Tag Archives: Nova Scotia

August 19, 2025 · 13:36

On the other side of the table

I have been weary of the other side of the table. In many cases it pays to see both sides of the table. As such, Today I saw the news by the Khaleej Times (at https://www.khaleejtimes.com/uae/residents-stranded-air-canada-flight-attendant-strike-high-prices) giving us ‘UAE residents stranded amid Air Canada strike stressed by vague responses, high flight prices’ and there we are given “A sudden strike by more than 10,000 Air Canada flight attendants has grounded hundreds of flights, leaving some UAE residents stranded in Canada as the disruption stretches into a third day. The walkout, which began on Saturday, has shut down operations for the carrier that usually transports 130,000 passengers a day. Despite a back-to-work order from Canada’s labour board, the union has refused to comply, demanding the airline return to the bargaining table.” At present I am not taking sides. I do not know the plight of the Air Canada flight staff and crews. Strikes happen and they aren’t nice. As a tourist I would vie for an extension (if possible), there isn’t much use walking on a airport for a few days. There is only so much you can do, and even if there is enough food, there is a larger concern here. 

The setting I do want to comment on was the small setting in the header namely “high flight prices” and the quote “UAE resident Emma Dylan, currently in Toronto, said the lack of communication from the airline has been frustrating. “They cancelled our direct flight without prior notice and moved us to an option with multiple layovers,” she said. “When I asked about compensation or alternatives, the response was vague. At one point, a staff member even suggested the Dubai route was cancelled because of the situation in the Middle East.” This left her confused and uncertain about next steps.” In the first Dubai is one of the safest places on the planet, as such that staff member should be fired (at the very least) and as far as we get ““Everything now is, of course, triple the price since it’s a last-minute booking,” she said, noting that she usually books her flights to/from Canada months in advance.” It is partially fair, Although, I am not sure how cheap here initial flight was, On the other hand, I would think that setting up a charter by Emirates, to pick up stranded Emirates might not be the worst idea and that could have been arranged as was on Saturday. One flight optionally taking care of the bulk from Saturday/Sunday night have been a solution, optionally costing the passengers something, but 

I reckon not as much as the ‘three times’ that quoted price. Optionally a setting that airlines can bring is a flight to London and subsequent flights from London to Europe and direct flights to Riyadh, Dubai and Abu Dhabi. That merely my brain contemplating the issue in less than 30 seconds. Was that hard? Was it even possible? As crews shut down in Toronto, planes might not get sustenance (read: fuel) I reckon that the Canadian air-force could fuel the planes and fill the plane up with pizzas. Just a thought to have. I am not turning against the strike, but everyone will realise that stranded passengers is a rather large call to make. 

So as we see “For now, passengers remain in limbo, refreshing their phones for updates, weighing costly alternatives, and hoping for a swift resolution between the airline and its workers.” We get that there are issues, but the setting how to resolve them is also up I the air (as expressions go), but a larger setting is, what can be done without setting off the unions and presenting the opposite side with an unmanageable evolving issue. 

I don’t have anything decent answers at present. I merely went into trouble shooting mode (without shooting people). And it was nice to see both sides of the equation. If you want to know more about the other side you can catch that in the publications of the CBC, so good luck with that. I just wonder what happens when you are with a business or First Class ticket at the Toronto lounges. I reckon I would gain a few pounds chomping down food and drowning in bubbly, but that is me, Always seeing to light in the darkness, even if Toronto was my destination, there is nothing wrong with a bottle of Champagne to wash down the Nova Scotia lobster rolls, Montreal style smoked beef, Bambi burgers, Poutine (mandatory), Nanaimo bars with Maple Taffy and in the end ash that down with some British Columbian ice wine. A nice way to get not a food coma to wait out the strike and at the end, simply ask them where the taxis are and you will have saved at least a day on your food budget. 

Have a great day, and it is now breakfast time in Amsterdam. So poffertjes, or Pancakes. I’m hungry again already. 

