data all over the place, but is this the setting the US will face in the near future? Places that cannot continue because the energy crises is overwhelming places? I have no idea, for me it was merely a dream, but one that felt uneasy, it lacked the comfort I usually have in a dream. A setting where a government due to inaction needs to find a new path, a new approach to satisfy the need of corporations and they all need energy a setting we saw for years but the greed driven were telling everyone that there would be enough time, there would be options. It seems that this setting has been passed and passed without activity. I wonder what will come next and as I am trying to make a tally, Texas, California and New York will need at least two, two and one nuclear reactor to keep on par with the energy requirements, the alternatives will not roll out in time and these reactors would not be build in time either. Yet as I consider that part, I realise that the EU and UK are in similar settings. They have a lack of energy resources and the shortage gap is merely increasing.

It was a weird choice of thoughts to have, but I think it has been fuelled by the decrease of oil, the numbers and numerous tables and charts I was looking at and I think my subconscious filled in the blanks through a story. And it is about to get worse for these places, summer is coming and that implies millions of AC units draining energy from June onwards. In this Texas and California are the strongest places, but New York is another place. The New York Times gave us 11 hours ago “The high cost of natural gas and electricity is prompting many to prepare for outages and shortages.” Yet personally I feel that it is not only the price of electricity, I feel that there will be an actual shortage and in that setting, for the warmer summer states late July through to mid September will be challenge to say the least. In California and Florida, those with theme parks will have their own set of problems and a lack of electricity will be the smallest of issues. A stage that would come, but now it comes sooner and even my dreams have no answers. In part because I cannot tell when the shortages hit, in part because I know very little of the energy solutions that nations have, it is not my expertise, but I do realise that energy can be seen in what is available and what is used and that is a simple tabular setting and as such I understand the shortages that several will face in a summer state in the northern hemisphere and as such when that happens a lot will happen and it will happen all over Asia too. 

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April 10, 2023 · 16:40

The drifting mind

It happens to me, my mind wanders at times. It happened yesterday as I was watching a Deep Space Nine Episode called ‘Empok Nor’. You see, my mind is still trying to work out Season 4 of Kenos Diastima. It is still up for debate. You see, Kenos Diastima had an open ending at the end of season 3. I was in the mindset to keep it an open ending, but part of me was considering taking a tight turn to the far right on this and make season 4 a espionage approach. It would also require a new cast, a complete new cast (for obvious reasons which I will not mention here). The stage was set to new needs and to new considerations, but it feels a little weird. There was an additional idea to create a new series that connects to Kenos Diastima, so my mind was a little all over the place. It was at that point I started to consider a few things. You see all the star Trek series I know the original, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, Enterprise, Discovery and Picard. They all have humans in the lead. But the United Federation of planets had 4 founding races. As such Empok Nor gave me an idea. What if the new series is about the Andorians. The franchise has given us a good grasp, but what happens when they are in charge, it is slightly before the UFP and they had found a damaged human freighter and they kept the engineers as they were short on engineers. This team finds an abandoned Romulan space station, but that station is already more advanced than either Andorians or Humans were used to. They start exploring the station and find all kinds of things, logs and recordings which gives us stories about Romulan life and these episodes will be part in the station and part on what the logs play out, we see as such a multitude of stories play out and it gives 4 stories. The station story, the Romulan log stories (on Romulus and so on), the Andorian stories and the human stories. So you have basically 4 steady locations (Station, Earth, Romulus and Andoria) and several other locations. 

You see, I do not know why, but for the most Paramount seemingly never considered making the alien race the dominant one, or perhaps they did and they rejected it. We also see how the Andorians ‘borrow’ (steal seems too harsh) these ideas they find and patent it to themselves, calling all kind of emotions and considerations into the frame of things. I reckon something like this might have 2-3 seasons, but that is still a nice run. I will admit that part of this is driven by my love of a game I worshipped since 1994 called System Shock. There we find stories as well, but they were short stories and most of them connected to codes and such. Origin systems had a great setting there, the fact that I still think of that series 30 years later is proof of that and the remake is supposed to come to the PS5 this year. But as another Star Trek Franchise it could work as well, but the setting needs to change and the fact that the franchise speaks over the hostilities between Vulcan and Andoria implies that the Romulan find could open other doors in storytelling as well. Optionally even a link between Romulus and Vulcan, but that is merely a simple slither towards the storyline. 

