Tag Archives: fiction

Where gods are left for dead

Yes, story time. This came to mind after I saw the movie conclave, which was a lot more worth its time when you think back on the movie than whilst you see it. The setting of cardinals (not the football players) is a lot more worthy then you think it is (If you never saw the movie) and you don’t need to be a religious fanatic to appreciate the movie. And after seeing the movie (I also checked if it was actually fixed in the Vatican, which it was not) the setting was pretty overwhelming. I also saw some 4K touristy movies on the walkthrough on the sisteen chapel (with roof view) and these sights gave me the setting of what comes. You should never waste the imagination of grey cells. Ask Ryan Gosling, he went to the Tau Ceti system after all (a massively good movie) so there is plenty of immersion and excitement to go around. I wanted to bitchslap Sundar Pichai at first through a public service announcement, but at present my new Google Pixel 11, decided to behave. As such I don’t have the screenshot to make Sundar shiver with fear. But that will come, don’t you worry.

So story time. Lets get cozy.

It was a warm day and I was looking over a silo that was kind next to the Via dei Servi where the Leonardo Interactive Museum was. And it was not that what had me bothered. You see, the attic had a smaller attic the held a map that I wanted very badly. As I saw it, it was a forgotten gem of Italian maps, a foundational map that was somehow forgotten in all the chaos of yesterday and it had some of the most ghastly of settings. So as I walked on the roof of a building, there was nothing to be heard and it needed to remain silent, because the smallest noise and too many people would start to look and that would never went my way. There were too many sides that could spot me. So as I went from roof to roof, I was now only one roof away from the Leonardo Interactive Museum. I studied the roof and aw that one place that was off. it was not driven into smoothness. That must have been the place. I studied the roof pats and there it was, I compared it to the movie I had made from the inside and the windows showed exactly where it was, there was a small additional space and the terracotta pans looked older there. So o got to that point and slowly started to move the pans, first I nailed a hemp sheet with wax layer to part of the roof, then I removed the wax cover, so that I could place the tiles and they wouldn’t accidentally slip and fall. The wax was a simple bee wax, there was no way it could be traced. Then I drilled a small hole in the roof and let a small wire down. I looked, it was black as night, the infrared option showed me some kind of dusty room completely dark. The sight was energizing, because this means that the story was seemingly true. I saw a few benches and they looked wooden. I looked at the roof again and measured the 4 by 5 pans I had to move and I started. I moved the rest of the 20 tiles onto the hero sheet and it took me the better part of 5 minutes to do this, I tested the hemp sheet and it all looked sturdy. I then got a small portable gypsum saw and I worked the first thin wooden beam. That went smoothly, these wooden beams were dry as fuck, the gypsum saw made short work of it and when the lower side was done the first beam was done, 10 more minutes and the other 5 bemas were cut I folded the wax sheet over the pans and placed the beams on that. It all looked unmovable, I then placed a small net over it all and fastened it to the roof, just in case a wind should blow. I then lowered my backpack and slingback to a wire fastened to the roof and in I went. 

The room was pitch dark, which might have explained why no one thought of looking there. My daylight goggles showed nothing out of place, merely centuries of dust and there was plenty to be had. I got a canister of air from the backpack and cleaned the wooden bench. It looked immensely old. It should fetch a decent euro if it was ever actioned. I moved to the side to see and old map archive and opened it. It had loads of maps and I liked through them. Then I saw the maps I needed and I took images of them all before moving them. There was no such thing a bad luck and I carefully folded them all in a roll and placed them in my pvc canister and they fitted well, I had taken a canister two inches bigger then I needed and I rolled the entire collection up. The other drawers were mostly empty with nothing much in the way of art. Then the lower drawer had even more maps and even a parchment or two. I had not counted on that, but I had brought more canisters and they weight next to nothing and now it turned out that they were a godsend (an applicable label for this) and as I completed the setting I went back outside. Whilst first applying thick double sided take to the open hole so it could carry the weight of the ceiling beams. I might have used to much of that, but better be safe than sorry. Then I placed the thin beams back to their original place I then applied thick wack over the beams and especially the places where they were cut so that water wouldn’t find entrance there, I then placed a plastic sheet over that and applied more wax. Then I place back the pans and the roof looked almost what it looked like and I vacated the area, putting the hemp and net in a plastic bag. Leaving nothing behind and whilst I retraced my original steps I took extra tie to see if my location was not observed. 25 minutes later I was back where I started and it was only a block way from a block from a large garbage bin and dropped the waste. I felt good whilst I walked back to the car and drove back to Rome where the jackpot was, It was a mere 274km and almost 3 hours drive, but I was energized with the findings I photographed. In the end it took me 215 minutes to get back to my garage and whilst I looked like a slightly mature art student, I walked back to my apartment, where a table and a well deserved espresso machine would make me my cappuccino.

As I looked at the art and maps I was taken aback, the art was old, really old and whilst some might take it at face value, I recognised the work of the artist, but not the drawings. The autograph told me these drawings were from Andrea del Verrocchio. This is quite the find and I carefully stored them. 5 drawings with charcoal would easily be worth over a million euro’s each. That was a decent price for a week of sneaking. But it was not the price, so as I had away the goods I returned to the table. These maps had to be identified and the drawings were immensely old early 14th century and several had a coat of arms, which I didn’t recognise.

