Tag Archives: Burwood

This is not centerfield

You might think that doesn’t make sense, but for me it does. I have been all over the field, mainly because a few things are hitting me at the same time. First there is the setting that I feel for, the Attacks on the UAE and a few other matters made me want to shout out towards the UAE. I ‘handed’ them the IP to hurt Iran, as well as a few other matters. So as I saw today ‘Disney (DIS) Increases Peak Ticket Prices to Record Highs’ source: Gurufocus news) I realized that the UAE has a larger recovery plan in place, as long as we deal with Iran and their missiles, the Trump setting does not help and a solution needs to be found, but the UN is useless as I see it, as such there is no expected help from that side. Then we get the false information (usually from people wishing they would become influencers) so that is a side that needs attending to (by the proper authorities) and I have little solution there. I can illuminate these losers, but it is like mopping the floor whilst the tap is still running. So whilst that Disney news is out there, there is a clear side for the UAE to increase the settings in that field But there is one side that could be dealt with, gaining traction through free options. My issue with this is that it is nice, but why should the Emirati government have to pay for it all. It then hit me that one thing that WaterWorld Abu Dhabi has is the Al Raha River. It seems like such fun and especially in Summer. It then hit me that this is one entertainment version that could be implemented near hotels. It seems like a low cost setting that beside the initial building, could offer entertainment, without the high cost. So consider places like Capital Park (Abu Dhabi) it has several hotels around the corner, people visit that place, what could be more inviting than something like the Al Raha River (with a different name of course) where people could relax, without paying a large amount (optionally the tubes have to be bought, or people bring their own). And this is merely one location, you could have a few of these in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, preferably in a place where several hotels are found. There is also the ‘need’ for webcams, or publicly accessible form of CCTV in public places, so that people can see that these wannabe influencers are full of idiocy. So that the world sees that the UAE is open for business and that people are there to have fun. It is a small step to increase the tourist settings as Gurufocus gave me is that Disney (at peak times) of $219 per person, this is nuts, because that amounts to 805 Dirham per person. I reckon that will feed a person for a week (an assumption from my side) the first thing that people who price themselves out of a market need to realise that their audience goes somewhere else. 

Places like Al Baik can feed two people for a meal for AED 55, so that amounts to 15 meals, so my assumption of feeding someone for a week can be achieved, you need even less if you go to a place like Carrefour. But it is not about food, it is about the UAE getting new and more visitors to their location. So whilst the UAE is hit with all kinds of nonsense not unlike “As of April 2026, Smartraveller advises Australians “Do Not Travel” to the UAE due to volatile security, high regional tensions, and risk of military conflict”, we can all agree that there is a risk of military conflict, but what exactly is “volatile security”? The UAE has been one of the safest places on the planet for years. We can agree that there are regional tensions, but this is what Iran threw at them, not in any form what the locals (read: Emirati’s) do. As I see it, it is still one of the most safe places, even with the military tension that exists to some degree. 

As I see it, there is always a need for free entertainment, the USA has it on TV and it is called C-SPAN (or was that C-SPAM)? There is a lot more in focus and places like Dubai Media Incorporated (DMI) should get global views, you see when that happens the bulk of the streaming solutions we are given (at a price), gets competition from Dubai TV, which is generally free-to-air, and now consider that the new Dubai+ streaming app offers free, ad-supported access to 30,000+ hours of content. This was the setting I was considering whilst I was working on ‘Just a Game’ for its part two. It is still a short film, but I tend to be a man of my word and I promised the Director of the NSA (now Army Lieutenant General Joshua Rudd) and the Director of GCHQ (still Anne Keast-Butler) a heart attack, don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against the institutions or the directors in charge, I just needed a hobby and this was the best I could come up with my lacking resources. 

Sometimes I walk through the park (to think things through) and I am watching what is in the park and I wonder, do they have this in the UAE? Totally irrelevant to my setting, but a nation, innocent of anything other then the welfare of its citizens is currently under attack from Iran, it made me consider what else I could do. Even as we are given (13 minutes ago) ‘Trump tells CNBC he expects U.S. to make ‘great deal’ with Iran’, it seems folly as the Islam Times gives us 40 minutes ago ‘Trump Turning Negotiating Table into “Table of Surrender”’ and in all this, the UAE is caught in the middle. So what to do?

I ‘handed’ them my military IP (free of charge) and I have one optional adjustment for the road solution, but that is a little matter. The real deal is what will help the UAE (or Saudi Arabia for that matter). I currently have absolutely no faith in any solution the United States administration brings. 