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June 15, 2025 · 03:39

When you are at odds

This happens, there is no real reason, merely that you do not agree with another view. In this case it is with the CBC. That is what intelligent people do, we are at odds and we reject a thought given to us. It started with the article (at https://www.cbc.ca/radio/day6/nintendo-switch-2-1.7558697) where Jonathan Ore gives us ‘Nintendo’s Switch 2 sets early sales records. Its future is less certain’ and his byline gives us the goods “Handheld console arrives with high price, few games and fresh competition” he gives us a decent reason. High price, a setting I personally do not agree with, especially as the systems is basically an overcharged Switch one. The Switch 2 comes with 12GB operating memory (up from 4GB), 256GB storage (up from 32GB) bigger screen and a few other gimmicks. It is a real step up and as I see it, it sold over 3.5 Million Units Worldwide in the first four days, not bad, as it took Microsoft a hell of a lot longer to get those numbers. On day one we got access to Mario Kart World, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Switch 2 Edition), The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (Switch 2 Edition), Sonic X Shadow Generations, Street Fighter 6, and Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition. Not bad capture of games. At present we have 84 upcoming games, as I see it 14 of them likely to be in 2026, but that gives us 70 games all this year and that is evidently just for starters. So, the few games is pretty much sunk at this point. Are they games he wants to play? That is a fair question, but that is a setting we all face whether it is Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo. As I see it Mario Kart World is already worth buying the console for, a setting Microsoft enjoyed with Bethesda’s Oblivion and its own Mass Effect. As such there are overlaps in judgement. I had the same setting with the very first Playstation. Because of Tekken I got the system and when Tomb Raider arrived a few month later, the admiration for that very first playstation was complete. There are reasons why we buy a systems. Usually it is because of the games already out, or coming soon. And when the setting of “With a high price, small lineup of exclusive games and a more crowded market for handheld gaming — including a major entry by Microsoft — things aren’t as simple as the original Switch’s debut in 2017.” I roll my eyes and giggle loudly. As the ‘major entry of Microsoft’ is set, they haven’t really wowed us since before the Xbox series S, and as I see it, they have come up short ever since. Now that doesn’t mean that the new console is nothing. Yet two days ago I was given ‘Xbox’s new console quietly cancelled as Microsoft takes different approach’ with the byline “many are wondering what the native console would have cost, because we’re all looking at the Xbox Ally and estimating it will fetch well over £500, perhaps even over £700.” And that is cheap? And as we see the line “It’s a followup to the original Switch’s Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, which sold more than 68 million copies — over 20 million more than the next best-selling title, Animal Crossing: New Horizons.” Which explains the setting that I am convinced that Nintendo doesn’t have any real worries to consider as Mario Kart 8 Deluxe sold more copies than Microsoft has in actual sales for consoles. That is set to 28.3 million (as of June 2024) accumulative for both the X and S series. Isn’t it weird that Microsoft bundles those numbers, which makes me wonder how many X systems were sold, Microsoft hides nearly all settings of those numbers, I wonder why.

And consider that Microsoft sold the Xbox Series X|S at 16.41 million units in the US in 50 months, Nintendo got 25% of that target in 4 days. So, as we find from a few sources “Xbox faces major challenges as its console sales hit record lows in 2024, and it’s not looking any better for 2025. The gaming giant sold an estimated 2.7 million units in the US market during 2024, marking its worst full-year performance in Xbox history” and as I see it, with cancelled systems the setting does not look good for Microsoft as it ‘just’ spend $69 billion on Blizzard (2023), as such the entire 2024 sales setting doesn’t even gets them the interest on that loan of $69,000,000,000 a year later. So the entire setting of “including a major entry by Microsoft” is massively bogus. One apparently is cancelled and the other one is years away (a speculated 2027 release). As we consider the first Switch with a Zelda game “earning praise as one of the best video games of all time.” Microsoft hadn’t done that since Bethesda’s initial release on the Xbox360, or Mass Effect in 2005, making it a 20 year lull in setting markers. OK, Skyrim on 11/11/11 was a worthy stage, but that one was also released on Sony, making it a not so exclusive stage.