As I understood it, there were rooms far below the sisteen chapel and there was no way in or out, not anymore, but there was one option, it was an old sewer system, it only grazed that location and grazing was enough for me. I understood the assignment and it would be one hell of a trip, I set out to get the equipment I needed, first there was a gfasprrof suit, because these sewers were loaded with germs of all kinds gong pac to plague ridden Italy, then there was the rat repellent, these buggers bit into anything, then the hardware for drilling and cutting and there was a good chance that one trip was not enough, but it hd to be done in one go, because something like this will alert every institution in the world and I could not leave traces, not anything. So first a scouting party to where the entrance lies. The I thought of another option and I looked at the map again. This might be possible, but scouting was essential and for that I needed to visit a hobby shop. A drone ship was required, a remade version of the LCVP (aka Higgins boat) with a small addendum, adding snow tracks below the boat would let it move where there was no liquid and as he worked out the dynamics of it all the design formed in his brain. He got his 10 inch boat and added the tracks, he then added 4 power banks which would let it go a much longer way and he attacked a encrypted camera and added the observational settings in his little van. There were even provisions to let it submerge completely in case there were sunk settings of the sewer. Two days later he had the contraption he needed and as he studied the map, he realised that in every nation governments were seemingly lazy and an opening might be found in the Viale Vaticano. So he looked into an old CCTV setting, because these old systems were designed to detect faults, He needed none of the, merely to see it intersecting was possible and whilst he could not go there, his mini Higgins could see where he could enter. So whilst he parked his van on the Viale Vaticano, he had adjusted the van to drop stilts behind every wheel to support this van on the ground because a moving and shaking van would still attract all the wrong attention. As such he get into first gear and launched the Higgins through an open grate and close it immediately after that and as he did this at 03:00, he remained unseen.

End of part one

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A badger by another name

This is the setting and I just dreamt it up. Whether it was because I recently rewatched the 3 fantastic beasts movies (which I think it was) or as I had played Hogwarts Legacy, anyones guess is good enough. So as these elements united in my brain, it went to create a 4th Fantastic beasts movie. As such the title is Tea Bee Dee (To be determined) and no matter what or who gets involved, this IP is now property of JK Rowling. She made up the Wizarding World, she decides what happens. I cannot control what my brain conceives, but I can make sure that the people behind this become owner of this IP. That is just how I roll and I created enough unique IP to do this. 

Central Park
Jacob Kowalski was walking with his wife Queenie on the arm, it was a summer afternoon and they were enjoying the warm weather and the soft smell of grass in New York. Over the years his bakery had done well and even as his students are now in charge of the bakery, he could never resist taking charge and making all the fine trimming a little bit more awesome. The students (all three of them)( had come to expect and respect this. It was a good job and he was a good boss. His wife didn’t interfere and when she came down with a new strudel, it was to be expected that noses would soften at the delightful smell of the pastries she made. So as they were walking as close as they could, summer seemed the very delightful thing they could wish for. In the back there were children laughing over ice cream and there was a small kart handing out ice creams. “You want some darling?” Jacob invited and queenie smiled. She loved vanilla ice cream. They walked over to the vendor and Jacob bought one vanilla for Queenie and a strawberry for himself. He paid and they walked on enjoying ice cream. As they walked on the sky grew darker, queenie became a little rigid, she threw her eyes left and right. Jacob knew that this meant things were about to get serious. He looked at her and she looked around. He pointed at the edge of central park but the shook her head. There were too many people there. Jacob did not know what to do and Queenie took his hand and they ran towards the lake. Suddenly it was there a creature part Tiger, part elephant the tall seems to be of an ox [I later looked this up, it is a Baku].

Queenie used her wand to deflect the creature and whilst she did this, she also looked worried about what would happen next, because this creature was immensely strong. She put the wand towards her head and spoke a word. Jacob couldn’t hear what she said. He merely heard the words “I love you husband” and suddenly a jolt went into Queenie as she went rigid and the world turned dark. 

Magical Congress of the United States of America
Jacob Kowalski was still groggy when he looked at his surroundings. He recognised the place, but he had not been here for a long long time. He looked around and a lady in an elegant dress approached her. Mr Kowalski, My name is Beatrice Bishop, I am the President of the Magical Congress of the United States of America. We called for your sister in law, Iter Praesidentiale Hogsmeade Britanniae Goldstein, we are trying to reach her, but we are currently not aware where she is. Let me be the first to offer my condolences on the loss of your wife a sad setting. Do you know what happened? Jacob gave a rundown what happened and explained that he was not aware. He was confused and a intense sadness overcame him. The loss of Queenie was more than he had ever conceived and it was killing him. 

A man came over to Beatrice and whispered something in her ear. She nodded and excused herself from Jacob for a moment. Sh walked away and the man offered a paper, she liked at it and talked for a minute. She then nodded again and she handed the letter back to the man. She walked back to Jacob. Mr. Kowalski, a friend of yours, two friends have offered their condolences and asked you to come visit them in a place called Hogsmeade. Professor Dumbledore and a band named Newt Scamander. Are you willing to visit them now? Jacob felt a light brush of positivity when he said yes. But Queenie, what about her? Beatrice Bishop stated that nothing will happen until her sister is found and in the meantime he might be better away from it all. She beckoned Jacob to follow him. A man approached them and she waived him away. “This I do myself” she stated and the man stepped back. She took Jacob by the arm and pointed to a large empty fireplace. This is what we call a floo spot. I am not certain if you know it, but we will go to Hogsmeade together. She merely grabbed a handful of sand from a little cauldron attached to the beam of the fireplace and stated clearly “Iter Praesidentiale Hogsmeade Britanniae” and suddenly they were doused in green flames and a second later they arrived at the southern edge of Hogsmeade. She let go of Jacob and walked towards the square. She saw professor Dumbledore and Newt Scamander. She bowed to them both and handed them Jacob. “He doesn’t remember, but I reckon you can deal with that. We are trying to find her sister Porpentina at present. I will let you know when that happens and invite you both as well. Newt and Albus nodded in agreement, she bowed to both man, then turned to Jacob, deeply bowed to him and stated “I regret your loss in this matter, you have my condolences” she turned around and walked back to the floo spot, she grabbed some floo powder she spoke something clearly and vanished. 

