Cars

My wife and I often debate about the quality of cars and if their materials justify their price. Her opinion differs greatly from mine as I love quality cars, and her views are more of a "cars are tools that get you from point A to point B" view, with a little bit of "that car looks really nice".

My love for cars was never really "great" until I turned 15 and "The Fast and the Furious" hit the silver screens. There i started thinking .. "cars are cool!" From that point on I loved cars, however my views were biased and limited as I only got to really appreciated those pieces of meticulously engineered machines from a movie that depicted Cars not in their original form but more or less modified to a point of no recognition.

It was cool! To be honest it still is, to some degree, now however Car manufacturers have started saying "let's release cars that are already modified or at least look to some extend as such and gear in all the money! ... Oh and while we're at it, we offer tuning parts as well." so now all those Chargers, Challengers, GT-Rs and Mustangs look modified when you buy them.

I am growing up, also if I don't look the part, I still am and along with that my opinion toward Cars does too. I have started looking at Materials, Colors, Workmanship, Finishing, Amount of Detail and many more aspects of their combination cleverly engineered into what today we call a car. The problem is, with today's society we tend to ignore the amount of effort that goes into the production of any car. From a "Chery QQ" to a "Maybach 62 Zeppelin" all these cars have been thought of, designed, developed, built, tested and produced. Each manufacturer follows his own little way of testing and manufacturing, the effort is still the same none the less and this is where the question if the materials and their usage are necessary and if they justify a cars price.

Take a Hyundai Coupe as an example. It looks sporty, it is pretty and it has a fair amount of engine-space. The materials used inside of the car however aren't all that pretty, or well processed. the Dashboard is made of a hard plastic, the steering wheel is made of a rubber that will start breaking and crumbling after a couple of years. The seats are made of synthetic leather which turn into a heating compound, heated by your body temperature and the materials slowly generate a plastic smell, have absolutely no soundproofing. Also they start deteriorating after a couple of years and the standard issue of the car doesn't even come with Airbags or any other safety features other than partial ABS. This is not at all a "cheap car" the Coupe starts from Dhs95k! With a little extra you can get safety features, maybe real leather seats and that is it.

And now for comparisons sake let's take the Audi A7. Audis pretty much top of the range Coupe. It looks sporty, Very pretty design and has a pretty good engine, (not more liters, just supercharged).

The interior, is of impeccable quality in comparison to the Hyundai. The Dashboard and Panels are made of a rubber foam compound which keeps heat in and cool out or the other way around, it absorbs sound (both ways) which helps the car to be more or less sound proof, while inside you don't hear annoying Road noises. At the same time, it doesn't feel hollow.

Think of it as a pillow, where the Hyundais interior is a Plastic pillow which is filled with air and the Audi A7s interior is a Fluffy Goose Down pillow. It gives me that feeling at least.

The mentioned interior material also helps in distributing and damping audio from speakers within the car, which guarantee a much clearer sound.

Also, don't forget all of the interior is finished with Nappa-leather and your choice of wooden or synthetic material Panels.

The steering wheel is also leather trimmed and hand stitched, surely giving it more room for error, but not if 3 people check the steering wheel there after.

The basic model comes with all airbags, full ABS and ESP an Anti Theft system and Alarm. And of course, the Brand name. However, the A7 starts at Dhs250k... there you have it, it's an expensive car but with an insane amount of detail, high class materials and a brand name.

My opinion is pretty much explained with the above. A quality car does not come cheap, but not just because of its brand name! Because it has an insane amount of detail. Materials that are produced and used to last for a very long time and you do feel more comfortable while traveling, as you don't have to deal with noise or low light, the chair you sit in is ergonomically shaped and all the buttons and functions are located on the dashboard in a way that you can access them easily and without distraction.

But take it as you will expensive cars are not for everyone. As obviously the price tends to matter a lot when buying a car.

I for one as mentioned before, love quality cars and to me, quality is not engine power or boot space.

I'll go drool over the new Range Rover Evoque for now. Until next time, Game on!

-Alex

Book your customer for a service!?

”Do what you do so well that they will want to see it again and bring their friends.”
Walt Disneys

When I was younger, I wouldn't really be bothered with bad customer service, I would pretty much ignore it, try to figure out why the engine was broken, and then just fix it myself. Nowadays however, everything revolves and evolves around customer service. Yes!, pretty much everything, from buying that burger to finding the right toilet paper.. for afterwards.

Over the 5 years that I've spent here in Dubai, I have encountered cases of probably the worst customer service experiences in my life, forgetting to plug in your Blu-Ray player and folding an after sales representative for your own stupid idiocy is almost nothing against what some customer services deliver to your face.

Anita is 24 years old, and has a college degree in Medicine which makes her a Professional Nurse... at Friday's... taking your order.