As such I do not see the setting Jonathan Ore gives us, the stage of “Gamers who snapped up a Switch 2 may be anxiously waiting for more made-by-Nintendo games other than Mario Kart World” comes over as media BS as I got a list of 84 games a lot of them in 2025. Yes, I get that No Man’s Sky and Cyberpunk 2077 aren’t exclusives, but we are assuming that they were ‘begotten’ on a system they had (OK, a small giggle is allowed). And these games contain the making of fathering the game settings, especially No Mans Sky. I almost forget to give the readers that the Switch 2 comes with Hogwarts Legacy on day one. If you didn’t have that game on any system, you are in for a treat. I end up asking why Microsoft was mentioned in his article at all, there was no reason unless a Microsoft stake holder requests the mention, which is likely as he doesn’t mention that “Sources have told The Verge that Microsoft initially had plans for a native Xbox handheld, but this has been officially scrapped as the company”, but this article doesn’t give you that, we merely saw “a more crowded market for handheld gaming — including a major entry by Microsoft” which by sources got cancelled. As I see it, the little dark cloud that this writer is trying to make falls in the water. What would have been better is that CBC had given the reader a sighting of Canadians playing these Nintendo games on the Switch 2. So how was it seen in Nouveau Scotia, or Saskatchewan? We know what Vancouver or Toronto does, but the rest? 

As such I am at odds with this article. In most places I look I merely see the amazement of the console, especially when the camera is attached and you are playing as a team. This is actual true innovation bought to you by Nintendo. 

Are there lesser sights to Nintendo? This would have been a valid side and the price is high, I admit that, but is the system worth the price? I believe it is and that is a personal setting. Not everyone will agree, but those people still have the Switch 1 to consider, or they have it and the upgrade was a no brainer. It is cheaper that my PS5 and I had no issue paying for either of them. Soon I hope I will be able to get that system (as soon as Oracle, to name merely one option, gives me a tech support or customer care job). 

And surviving Abu Dhabi, speculatively,  as part of ADNOC definitely makes the Switch 2 an essential need. Summer in the UAE is a bit hot when you float around the Al Raha River baking in the sun. The cool dark feeling of a living room playing Mario Kart World might be the way to go. We are all creatures of basic needs and Nintendo has fueled that basic need ever since I bought the Nintendo 64 in 1998. They gave us the fun and the sparkle for gaming even before that and that is some record for any company to entertain and Nintendo delivered. Something we don’t see in this article either. So who was Jonathan Ore catering to? Not Nintendo, not the reader and not the facts. I have my idea’s on this and so will you when you got to this point in the article. 

This is why I am at odds with the CBC article. Have a great day, still late breakfast time in Vancouver. So enjoy.

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May 23, 2025 · 06:58

America of the Dead

I would want to set the stage as “The names of players and places have been changed to protect the greedy”, but that would not be true. This is a pure work of fictive imagination (based on real events) as there is no City of Anvil in Canada, There is (to the best of my knowledge) no Benirus Manor and to the best of my knowledge no Velwyn Benirus, as such, lets get this show on the road. 

BEGIN

There is a setting we all tend to ignore as it is easy to avoid knowledge when you can turn away from the facts presented to you. The American economy is in a spell, Wall Street is perhaps days away from retiring America’s Credit Card, time is up, the funds have dried up and in the last 6 months disaster upon disaster hit the shores of Wall Street. The MateBook Fold, which was released to the world in late 2025 took the planet by storm, the EU and Arabia almost instantly adopted it, HarmonyOS captured the world and the new settings changed everything. Google lost almost 15% market share within the first 6 months. And as TikTok showed a much larger impact, it lost 20% there too. Microsoft buckled as it had nothing to compete with and Apple was losing over 5% market share in the first three months. America’s economy has pretty much done for. The price of lack of innovation and the reliance on its own spin marketing. When results cannot be vouched for and revenue goes down an economy will be forced on its knees within a year, no matter how good your spin is, Wall Street demands results. Ad it was not the only element. There were the disastrous notions of AI, or NIP (Near intelligent Parsing) as it was blended into. AI was pretty much dead. All the hype demanded more and more results, but the bulk of the programmers couldn’t keep up with the hype and that made a collection of several companies shed a combined 900 billion dollars, and in the time of Wall Street draconian settings, results must be shown. And America was out of options, they had to result to attempts to annex areas. The first failure was Greenland, the EU and Canada stuck to their guns and the EU called in help from China as it could not counter a war on two fronts and China reacted positively. Then America tried to ‘annex’ their 51st state and that was in an impasse as the Commonwealth collectively came to the aid of their bigger brother. But that fight was not over, the President of the United States called  to the TV networks to the aid of MAGA and the people responded and this is such a story.