Hogsmeade
Newt embraced Jacob. I am so sorry to hear this. Lets get you inside, we are just around the corner of the Hog’s Head Inn. They walked to the Hog’s Head Inn and entered. Aberforth was already waiting and bowed to Jacob. Mr. Kowalski, nice to see you again. I prepared a bed for you upstairs and I am preparing some food. He gave him a glass of giggle water. You’re preferred poison If I remember correctly. Jacob nodded. “Hey don’t forget the beef, it has been on the fire a little too long” Newt and Albus looked at Jacob. Jacob wondered how he knew that. Newt looked at Dumbledore with a puzzled look and them thought as loud as he could. Jacob looked at him and stated I has strawberry ice cream and Queenie had vanilla ice cream. What? What is going on with me?

The Dumbledores and Newt exchanged looks. Aberforth stated, I am empty for now, but he needs special care soon. They agreed. Newt stated to Jacob. It is only for a night, but tomorrow we are taking you to Hogwarts. We need to set a few things in motion first. Jacob nodded and as Albus Dumbledore and Newt left the Hog’s Head Inn, Jacob solemnly tended to the stew handed to him, it came with decent bread with garlic. The sadness radiated from his face.

The end of part one

As my mind can set these situations in seconds I had a lot more, but my arm is tired now. In the next setting they learn that Jacob has received the abilities of Queenie and he seemingly is part man part wizard. They will grant him access to Hogwarts and he is put in Hufflepuff house. It has a separate part that only the head of Hufflepuff and the heady of Hufflepuff have access to. There are barrels inside house Hufflepuff and one of them has a frog chiseled on it, it can only be used in combination with shackles and only the heady and the head of Hufflepuff can access it, no one knows of it. The day after they learn the extent of what queenie did, but not why or what. They learn that after the first part. There is also the setting of a new part of Hufflepuff. It is below house Hufflepuff and has ways directly to the infirmary and the kitchens. That part has its own house elf. It is not a prison, there are no real views, but the room is large and comfortable and the snacks will allow travel to the infirmary and the headmaster room. The shackle is a portly of sorts, with limited abilities and it is put in place magically above the elbow. 

For the most I merely got part done (In a day, so that’s not bad) and we learn that no-one can find Tina and Newt learns that the creature was a Japanese Baku, but these are rare even in Asia, they have no idea how one got to be in New York. As such there is need for Net to go to New York (with Jacob) and whilst job gets more skilled in basic magic, he is adjusting like a fish in water. They go to Olivanders to get a wand and there they learn that he is drawn to Hinoki made wands. Olivander only has two of those and advices that he might be better off with a wand from Mahoutokoro he would have Cherry wood wands but for now the Hindi will have to do. And we learn that Tina was looking into a Japanese thief who stole abilities of wizards and witches though the Baku. As far as It goes, this is as far as I got, perhaps JK Rowling can make more of this. This is her IP now. 

Have a great day all. This was an unexpected travel into my mind, but all travel is cool. So whether she wants to pursue this, use this for Hogwarts Legacy 2 or simply reject this is up to her.

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One is done

That is the setting, I completed one and I almost completed my new script ‘Information Overload’ my new nightmare towards General Joshua M. Rudd (NSA), Anne Keast-Butler (GCHQ) and optionally Nicolas Lerner (DGSE). You try to appease a population of millions, but what are the chances? So if I merely get three people on board of this nightmare, I will have filled my quota of scared bunnies. The rest of the population of those nations will follow soon enough. The media takes care of that and it is nice to use the media to fruitfully adhere to my needs. They tend to be debatable at best, but we have to start somewhere and when the NSA gets nervous, my guess is that Alexey Alexeevich Rarenko (Center16, FSB) might get twitchy too, which gets me an additional 144,998,000 (they allegedly lost 1000 Russians last night) optional interested parties. We start small and we enlarge that population through traction as we get along. But this time it is about me (my favourite subject, all the way from the township of ‘Whogivesafuck’ population: 1).

But in all this I learned a few things. No matter how Final Draft is ‘meant’ for Hollywood and scriptwriters. It has a few kinks in all this. So as I write ‘my’ script, I tend to do this in Pages. But there are two issues, when I past it into beatbox all is fine and when I try too paste it into the FD editor, things go weirdly wrong. Even when trying to adjust to FD, it seems like hidden codes make a mess of it all, in case of this script and the other one ‘How to assassinate a politician’ which got the secondary title ‘Essay’ things are different. These are relatively small. One of the scripts surpasses 50,000 words and there are three more and that is where things get dicey. 

As such I kept all the mails Final Draft sent me from the beginning, so it might be there, but at present I cannot find it. As such Final Draft might want to spend a day or two making a white paper on “From Word/Pages to Final Draft’’ as far as I could tell it isn’t there (or I missed it) So I am a little lost at present, but soon I have no other option to either type it all or make the Pages version look like it is Final Draft, a slight horrible setting. Don’t get my wrong, Final Draft is seemingly excellent. The first script went almost without a hitch, so in any way I don’t blame them, and as the pages texts go into Beatbox, I am getting the stuff across, but getting from Beatbox the text formatted into FD is slightly beyond a pain (irritating, aggravating and frustrating as well).

So I am in a little bit of a binding setting. So next on the list is dig through over 230 emails I have from Final Draft, perhaps there is a solution there. I reckon that a lot could be fixed if you could go (in the editor) in some kind of code view and delete the separate codes you see there. I reckon it should be there, because Word gives the users the most garbage codes out there, so I reckon that Final Draft has solved this option, but I didn’t find it (yet).