Truth hurts, but the way I see it, is that the error doesn't lie within the representative herself most of the time; as far as knowledge is concerned, but more in the Company that is meant to provide training to the person. In Customer Service, it's important to distinguish these 2 elements, Knowledge and Attitude..

Don’t try to tell the customer what he wants. If you want to be smart, be smart in the shower. Then get out, go to work and serve the customer!
Gene Buckley, Sikorsky Aircraft

The biggest problem I see when it comes to Customer Service, is Knowledge, as attitude is an individuals issue. Knowledge is as far as I can see, not ;at least in a serious manner, provided to the Representative. How often has it happened to you, that you ask a customer service representative a question they seem to be unable to answer. Only to be then destroyed by the person who needs support (who is already angry) because the representative is unable to either answer your question without asking you 500 first, or because he has no idea how to solve the problem. And the sad thing is, this is not only related to Techsupport, this ranges from a restaurant that cooked your steak too well done, to the Clothing store which doesn't seem to know that their new collection has already been advertised.

Companies that hire people here and I suppose in many more countries of the world, do not provide proper training to their employees to make sure that their customers are getting their questions answered properly.

When it comes to attitude than I have to say a good representative, also if his girlfriend broke up with him, or if her boyfriend cheated on her, should always try and keep a happy face. after all, it's the face of the company! and that's what they are being paid for. However I don't wanna be the critic ass here! People have a bad day all the time! And if you aren't polite with the person that is trying to help you, (even if the other person is being a b***h) than you are up for a slap-fest! without a fun or productive experience! Give them the benefit of the doubt, at least the first time!

One of the deep secrets of life is that all that is really worth doing is what we do for others.
-Lewis Carol

I'll go call the telephone company now! Until next time, Game on!

-Alex

They have faces?

L.A.Noire was released on PS3 a while ago, and I love it, sure the game gets repetitive and the main Character seems to have an anger management problem, sure you can't ACTUALLY tell if someone is lying or telling the truth and the game somehow ALWAYS gets you to solve the case (to progress in storyline) but I still freaking love the game.

I got so annoyed from all the unrealistic "I will fight for our freedom" type games that I see a fresh change in mood when playing L.A.Noire. You are a cop! A COP! Not the "True Crime: Streets of LA" type cop who is just another "Grand Theft Auto" style guy who happens to fight crime with ... crime, but a type of cop who, sure has his anger management problems, but who solves cases by going through evidence and stuff... yes, even when handed over to you!

Did I mention the facial Animations? I was following L.A.Noire since the first time I saw the first trailer and the facial animations have been a huge reason for that. Everything from eyebrows to cheeks to chin and throat muscles while talking move in such a realistic way that when looking at it, you get the feeling it's real (please look past the obvious fact that the textures aren't all 100% accurate and all the tech blah!) I'm looking at this from a gamer perspective where nitpicking is "fake and gay"... period! I hope they will continue making games with that technology and not sit on their a**es and pretend this never happened.

Just like Heavy Rain... It was one of the most interesting games I've played in a very long time, or Mirror's Edge. It just seems that Huge Gaming companies seem to have decided to just ignore their gamers opinions and go ahead with what seems to make more money.

I'll go play a little more Cop & Killer. Until next time, Game on!

-Alex

Bloggin'

I said it before and I'll say it again "Blogging" is not easy. Especially if you have a "fanbase" which I don't, which in turn seems to make life so much easier. This however does not make writing any easier as I seem to have the words for the new blog entry 30 minutes before I write .. and once I start jotting all of this stuff down, I can't! It just doesn't come out. I don't think it's a writers block. As I'm no writer, I guess it's just my longing to write something useful something that when people read it, they say .. "oh! that made sense!" but instead I seem to write how blogging is difficult... so I'll stop that now and get back to the task at hand. Blogging!

For a while now, the world is testing our ability to do stuff. Not only is it hot as "hell" out there but also we tend to become lazy. (people here call it the dubai stone) <-- which I think is a lazy excuse for not having gone out enough to exercise. I admit, I admit! I have not exercised much myself in all actuality, I haven't exercised at all successfully. My wife and I plan to go jogging in the morning to push our Stamina, buuuuuut, we are too lazy in the morning to get up.

"This has to change! This has to become a routine" she says. and I agree! So starting from tomorrow I'm going to get up at ... 5:45? OH MY GOD! And run! Every day! We can do this! I know it.

I started making breakfast in the morning which is a good practice, especially for the future. My argument here would be karsten as we want him to grow up in a more or less organized environment. The kind of environment, where the entire family sits together at the breakfast table in the morning before the boy goes to school. That's the goal! and it is to be achieved! Lazy is not an argument and lazy is not an excuse!

I'll sign off now! Until next time, Game on!

-Alex