And there is no need for my actions, but when you see the world burning I want to do something and I tend to go in creative mode, it is just the person I am. It is clear that that this solution is not coming in a day, but there is the need to adjust what there is to improve the pull of tourism and also the joy of the Emirati’s, who serve to let of steam in the meantime. And I believe that tourism will improve if people know what is possible and what is expected and the idea that DMI goes global might be a first step towards getting there and this could be done before the dust settles and as these solutions come forward it would also improve the offer of scripts and talent towards the UAE, but it requires the global audiences to realise that the UAE is more than the Dubai Mall and zero taxation. As more options are shown, more solutions will become available to the UAE and optionally even solutions I never realized, I don’t know everything, so that makes sense. Then there is the setting that places like ADNOC requires staff, only yesterday places were advertising for 929 Marine ADNOC job opportunities, in this world where people don’t have a job because AWS, Microsoft, Oracle and IBM (optionally others too) have shedded over 55,000 employees, they might consider the UAE as a worthy place for their skillset, one can only hope. 

So as you can see, my brain is all over the place and not always in the best of state, but that is me, always skating in his little square like a goalie watching for the puck to come his way, so that he can slam it in the other direction.

So, I am not a centerfielder, I am a goalie (a wannabe goalie for the Toronto Maple Leafs at best) and I am doing the best I can as such I am relying on my creativity (at almost 64 I have to) and I am doing the best I seemingly know. So answer for yourself. Who thought of visibility of the UAE by giving the Dubai Media Incorporated a global stage? Who thought of seeing what parks have and considering the concrete table tennis in Burwood (near Sydney) how many of these tables do the parks in the UAE (Dubai, Sharjah or Abu Dhabi) have? All thought of consideration and there are more sports that could be promoted in this way. The first step in doing something is to have the thought and instilling this in others. Only then will any action make sense. But that is merely me having a thought and optionally a useless one, but that is merely on me.

Have a great day.

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Honey and ladders

Yup, it sounds and is a Childs game. It is based on the old original Snakes and ladders, which I haven’t played since the 70’s I reckon. I saw this Childs game in a larger version in a place called Burwood. Where the honey is the decline and the ladders go up. It is a simple game and this game only has 36 squares. A simple game with a roof in the open as such parents gets to have fun with their children, or even children playing together. A small 30 minutes of joy I reckon.

Still a game with a few natural settings. There is joy and less joy and it takes you on the rollercoaster of high and low. A setting that the American Administration has never apparently seen as the Independent (at https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/us-tourism-decline-trump-policies-b2782820.html) gives us ‘US is the only country facing tourism decline as Trump policies to cost $29 billion in visitor revenue: study’, although I don’t completely agree with the setting as America is the only country facing a tsunami of abandonment   and as such I reckon the the word ‘decline’ is not incorrect, it is merely highly misleading when we look at the ‘decline’. I wrote about it earlier, but the numbers have drastically increased and a country that has so little going for it needs all the marbles they can muster. As such we might stop at “Amid the president’s immigration crackdown, travel bans and sweeping global tariffs, the U.S. is expected to be the only one out of 184 countries to see foreign visitor spending fall in 2025, according to the World Travel and Tourism Council.” With the addition of “The study suggests that the U.S. economy is on track to lose $12.5 billion in international spending this year alone – but the actual shortfall might be much greater.” This implies that the amount of small businesses that go down is vastly understated and America will be on route of the largest unemployment wave they have seen in decades. It does not help that Microsoft is laying of another 9000 people, IBM laid of 8000, just to rehire them (I reckon that they have new contract stipulations), Meta gets rid to up to 20% for teams over 150 men, so the total isn’t visible to me, but when you add the numbers. TechCrunch gives us that 2025 will be at the expense of over 22,000 jobs. So, I reckon that Aramco might be shopping for willing people as it is massively expanding. So in this new settling atmosphere the decline of 29 billion is more than bad news and in the meantime the wannabe influencers on YouTube are exploding that bad news through the same story edited in new ways with different examples making the impact seem wore than it is. Don’t get me wrong, 29 billion is plenty bad, but you don’t need to exploit it twice over. I reckon this is done to get more followers. Not a game I am willing to play mind you.

Still the bad news is apparently taken in strides with the America Administration at this point. As such whilst the Guardian gives us “US adds 147,000 jobs in June, surpassing expectations amid Trump trade war”, so was this including the 8,000 jobs that IBM added whilst firing them in the first place? A setting that the byline hands us with “Economists anticipated drop, but 8,000 new positions were added in June compared with May, with unemployment rate down to 4.1%” what a coincidence, did IBM just rehire these people? Is it therefor a new job or a rehired job? I actually don’t know and that is the ‘enigma’ of black bookkeeping based on ‘active’ souls. I will have to ask Mephisto when I see him again. 

In other news, there is a growing concern for the economy, the news comes from Fox, so take this in stride as they have shown a few times to butter the bacon. The news ‘Americans trapped in side hustle economy as 9-to-5 jobs no longer pay the bills’ and I personally feel that the setting that players like Uber Eats bring. I reckon that this is the kind of side hustle that comes with hidden traps (they say they don’t but I reckon that people assume a few matters, while these players leave them in the dark for a reason. As such, things like Fuel, insurance and a few other settings are not (as I personally see them) clearly defined. There is the setting of “account hacking and unauthorized orders.” As such I get that one such an issue and your day income is pretty much gone. As such (and Uber Eats is not the only player in town) there are a few settings where the danger to side-hustles is the larger danger to the income over all. This will come to blows soon enough. I reckon that before the end of summer a few situations will get out of hand and this will mean that there is another down wind hitting the industries. Because these restaurants will depend on deliveries. And without deliveries, you are a food place in the middle of nowhere with no place to go. 