So whilst I have a small victory with yet another script done, there is that larger setting of the other scripts, because ‘Information overload’ is not a full movie, a short movie at best, as such reason for coffee and cakes, but only when the other three are converted the brandy and ice creams come out.

Have a great day all

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And so, part 3

And so the continuing story of a quack whose gone to the dogs (always good fun to laugh at myself) but there is a part 3 and there is more, but I cannot give the game away (at present). So as I was designing and redesigning the game I my mind (not graphically) there was the setting of the next part which is a little in the open. It becomes the stage of ‘Heralding’ my entry as a Fakir of Baghdad. It is the fist definite stage on becoming a person for good, or a person of debatable conditioning. You see, Evil is only in existence of this who ‘claim’ themselves to be good, evil is their opposite, or so they seem to think. But being evil is merely a stepping stone. It is always carved to the degree others think what evil was. But we have good and an opposite and that is where the game goes. As I see it, as a Fakir you will get a malleable setting. The good get the power of water, the others get the setting of fire and as you complete the stage you get introduced to either and take another trip to a cave the damp cave for the water Djini Zarek or fire Djini Zulrekh. The setting will decide how the Italian fortress of the game is dealt with. The Arabian lands are dry, the water had left them, but what you will discover is that the Italians built over a earlier stage of the underground waters, they dammed the waters in and kept a well for themselves. As such you are treated by Zulrekh as the instigator of flames, burning the enemy down and the Italians become the firewood of your power. As you became Fakir, you were also given access to a staff (which must be bought) the staff is the same either way, but the way the staff is gained is important. In a previous mission you were able to get a staff, but either you steal it, or you perform tasks to get it. If you steal the staff, you get a beggars staff which is an oak staff and you get the dream to find Zulrekh in the cinder cave, if you perform the tasks you get the dream of the Water Djini Zarek who invites you to the damp cave. That is the step that defines your route.  Zarek tells you:

The idea becomes to soften the earth and washing the mud over the cinders fueling the fire. The challenge is not hard, but it shows how a simple stream washes sand, making it mud, as the stream becomes stronger you can unset boulders and they will move over the hay smothering the fuel for the flames. As you do this, you are attacked by scorpions and you can direct the stream over the scorpions washing them away. This is almost how it needs to be, I reckon that some ‘prototyping’ will be required, 

Zulrekh tells you:

And as such you are given the task of flaming the small boys in armor that represent the Italians and as such your flames become stronger and as you burn these little warriors you also gain mana and power just like the washed scorpions did, in the end both will give you a mana segment and your mana will get +5 making your actions stronger. As you play either you get the same rewards, only at the end you will get a different runic stone and the garbs of the Fakir will transform into either red/black or blue/green the clothes are almost the same, merely cosmetically colored and looks differ, but there is no power benefit. 

The idea is that if you take this route, you will never see the buried well, you will never free the stream but over time you will redirect the Tigris, but many will be lost to all this (which you will not know). It sets a double dialogue over the game and subsequent settings. I was not happy how some quests in other games went, it is normally not this or that, but to get two storylines and other storylines subsequently is another thing, it makes is a game with two faces and two outcomes. And as you get some direction and choices you will see that the game gives you more. I also think that these acts will shape your coat of arms, The red and black colours in your shield comes from Zulrekh, the blue and green colours come from Zarek and in the end the game shapes your coat of arms and gives you the ‘immortal’ setting on Baghdad. 

As such I also envisioned for the Spanish fortress a new challenge, but I am talking about some historic events (as they tend to be) where the Spaniards saw the impact of pestilence of Tharvex or the Azrakhil’s ghoulish hunger. It reflects on Spanish food and their need for Tapas (not entirely true, but it gave me the idea) on that others will learn and whilst we get to that as you have become a person of nobility, you will have gained most places and now it becomes about getting known and accepted all over Baghdad. It is from there you have access to the palace of the Vizier (your old place) and whilst it had fallen into disrepair, your actions will breath it new life and as such the entrance with your coat of arm and stature will proper (either way) and it merely looks cosmetically different and whilst one is darker then the other, it is still a place for you. And as such you will gain the same settings, although there are cosmetic differences to both settings, in the end the same parts are found. 

The ending is still in my mind and it has a sneaky movie reference, all the way from Kentucky. So whether you go with blow one’s own horn (my personal pride) or toot your own horn which tends to lean towards a humble statement. But the reality is that some make claim to be such innovative game designers. And I outdid them in three days, all whilst some of those braggers had a over a dozen people working on it. I did this myself and I handed it to the UAE and their gaming ventures, as such a can toot all I care for. 

You all have a great day It is time for me to snore a forest into plywood, have fun.

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Setting the game

This is a mere fraction of what is to come (optionally not all revealed here) and it drove my idea. The ending is also known to me, but it is too sweet a setting and the gamers would get to see this instance, there is no question whether they make it, you see, for many gamers it is about the journey and I believe that this journey is worth taking (a designer always thinks that). So whilst some are dissing others for not enough challenge, people like Bethesda saw what actually mattered, not what some drove for adrenaline rushes are at times great, but there are enough games to do that. And in all this Metroid Prime served the real gamers. Puzzles that mattered, challenges that were met and amazement along the way. That was where I found myself. In all this I added two or three additional settings, but this for now is merely a story.

