Thursday, July 7, 2005

Showdown: Sharjah VS Dubai ; who will win?

Can you see it? Dubai and Sharjah are in fierce competition!! "Dubai is building the tallest building in the world". "Sharjah responds by building Huge Ferris Wheel".. "Dubai is building the longest Rail in the world", "Sharjah responds by starting road works and never completing them"(They seem to be going for the record of taking the longest time to build a road, they certainly beat Dubai by a landslide with that one.) "Dubai Builds an Island that can be seen from the moon"... "Sharjah Sets up a Shabby looking cirus"...that FERRIS WHEEL caught my attention though... but I'm afraid that's all it did. As some of you may have noticed, Sharjah has recently built a huge air conditioned, state of the art ferris wheel, along the Qasba'a canal. WHY? If any of you can help me answer this question , I'd be grateful, because I am absolutely clueless. Is it for tourism? Is it for sightseeing? or is it just extra cash? and there's also a shabby looking circus right next to it. To me, it looks like a sample, no, a miniature sample of an amusement park. I dont know what they're expecting this project to do? Are they expecting it to attract tourists from Japan, the US, even Paris to come to Sharjah to witness and experience the Huge Air Conditioned Ferris Wheel, and have a blast in the shabby circus? If they're planning on doing any marketing , I would be their man! I got some catch phrases lined up, this one would be a good radio commercial : " If you're planning to go to Paris , then don't!! Come to the Huge Ferris Wheel in Sharjah, and you'll witness the whole Paris Experience , It's cheaper, It's better, and It's Air-Conditioned too" ... " Do you feel like going round and round, Vertically, in the air, and without sweating while you're up there? , Sharjah's Ferris Wheel is the place to go" ... Here's some for the Circus : " Feeling depressed, We've got something that fits you're mood, the Sharjah Shabby Circus is just for you" .. " Tired of going to classy places, want a place to make you feel at home, Come to the Sharjah Shabby Circus, located near you , and your shabby home" " The Sharjah Shabby Circus is calling all people who are sick of civilization , and want to experience something really weird"

Saturday, June 18, 2005

Mercedes CLS "WHAT WENT WRONG??"

I was in my car last night, driving in the traffic jam again.. when I saw this UDO, "Unidentified Driving Object" pass me by. I tried so hard to figure out what this "thing" was.. until I saw a mercedes sign.. and that took me by surprise.. have they invented another machine for transportation purposes? The next day, still curious about what I had seen, I logged on the internet and after a few minutes of searching , there it was.. In all it's ugliness. I kept looking for articles in order to find out who was responsible for the destruction of DaimlerChrysler's reputation of building beautiful cars. Was it a joke? A Prank? or did they want to compete in "The worst car design of the year" contest? After a lot of reading, turns out they actually did it on purpose!! and the even greater shock to me was that " It was selling" and you could actually see people out on the street driving it!! How can they pay a lot of money for something that is so ugly? Now let me give the car some credit, if you walk up to the car , you will see that it looks okay from the front, but then you go to the side, and you see those tiny windows, by then your face will probably look like you just swallowed something sour, (if they plan to continue manufacturing this product, Airplane windows would be the next step, and after that, No windows at all!) If you think youve seen the worst , then you should go round the back, your eyeslids will involuntarily shut after the first glimpse, for the back of that car is absoloutely horrendous!! The Government should seriously consider banning this car from using the roads in an effort to reduce accidents and traffic jams. Drivers who are suddenly struck with the horrific site of a Mercedes CLS's rear end will automatically shut their eyes causing accidents. (No wonder the traffic jams have been increasing)
Now, I am not a corporate consultant, but I will give this bit of advice to DaimlerChrysler . Find the person who designed this car, ask him/her what was going through his/her mind when he/she designed it? ( this step should be taken simply because I am really dying to know what inspired such a horrific creation.) and then dont fire them, recommend them to your competitor!!

Wednesday, June 15, 2005

i'm leaving right now, see you in about 5 hours..

If there's one thing that can ruin an entirely perfect day, , it's the traffic jams... And what's more, they're getting harder and harder to predict.. Predicting the hours of traffic jams is starting to get to the same level of difficulty as predicting future interest rates or future stock market prices... I think they ought to have formulas for predicting when there will be a traffic jam.. and each publishing company should begin to hire a "Traffic Jam Analyst" then their recommendations of "when to go to your office, and when to leave your office, or when to go out for dinner, or to stay the hell home" can be posted on some magazine every week... For example : This week, on Thursday there is a champions league final fixture, so traffic towards dubai is going to be higher than usual...The reason being : the people who live in sharjah who aren't millionaires and don't have 500,000Dhs a year to pay for rent in dubai, will want to go to dubai coffee shops or bars to watch the games.. Expect heavy traffic in Qusais, Bur Dubai, and Shk. Zayed, around 10pm where there are a lot of places showing this fixture... on Sunday there is a formula 1 race at 5.. so people who are usually heading back home from work... wont be!.. so if you are not a formula 1 fan.. get geared up for a smooth drive home... Now seriously, the bridges and stuff all look very fancy.. but dammit they're no good... the roundabouts aren't good either.. Traffic lights are also bad.. so why choose bridges? its the most expensive, yet has the same result as all the others.. Ending on a positive note.. I heard that some company in the US called "WBWCF" which stands for "we believe we can fly" is developing a car that can fly .. they hope their product will be out on the market in 2020.. until then .. see you in the traffic jams.