Adding these elements together and you do not have great news. More like a tragedy of unbridled proportions. And whilst this morning the Financial Review gives us ‘Trump plans to start notifying countries of US tariffs of up to 70pc’, I reckon the bloc of nations that will set new borders towards normalizing the stage they have with nations that were previously seen as ‘hostile as per American notice’, there is even a larger concern that some of these nations might enter the bloc with China, lets face it, they have nothing more to lose and as such America loses a lot more than they bargained for a educational step that honey and ladders bring. The steps you need to take to get to the next ladder to cross. And this game is rigged by governments themself. A setting we rarely see, but now with the EU, in disarray, the chance is more likely then not that China gets to call EU ministers and offer ‘a helping hand’, this implies the losses of a lot more billions and actually bring hardship to the American tech as these people will now consider change. Consider Huawei, TikTok, Tencent and Alibaba. How much damage can they do to the American economy? And when the EU and the United Kingdom are convinced. How much effort does China need to make to get Australia and New Zealand on board? At that point the only ‘ally’ America has is the one they pissed of the most (yes, it is Canada). Is this scenario beyond realism? I don’t think so and the setting that America with Tariffs and Tourism gave us was a mere start of more and the setting that we were ‘sullied’ into a complacent setting of what democracy is.

As such the EU and others are now seeing America as the big evil, not the liberator, but the bully that stops democracy. In this, this morning I was given an image as to what America is. It is a strong view of what the ‘anti-Americans’ see America developing in. I am not on their level. I am merely anti-stupid and I am seeing way too much of that too.

So have a great day and consider what you stand with and what you remain silent about. For me it is easy, as a Commonwealthian I am massively pro-Canada. It is really that simple. So any move America makes against Canada, I see it personal as all those in the Commonwealth need to see this (Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom and of course Canada self). So when your intelligence apparatus pisses off 4 of the 5 parties in your intelligence system. How much of a system do you really have left? That is the setting China was hoping for and when you consider the acts that America did in its pro-Russia views, the line is cast and China realizes that it can continue without Russia, as it now has a clear stage where it might get the Commonwealth and the EU align with them. A setting that gets too many benefits and ends the dollar as a currency. Did you think I forgot about that? The EU is set to 450 million people, the full Commonwealth is set to 2.5 Billion. As such that becomes 36% of the global population, the Arabic nations is already switching away from America (to a degree), so when American tech is holding onto their version of AI, the setting seems to be one of desperation, when this comes to blows, they need to be out of the realm of victimisation and that is where we are. A comedy that turned to tragedy yesterday and the people are hoping for a nice twist so they can laugh again and I am not sure if that is a possibility. You think I was trying to sell my IP to the Arabian countries on a whim? I reckon that the setting soon will be that this is the only place that might be able to buy it. As I see it American companies will soon deal in swap trades and IOU invoices. When that happens you better believe that the last stage is on route to your point of view. That is merely how I see it and I have been trying to make strides in that direction. I might be a millionaire, but when 9800 millionaires move to the UAE, you better believe that the gig is about to be up.

Have a great day this Saturday, Vancouver will catch up with us in under 170 minutes.

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Just this morning

This happened to me this morning. You see, I was making my morning walk and I passed a man at a parking meter. It turned out to be that it ‘didn’t work’ because the parking meter would become active at 09:00 (it was 08:43) when paid parking is required. Why? 

Not the paid parking, but the inconvenience given to the people. It took me less than 2 minutes to create a solution in my mind and parking meters are not really that sophisticated. If a parking tine is allocated, like from 09:00-19:00, at 19:05, the option of a prepay button appears and then just press the button prepay and select the time (example 2 hours). That mean that at 19:05 you have a ticket with the parking time from the next day 09:00 until 11:00. It took seconds to select that solution and without effort. So who instigated that system? Why was that not an option from day one? I walked a little more that morning and saw that none of these parking meters had that option. I would have had an excuse as I have no car, but the rest? They never used a parking meter? It takes little effort to think out off the box and select a solution that helps consumers. It took so little and as such I have to consider are these programmers just there to make money without the blame of going the extra mile? How silly of them and how silly for the communities that didn’t think the way some thing (in this case Burwood, Sydney, NSW) could be created.

The setting of thinking the space a little further takes so little. Perhaps a brainstorming session over coffee with the project manager, but likely he has too many projects. Does that excuse him (or her)? I don’t think so. 

So what do you think? Doe parking meters in Toronto, Abu Dhabi, San Francisco, London, Paris or Munich have this option? If not why not? In a stage where so much is automated, is automated a mere excuse to not go the distance? That is the wrong kind of cost cutting. When we use ‘automation’ to do less and not better work, it isn’t automation, it is merely sloppy and lazy IT thinking. 

Have a great day today.

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