At this point you are thrust into the sewers of Baghdad and in filthy rags you are trust into the near darkness of the sewers. In this you get to loo around and you see a stave, unremarkable, but still glowing. As it is, it is a stave of Yew, it seems to bend a little and was a mere 18 inches long, but it was better than nothing. In the sewers you face rats and a few exits, but the guards will not let you out, you are a beggar and the streets do not need beggars. There is however other entrances thorough the sewers, some are hidden from view, but only one is open, dark and making you retreat in fear (an intentional setting), so as you go through the sewers you face rats and every rat you kill gives you +1 mana, and you need to kill 100 in total, the sewers have hidden pockets of 20 rats, so it is not a steeple chase, and as you kill 100 you gain a health segment, at this point, you get automatic healing, and some puddles glow orange. When you put the stave in your health segment loads up fast and when you have this added health your attack becomes +5. So whilst you you get more rats killed (another 200) you can get a second segment and now the fist cave does not seem so scary and is a little less dark. This is the first Cave of Prophesy. In this place you will find the Jinniya of fireless smoke. You will face her and whilst she is smoke she cannot be hit, but with your +5 attack, you can harm her when you successfully hit her. It takes 50 hits. So when you defeat her you get the next setting

This is also a setting, on the wall is one place that shows the Northstar, if you want to that point you are shown to be good, all others are dark settings, it does not impede you or set you, but the light path becomes less optional in the story. Then a door appears and behind that door is clothing of a citizen, a ring and a runic stone. The stone is a smoke stone, the clothes are of a decent civilian, you are no longer a beggar and are is the second setting, you have to go through a gate you did not pass through to be let through, or you have to go through as smoke (if there is not longer any non-visited gates available) After you get through the gates you are officially a citizen. Ad not you can see that part of Baghdad. As I see it now, there are 4 exits and they are all the same with optional quests in all of them, these parts of Bagdad lead to other 4 parts who have a special place in them (like palaces and fortresses). And as you make ways into the segments you are awarded mana points (no matter whether the acts are good or bad) and the good acts give you renown, the bad acts infamy. This is the first setting towards the end goal. After you do 5 good or 5 bad things, the other option disappears. 

As such you get to find issues in Baghdad, resolve them and find mana pools, as you find new solutions, you gain more mana, so after one renown/infamy point, the mana pools become +2 stronger and you get to see more colored options. 

So this is what I found yesterday. A small step for me, a giant leap for gamers and the UAE (I think I borrowed that expression from somewhere) I think the moon spoke to me. Well, should you wonder why Microsoft cannot come with anything else then iterated repeats of what already exists, Sony, Nintendo and I feel the same way and hopefully soon a new player (gossip: It is the UAE) will show Microsoft why they never should have bothered with gaming anyway, it costed them $100 billion and they seemingly have very little to show for it. 

So you all have a great day today.

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The next stretch

In continuation of yesterday’s story, it is time to die you the next part. There is no news. As I personally see it, the news has become a much larger soapbox for big business and politicians. As such I can weave my own yarns and likely more entertaining. So where was I? I ended yesterday with 

The sensation was coming from the north north east, far beyond Ad Durar Street. He walked towards Yas Mall and decided to walk into IKEA. He walked into the restaurant and ordered the Salmon Teriyaki with Mango salsa, sparkling mineral water and a large coffee. He put 4 notes of 20 dirham in the hands of the lady and got some coins back. He needed and sat at a table by the window. There was not anything owe could do, but now he had a better feel of what was happening and the mall was not in the way of any interrupting feelings. He concentrated and viewed the people with his other sight. There was nothing out of the ordinary of anyone he could see, whatever this was, it would have a dark aura, optionally bordering on black. With every bite and sip he took, he was looking to the people in the back, even there, there was nothing to show him what was the cause. The weird thing what that he had not felt this feeling in over 15 centuries.  And this kind of power does not usually hide. It was more common in the 5th century when the Jinn were a lot more common than they are now. But they might be hiding in the folds of safety. Still. He had not felt this way for a long time and if there is a new player in town, he had to know. 

By the end of the meal, he had another blip, it felt like to was around Noya Luma. As such he decided to walk there. It took him around 45 minutes. He was taking his time to scan and see the people he did notice. It was more of a community, so the people were weary of him, they had not seen him before and after a while a person walked up to him and said “hal yumkinuk musaeadati min fadlika?” Apparently the man needed help. He nodded and followed him, his mind saw that there was no one to see and no cameras. The man wielded a knife and pointed it at him “Your money, now” He saw this coming a mile away and he smirked, the man pushed the knife towards his chest and he grabbed the hand holding the knife with his left hand, his right hand went around the neck of the man. His concentration told him that he was out of sight in every way. He felt the ring on his right hand. And he squeezed a little more and the next second the man was turning to ash, the power of his strength had evolved over the centuries, as such he was very blessed to turn this man to ash, even the bones dissolved, the calcium lost its coherence on the spot and he went away in a cloud of ash, the ash fell to the ground, but he knew that the smallest breeze and some water would be all that was needed to remove whatever evidence ever existed. He saw a few items, which he left where they were. The knife he would cast in some trashcan the first moment he found one. He continued on his route and when he arrived, he saw nothing of worthy, but he noticed a Starbuck sign and decided to sit down, have a sandwich and more coffee and feel the surroundings. 

When he got his coffee with a dynamite chicken sandwich and sat down, he could relax for now and feel what more could be coming his way. He was sitting for at least an hour when he felt the air change. It was what he expected, it seemed to be a jinn, but not a normal one. Darker and a lot more dangerous than he had ever seen. He saw none of the people that gave the vibe, but then he saw it, the aura was none existent, a weird setting, but it made sense now. It was not a Jinn at all, it was an afreet and not a normal one. He was seemingly a lot stronger than anything anyone in his larger family had ever faced. As such, he was not going to approach it now. He watched the man and saw the man was fitting in, not wanting to stand out. He liked that, because an afreet is normally full of chaos and destruction. This one was different, but he was not taking any chances. He then felt a larger different pulse, not anything he had ever felt, it felt Egyptian in origin, but he had no idea who it was, merely that it was massively old, older than he had ever felt. Optionally older than his grandfather, which was the weirdest of feelings. His grandfather was here before mankind was, so if it was older. What was it?