What is interesting is that all this shaped in less than an hour, the shaping of the thoughts was quicker than me typing all this. So even as it did not solve my Kenos Diastima dilemma, it might help me create the foundation of season 4, the way I think it might have the power to contribute, if not, I will not min, the end of season 3 was powerful enough to make minds baffle. And at times that is all the storyteller hopes for, a baffled mind that goes ‘Are you freaking kidding me?’

I can be that simple and that mean at times. Enjoy Easter.

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March 5, 2023 · 05:57

Merely a story

It was 862 AD, in a meadow stands a man, you would think he is in his early 20’s, but this man does not reveal age. He stares over the meadows watching people running at each other. One group seems to be viking, the other guards are local, or at least from the area. He watches as the turmoil of greed goes by wave after wave. It sickens him and it is not hard for him to avoid the people and the turmoil. He could move from place to place, but he is here for a reason. He was given word that a Northern Hawk Owl had been spotted. The setting was almost unbelievable, but he had to check it out. It was a magnificent type of owl and it was one he would love to have. It would be even better if he could both genders, so that they could reproduce in safety. As such He looked for signs but saw none and he carefully moved towards the forest, trying to keep all the animals in some form of observation. He moved along the forest lines and saw that the fight was moving away, then he noticed an arrow in a tree, but the arrow looked weird, like it was not shot from a bow and then he saw it, at the end of the arrow was the Northern Hawk Owl, dead. These stupid muggles, all greed driven and not one was responsible, from servant to king, all too stupid to consider nature. He would never accept muggles in his presence.

It was a decade later when Salazar looked back to the valley, he was very well aware on the valley and it was glorious, yet he considered what was out there and he considered a few items. It was time to set trials, to let the worthy acquire knowledge and that was the exercise. He created the first tower, dark stone, smooth as glass and within the stones were protection spells and rejection spells. No broom could be guided here and the walls could not be scaled. There were steps around the tower that went up a little bit, but he decided to use nature to guide the magic people. The Serpent must be passed on the left, the ermine on the right. As such the steps were either scaled or massive bad luck would hit the person going the wrong way. The two ascendance points were all marked and they all approached the same entrance, one route the right way, the other not. The door was a new puzzle. He had seen the bluntness of muggles and the door was a different kind. All who would hit it, or violently approach it would find themselves on the short list of pain. He looked at the door again and it opened in the simplest manner. A simple Alohamora would do it, the lock was invisible and magical, the smallest spell would work, muggles had no clue and he was in the tower. He tried several ways to see how he was hurt, but it was not intense. The tower worked and he went the right route, with ropes and invisible supports and he got to the next floor. He then applied his want to remove single stones all around the platform and he replaced them with stones now carrying a gem and all had precise applications. From there there were a few more small blockades, blockades that any decent wizard could pass and from there the shrine was created. A blood shrine with one item, the item was carrying magic, specific magic and anyone who did not have that magic would acquire it and they merely had to master the spell and place that spell back into the holder and return the item, a way to make sure that magic would remain and always grow. It was the first tower of accomplishment, a first tower of several that would become the legacy of Salazar Slytherin. 

Yes, this is a simple story and it was Hogwarts Legacy that inspired me to write it. I have no claims here, it was a simple idea and as this is linked to JK Rowling, I consider this now to be her IP. Hogwarts Legacy has its strong and less strong moments, but the largest part is that the sandbox approach allows this game to grow towards the future and the past. Salazar is a pureblood lover, but I wondered how he got to be there. One out of four is weird, but the reasons could be all over the field and our need for greed might be a strong reason. 

The game is out now, but in a year what will come? I reckon that they could build on this and create more, I made that in a previous article, but that was set around the character you played and enabled. The stage could be larger by incorporating lore no one considered. And that is where I found myself. That is apart from the setting that I didn’t want to think of technology today, we all have these moments and I have mine today. That being said, a game like Hogwarts Legacy is opening doors, it is by far the most amazing Potter styled game ever and the hundreds of videos are proving me right. In this I wonder what more I could learn in that game. I am nowhere near done and that makes the game more than one stage, it makes it amazing on several fronts and the game is as a game like that needed to be. And always when a game like that becomes available I will be happy. In that regard more happy feelings are coming my way, Metroid Prime my favourite game on the gamecube was remastered for the Switch, as such this year might be better than I imagined it to be. Happy happy joy joy.

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