In Shelburne (Canada) is a house, the house is quite old, it was build around 1795, against all odds, as most of the town was build out of wood, this house was build from bricks, mortar and stones. The original owner was a stone mason and for years he created the house, stone by stone and in the unofficial suburb of Anvil, which was by Black Brook, just of Glasgow Street was Anvil. It was unofficial as that place had a mere 4 houses. The house was deserted, it was seemingly haunted and had a local appeal, especially with the younger folks as it was a place where you call out the chickens of the community, but over the years nothing had happened and it was a simple truth or dare place. And in 2026 things changed. The MAGA foundational idiots (for lack of a better term) decided to react to the call of President Trump and they invaded New Brunswick from Maine and pushed through to Nova Scotia. The 1500 RCMP were no match for the 11.000 heavily armed simpletons and as such they were handed a heavily defeat around Saint John. I heard they are building a memorial there, the entire state, as well as Nova Scotia is bringing the cash for that one and the reaction of the people has been nothing but stellar. Kids handing over their piggy banks to aid in this would bring tears to any parent. But that is about tomorrow, we are still dealing with yesterday.

So as the invasion proceeded it was the theoretically the second day. They stormed NB in mere hours and a 10:1 overwhelming force is no immediate match for Canada. But then the game changed because the truth or dare house came alive in the most peculiar way. The original oil lamps outside of the house started igniting and the fireplace lit up. The text was barely readable on the top bar of marble and it was in the fireplace, but the text ‘bydded i’r rhai sy’n byw trwy weithredoedd o frad, ddod o hyd i uffern dragwyddol’ lit up in the fieriest red, then turned white and an eerie sound of spectral people was to be heard, it was seemingly loud as people in the houses around it evicted themselves and ran for the church. It was at that point that the MAGA loving red hatted people came into view. They saw the house and saw it as a safe place. They entered the house, a mere dozen and that had the effect of the house flexing its stones and the setting these people got was even worse then the worst her they ever thought possible. 

At first there was nothing, a simple humming sound not unlike a generator and that is what the red hatters thought it was but in minutes they were surrounded by spectral wraiths, the wraiths slamming their claws into these enemies and the enemies that got of a shot merely realised that these ‘opposers of American Freedom’ were unharmed by bullets and within minutes, the red hatters were no more. The bodies slumped as potatoes on the floor and the wraiths seemed to lit up and they vanished. Still the setting was not done over the next minutes that they died their bodies changed, they took on Zombie like appearances, their flesh decaying in front of your eyes and soon the started twitching and they got up in clumsy ways and looked? Yes, that is the question, their eyes had become black pits and staring at the distance they merely started walking towards the places they came from. 

Yet the house was not done, there was a new eerie smell coming from the basement and the feeling of a presence was unmistakable, there was something coming up. It was still soft and unidirectional, but over the next hour it become more pronounced up came something that is seen in fantasy stories. It was a lich, it had the name of Dafydd Edwards and it was the original builder of the house, his grave was empty as the people concluded that he was dragged away and eaten by bears and in the early 1800’s it was a realistic premise. 

In the meantime the zombie alike people were getting back to the land of the not so free and they were creating mayhem, as the wraiths had made them pretty much impervious to bullets. And with every execution they made, they created new zombies, but there was something more. With every kill there was a small stream of light going straight into the direction where they came from. And within hours the 11,000 men had depleted to a few hundreds and they were running for their lives straight back into Maine where they were praying for insight and wisdom, but those who are not wise will not get it from a prayer, they merely remain as stupid as they were before. Still it was a few hours later and they had arrived in Bangor a more solid place where they could set up defenses. But in this day and age, where people had forgotten about real curses and that was the stage. It was a the next evening that the people feared. Whilst the news was in denial there was anything happening and President Trump gave his world the views he had implying that they are all seeing “Fake News” and “a big lie”, that he would never attack that “beautiful, beautiful 51st state to be” but the turnaround was coming and as the darkness set in, the city of Bangor in the state of Maine got a new view, hundreds of zombie like creatures, all dressed with a red hat and behind them was a shining white lich, walking upright and striding with prides. It was Dafydd Edwards, the shiny white came from the energy that the zombies had slain and Edward was shiny as the full moon on a dark day. As such it had gotten the energy of hundreds of slain Americans and with each attack Edward made on anyone, that person was given the trepidation of reality. His heart blackened with angst and the inability to aim or use his gun, stricken to move and that also came with an inability to move to any degree with agility. Their ability to run away was taken from them and as such the zombies made short work of them. America was losing a lot more than the economy, they lost their population.