He binned his trash and walked back. Time to get back to the hotel, but the idea of getting food at that Rainforest cafe. The lamb mandi meal radiated with appeal and he was getting hungry. He was walking towards the Mall when he suddenly felt weird, his senses alerted him and he felt the afreet right behind him. No-one had approached him unfelt for centuries. He stopped and turned around. The man looked at him. Who are you? He asked. I go by the name Lavrinthi. And you? Let me introduce my self. I am Al-Malik al-Aswad, I am also known as the black king. I noticed you Olympian, but you are not really Olympian, are you? There is something different about you. Lavrinthi looked at the man. The other filing was not you, was it. Lavrinthi shook his head. I seems Egyptian, but I never felt anything like that before. The man nodded. I will let you leave now, the afreet turned around and walked away. Lavrinthi looked at the afreet walking of and went towards the Mall. Time for some diner and time to consider what he had experienced. He considered his options and decided to take another path. He decided to see if the afreet would approach him, or if he would keep his distance. After his meal he stopped at a coffee place and had another coffee. Time to get back to that Warner Brothers hotel, he was so looking forward to the breakfast they serve, but that will come after the night he has coming and it would be time to erect a very different kind of protection, because he had not experience anxiousness in many centuries and getting approached unseen was a really new experience for him.

What happens next? See another day, the next installment might come in the next few days.

Well this part is also for ADTV (or its parent Abu Dhabi Media). Perhaps they like it, perhaps not. I am getting my creative soul fed and that is good for me, a lot better than weeding out BS from optional BS, which is how I see a lot of the media exposure. And when the Financial times is giving us ‘Trump administration asks OpenAI to stagger release of new model to vet users’ as well as ‘Trump administration allows some access to Anthropic’s Mythos’, so whilst some people are considering that “Unease over Washington’s ad hoc regulatory approach remains.” And in all that time no one is considering that it opens up the European markets for DeepSeek and whether the next part is real ‘Microsoft Now Wants Users To Adopt Chinese DeepSeek AI After Failure Of Copilot’ (source: Channel News) is unknown, but that is opening a few Chinese walk ins into the west. The status? I have no idea, I honestly don’t. But some are saying that the race between China and the western AI markets are much harder to see and I get it, but what happens to that famous ‘Big Beautiful Stargate’? Consider that this is a $500 billion market being poured in a second or third placement and as I see it (and written about several times) set for a non-existing AI, or as I prefer to call it a fake AI. So we see a massive public-private AI infrastructure venture aiming to invest up to US$500 billion to build the world’s most powerful AI data centers and Europe and optionally the Commonwealth as well are setting up Chinese walls (a happy coincidence expression) against United States data centers. So, investing that much in data centers that are keeping track of a population of 349 members of the United States? I very much doubt that and I reckon that these centers will be avoided by China and several others as well. Did anyone consider what happened to the $500 billion? Just a questions to ask. 

Have a great day.

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Story time

This is what happens and after I saw all the BS (as I see it) hits the internet. I had a little enough of this. So whilst we are given ‘Bubble talk is ‘blasphemy’, says SoftBank CEO’ with the quote “SoftBank’s CEO Masayoshi Son does not want to hear any faint-hearted negativity about AI.” So, how about calling something AI that is nothing of the sort? Is that not blasphemy? Ai is more than a decade away. After that I saw a few more articles and I kinda shutdown, but if you want stories I can give you one. This one is for ADTV (or its parent Abu Dhabi Media), the story plays for the larger part in Abu Dhabi, but to be honest, it started in Accra (around 1104). So before you start reading, this is a story, it is not real.

In May 1104, the crusades pillaged the city of Accra, over 4000 muslims died in that event, even though they offered to surrender, allowing residents to leave peacefully or stay under Crusader rule. However, the Genoese violated these terms and pillaged the place. This got the attention of a man called the Black King, his real name was Al-Malik Al-Aswad and he took offense to the Crusaders being on Arabian lands. There were scuffles, but in November of that year, the Crusaders set a trap, they wanted this infidel and they knew he was strong, but they didn’t know how strong, so a hut was created around a cage, a leaded iron cage. And they wanted, there were two doors, the first was open, the second closed after the crusader who played for bait went through the rear exit and close that door whilst getting out of the hut. As the Black King entered the hut, the first door slammed shut. Here the story becomes a jump. 

What they did not know that the man was an Afreet and without knowing they had the best cage imaginable. The man had no way of eloping from an lead coated iron cage. Lead was used to stop iron bars from rusting and the cage was completely leaded. They knew they had something really evil, because he was not stopped by swords. They took the cage and rode it with to the end of their known world. It was at that end when they heard about a cave, everyone feared this cave. This was the the end of the known world (for them) they were near Muscat in Oman and they left the man in the cave and then caused it to collapse. As they were concerned their job was done. They figured that this man would starve in weeks and they went back towards Accra, they never made it, but that was a different story, the fate of this man was lost in the sands. 

1918
It was the end of WW1, the RAF set up camp in Muscat and in that beginning there were some bomb runs for the newly graduated RAF pilots, they had sopwith Camels (the same the New Zealand air force still operates) and one threw a bomb which fell on collapsed cave and at that point, two of the bindings of the cage were broken. It was the start of his escape. It would take years to get out, but the man was immortal, time never mattered, what he was for now was hungry and thirsty.

1962 
The man had created a strong presence. It was a slow life, but he was dealing with the emerging of Islam all over the Arabic lands and the stage of such a strong christian setting was utterly upsetting to him, he was still careful to act, not out of fear, but he recently escaped ad he did not want to experience a repeat and these people have much stronger weaponry. 

2026
The man had moved and moved over the years. He was now in Abu Dhabi, he spoke the language, he knew the people and after being all over the Arabic nation, he knew where the corrupt, the easily manipulated were and he was growing his influence. Islam had stopped his progress to a much larger degree then he had expected, christians were relatively easy and tourism was awakening all over the Arabic lands. So whilst he was walking a thin slab broke and he sunk in it with one foot, under it was a Cobra, they were rare in the UAE, so he was taken a little by surprise. It attacked, but he was surprised and he lashed out and drained the cobra of its life essence.

It was a slow day, a man was sitting in a floater in the Al Raha River in WaterWorld in Abu Dhabi. He was enjoying his vacation. He was nearly dozing of when he suddenly felt a pulse, something he had not felt in centuries. As such he felt a little anxious. He looked around and saw the stairs out of the water. He quickly left his floater and swam to land, it was a mere 3 meters away. He climbed the stairs and walked back to his cabana to get dressed and return to his hotel. Back at the hotel his mind enlarged itself to feel his surroundings. He felt the usual stage os death around him, the sick, the old and the dying. That was still in place. His mind felt around the direction where the pulse was from. He was feeling something, but he had not felt this in centuries. It was time to find what was happening. 

So this is the first part, more on this soon enough. There is more to come and a small twist on all this. And all that came to me in mere minutes and what comes next already came to me, the setting of death and the facts of what deities go through when they are faced with what they see now. That part is what came to me when I saw Reconstructing the Divine on YouTube. It opens a few doors of creativity in me. 

Have a great day and don’t let creativity hit you in the back of your head. 

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Merchandise

That is the stage and the setting. You see I have been replaying the God of War games, because in the near future God of War Laufey will be released and I needed to get back into the lore of the game, which is nothing short of miraculous. So, as I was playing the game. I was considering merchandise. And I have seen several things in the God of War range, but never these ones and considering that God of War has over 76 million copies sold and therefor the fans run into the tens of millions. People have made wagers on a lot less. So lets take two examples.

The first one are these chests that Kratos smashes his fist through and Atreus uses his bow to smash (bad use of a bow) they have goodies and that is it, but what if there are three options. The first is a small one and fits on a desk with storage for office goods (paperclips/memo pads) you know the usual suspects on a desk. Optionally open holding pens and pencils. Then there is the medium version which could hold your treasured PS games, optionally 4k/Blu-ray too. Open the box and your favorite games are there for the selecting, for perhaps you have a urge to keep your Star Wars movies in a separate space, all options that make a room look cool, then there is the large version and that one is debatable. A small chest, an actual chest. We don’t think of them, like this anymore, but in the 60s/70s we had hope chests. A hope chest is a wooden chest or trunk that would store special items for a bride to use when she got married. Although, over time, the tradition has changed. My father altered a fruit chest (painted it too) to keep all my toys in (he called them my personal rubbish bin) So we get a supercool looking toy chest, or for whatever reason you want to use it for, the setting is that a chest like that might find a rather large interest and as the game carries love and favour of the gaming community, so will the merchandise. 

The second one are the coffins that are ‘freed’ (read: looted) by Kratos and company. These would be just in the small version and would hold pens, so your office or private office gets the cool stamp all due to the efforts of Studio Santa Monica, I reckon that they will act on this as it is their IP, so nothing for me (alas). But a good idea should not be stopped merely because it is not mine to wield. The idea is still sound, so I wonder why I have never seen these items in places like EB Games, JB Hifi or whatever localised stores you have. I reckon that there is coin in this idea and with millions of fans and the upcoming Laufey plus the setting that we are getting closer to Christmas and Thanksgiving, Santa Monica Studios wanna run like Santa to get in on this action. The simple reason that it is an almost guaranteed success and they already did the ground works for their games. I have no idea how this will play in Laufey, so there might be more, but that is up to Santa Monica Studios to cash in on. 

Merely putting the idea out there. Have a great day, almost Tuesday and my tooth is hammering in pain, so it is close to my highly needed overdose of Paracetamol, Codeine and Oxycodone so I can get some sleep. Life is not always feeling like roses, sometimes the thorns sting.

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The solution was behind you

This is a story that comes with luggage. I raised part of this in an article I wrote (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2023/07/31/a-wild-side-to-creativity/) which I created in July 2023, so it is almost 3 years old now. I raised the setting a few times more. There was a setting that could benefit Disney and Universal, but I tonight I saw an article which gave me ‘Ackman pitches $65 billion UMG deal to move listing to US’ and things started to click in a few ways. You see, the industry (the one related to Tinsel) will require a large reset in a few years and the best way to get the concentrated benefit is to educate the young of today as they will inherit that industry the day after tomorrow. When you realise this things becomes rather simple. To give you the setting, I handed that setting in ‘A Wilde Side to Creativity’ and a few times after that. You see, the Miral Group has an option here to branch out. Consider the setting that I gave in relation to Harry Potter and a few other settings, we get the presumption that could be there tomorrow (in a desert far far away). You see, the origins were created by Macromedia and taken over by Adobe. That program got scrapped in 2013. But I believe that this might have been an error. (Perhaps a shortsighted move might be a little more appropriate). Consider the world that we have at present and the reset that is likely to come in a few years. That implies that you should train the youth off today and see if they can create the options that are needed. To explore that, you need a form of prototyping. And a program like Adobe Director might just do that. There is no doubt that it might need a little tinkering. Consider that those programs tend to be cheaper as they were made redundant. 