THE END

As such this is a work of fiction. It is based on Bethesda’s Oblivion, Simon Pegg’s and Edgar Wright’s, Shaun of the Dead, America’s inability to set a budgets, Canadian values (against the 51st state mentions) and a personal need to come to the aid of the Commonwealth and in all this we shouldn’t ignore the innovation that Huawei brings to the table. So you all have a great day and for me it might be the first day since August 20th 2024 that I will not be able to make my 10,000 steps. The hard rain here, right now, is ghastly.

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August 15, 2024 · 17:40

Streamers wake up

Yup that is pretty much the setting. They are all trying to reinvent the wheel and there is nothing wrong with that, in some cases the new wheel is more up to date and a good show, or movie. As I saw the second iteration of The Andromeda Strain, this time produced by Ridley the alien Scott we see a new version that is ‘up to date’ with the technology settings, the story makes sense and it is a great story to watch in two parts. So as I was brooding on different matters, I was reminded to a good movie from 1987 with the one and only Jon Cryer. The movie was called 

Hiding Out. Now this is no Oscar winning material, still the movie was thoroughly entertaining and I think it deserves a remake. 

The main reason for the remake is that with all the digital currency scams, a remake is nearly essential and Netflix better wake up, or someone else will get to it. So in comes the actress of choice (Anna Taylor Joy). 

She has something in common with an actor like Tom Cruise. You see she could appear like a teenager until she turns 50 and in light of the setting of Hiding out, especially in a high school, this matters. 

The story (roughly) goes that she fell in love with a bitcoin broker and the setting is that he is the guilty foe and a lot of bitcoins go missing, more than enough that he gets himself killed. The last thing he does to ‘save’ his hide he lays blame on the actress of choice and as such she suddenly gets chased and she does not know why. Het only escape is to hide in a place where no one would seem to know her. As she loved her summers with her aunt in Nova Scotia. Her aunt is now dead, but she remembers the place and she is off to Nova Scotia and as such she hides as an international Uruguayan student in the St. Francis Xavier University. She enters as student in journalism and communication. 

In the meantime they are still hunting her but no one knows where to look for her. We get an appearance make over in the beginning when she gets to Nova Scotia (also the one link how they find her). So as the new student she lies low and tries to figure things out. In the meantime her office becomes aware of the $2,000,000,000 loss through theft (TV item) and the death of her lover. Now we get the FBI involved. The story goes that the FBI through digital CCTV traces get a possible handle on her (the train station where she vanished) and someone at the FBI blabs that to the criminals. Her tracks are lost in Saint-Lambert. She took the bus to Antigonish. The bus ride gets us some moments of her past life. 

She is relatively safe for now. And as she ‘embraces’ her anonymity and the new life she is making for herself she (of course) falls in love with one of the teachers and as she focusses on journalism she gains new skills in finding things out, more importantly she finds evidence that the bitcoin company seemingly have been white washing currency. In the meantime, she interns at a newspaper and one of the photographers takes a liking to her. When he takes a snapshot for a column where she is placed in the paper as the new intern, the links are found and the FBI goes after her, as well as the criminals. We now get that the FBI is after her, with criminals close on her too. I still need to think of a few sidelines where she has had positive influence through journalism, like a blue tuna fishing boat (water scenes) or something like that. 

In the end we see that her locket (an heirloom from her mother) contained an SD card with the currency encryption which is still in an account that no one could find or reach because it was encrypted. The SD card was the key to unlocking it. At the end the FBI catches the mole, retrieves the mob money and find the evidence that clearly identifies her previous boyfriend as the guilty party, the movie ends with her changing her life to Antigonish with her teacher. Now, wouldn’t it be nice to give Doug Al-Maini (professor of philosophy at said university) that role? I am a corruptor of the young and innocent (so sue me). And it might make a nice setting for Antigonish. 

It’s all I thought of in less than 2 hours. Netflix eat your heart out. Anyway use this idea as you see fit, I think it would also be nice to give Jon Cryer a nice small role here, to link the old to the new.

Have a great day and try the Nova Scoria Tuna today.

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