But I am getting ahead of myself. 

In the setting I had in mind, I had originally create a setting with stage pages and fridge magnets of characters that we know. I focussed on the HP range (about a boy with a scar) and the stages were plastified placemats (in my mind). A character was placed on point A and that character was placed on point B with a point in time and the systems creates a timeline for movement (like Flash did) for that character. Now you do the same for character 2,3 (and so on). And as we get these timelines we get an animation. Now the creator can add text balloons (or even create a soundbar), for these timepoints.

Now consider that on the stage, these ‘O’ points are places where the illustrious Harry is standing, the time dilation will create movement from the start point to the end point. So as we add characters, they will move in their own pace in a way you design it. And as such we get the first inkling of what a director is doing. Set the stage and the characters. And the text balloons will be the conversation and over time they will add voices and voice bytes to that setting and we now have a sound stage added to all this. And the fantastic point is that children can operate this. As the stages become more complex and numerous, the young entrepreneur is starting to become and think like a director, like the original Macromedia product envisioned in 1987. In those days hardware was limiting, now the hardware of a mobile is top notch, consider what the PC, Mac or Playstation even the Nintendo can become the director to be tool of choice. And as we go from real product towards online libraries, the capture becomes almost unreal. The setting that this can go from direct, towards a created MP4, the entire setting changes even more. And this is more than playing a homage to the original creators. This could be the spark that creates tomorrow’s directors, cameraman and sound people. And the Miral group could even set groups of people in one of their parts creating additional visibility to all their parks as these standings could be done almost anywhere, even in Yas Mall. An entertaining setting that will promote the future of tomorrow by the population of tomorrow. And as the libraries of characters and stages are added over time, there is every notion that we can get a whole range of new storylines and added graphics to what is now. A setting I saw over a decade ago and there is every consideration that we might see the light of new ideas by a new population of entertainers. I am not telling what they are, I am merely giving light to the tools that will bring these people into the light. And as I see it, places like Dubai Media Incorporated (DMI), Abu Dhabi Media Network (ADMN) or even Sharjah Broadcasting Authority (SBA). We can bicker over what otter’s can do (like Hollywood), but they know so well what they need to do (the giggling arrogance of them), so I am happy to hand this idea to these players in the UAE.

A simple setting that could bring options to the UAE the day after tomorrow, because to get there, the new participants need to see that they could be participants of power and that is to show them the creativity that is already in themselves. As I see it, it is the only way to get that creativity out there and perhaps they will even come up with other ideas that could bring a much stronger response. I don’t have the wisdom here, I merely have an idea that could bring forth the next generation of entertainment. And that effort matters, because if we cannot think of the next generation we are dooming ourselves. 

Have a great day.

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Hidden in a dream

It happened again last night, I had a tech ology dream. Now the dream could be merely speculative, but the setting of technology and the stage I used to inhabit in photography makes it eerily a path towards presumption and as I have other things on my mind I leave it to whatever innovative mind is out there to make it a reality. The dream was me in some kind of group activity and  thought is twas about me plunging my rod into the pretty girl in there (I have no idea who she is), but after a few seconds I was ‘dissuade’ into standing in the group and taking picture of the group. It was a nice twilight moment, the sun was going down and the torches out there weren’t particularly good in illuminating the group, as such a flash was required and that was when things went pear shaped. I had never seen this flash before, it had an lcd screen with the image.

But there was more, there were tabs on the screen showing the impact of the flash, so a pre-flash and a flash image, then there was a screen with white balance numbers and some numbers on setting the white degree (like candle light) with a number representing Kelvins (white levels of the flash), it was rather innovative, but here is the kicker, this flash does not yet exist. As such my mind worked out a few settings right of the bat and gave them to me, now I am returning the favour and I leave it to whomever can work with this idea (a donation to poor me would be appreciated) so far wealth has never been further away from my pocket and I might be one of the few referring to church mice as decadent rich bitches, but that is purely on me.

It felt nice to dream of new innovations. I beat the hell out of the Iranian question, although creating these weapon systems for the UAE and Saudi Arabia is making me happy too. I did my part against the Iranian aggression and I didn’t have to start a war, that was done for me. So as we are now whilst 9 news gives us ‘Trump likes to threaten withdrawing the US from NATO. But can he really do it?’ I am of a different setting, the bully can push his way around, but when we all call it quits and he has to fend for himself, the people of the United States know exactly who to thank and whilst we deny them goods and services which will now merely please the Commonwealth, the United States has himself to thank for the mess that comes their way. In the meantime, I can innovate the hell out of everything and make the Commonwealth and the Middle East the recipient of these ideas. Optionally Japan too as they might have the strongest photography base. In all these matters we can go with ‘Not to be delivered to the USA’. And don’t think of that as some kind of personal punishment, as it stands Canada, the Eu and the rest of the Commonwealth are on that same page, and this represents over 3 billion people denying their gods and services to the United States and all that tourism is now finding new shores to spend their money to.

A setting the United States did to themselves, because as I see it, the majority elected that ‘whatever he considers himself’ in power and the ones who were part of this (like Marco Rubio, Pete Hegseth and Vice President Vance) can cry all they like and they might even dismiss my setting, but as I see it, there are more than 2.5 billion others who feel the same way I do. I am just one of the few saying otherwise out loud and I am more than someone who is shouting. I am handing IP to the other parties as well, that makes me a whole lot more than the average shouter and when these ideas come to fruition, the stage of lost revenue really starts adding up and as I see it, the more the Commonwealth has, the less there is for the United States and that will also make a lot of Europeans happy. 

So whatever was hidden in a dream, I am happy to convey to you the reader and I will make sure that it is either freeware or it becomes non-America IP.

Have a great day today.

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