Just after I posted my dissatisfaction on the service that I received from Kwik Fit, I immediately wrote a complaint email to their customer service department. Let’s see. I typed it on Friday and I still haven’t heard anything back. I wonder what kind of action they will take or they will just ignore it. Well, at least they should have an automated message setup just so anyone would know that their email has been received successfully by Kwik Fit. I even tweeted them but heard no reply. Compare to Virgin Media, Kwik Fit customer service still has a long way to go.

At the back of my mind, I am still quite worry about the condition of my car. The ride itself is fine but considering that I received two completely opposite reports, it certainly made me think if my car is really okay. On the other hand, the car is more than 10 years old and I wouldn’t want to spend another £30 – £40 for a fresh test. Some of the in car LEDS aren’t even working properly. Anyway, my car has passed the MOT test and at least it’s legal for a year. We shall see if it’s going to require any repair on the next MOT test.

There have been so many things going on around me and I think I suffer from a bit of memory loss. Before I type a blog post, the first thing that comes to my mind is whether or not I have typed something similar to what I am about to write. I will type it anyway. It’s better to type it twice rather than nothing and most probably, I will add some other things and the phrases that I will be using will be different.

Well, I have most certainly blogged about Mee and my coming trip to Australia and New Zealand. I calculated the number of flights we will be taking and it’s a whopping nine! I wonder if anyone actually travel like us, except those who travel around the world. Honestly, finding the flights and accommodations was a tedious job. I have to match the time between each flight and place to ensure that we have enough time within each different places that we are travelling. Luckily, I don’t have to worry about the time difference because the booking websites calculate all that for me. I would be very stress if internet has not been invented yet. We might as well join a tour and that’s about it.

In the past, I find that going through websites like Expedia, Opodo, air bnb, LastMinute and the likes could provide cheaper deals on both flights and accommodations compare to going direct. But now, they all offer the same prices whether you are going through price comparison websites or direct. On rare occasions, it’s worth checking flights directly from the airline websites.

Another thing that caught my attention was when I booked the accommodation for our stay at Gold Coast. It appears that there are more apartments and villas than hotels. And because of the number of apartments available, they work out cheaper than hotel. In the end, Mee and I decided to book a hotel room anyway as hotels would be more secure. I have read reviews where some apartments only have receptionist from 9am to 5pm. We also agree that hotel would be much quieter than apartments.

Did I mention that my car fail on the first MOT test last month? I was given a £1,400 bill by Kwik Fit and it was the same Kwik Fit that charged me about £1,000 last year when my car failed the MOT test. I am a bit clever this time as I sent my car to Kwik Fit three to four weeks earlier before last year’s MOT certificate expires. Last year, I had no choice but to pay them as it was the last day in my car’s MOT certificate. This time, however, I refused to pay the £1,400 bill and went to another workshop recommended by my work colleague instead. Surprisingly, there were no faults at all, only a couple of things in the advisory.

Let’s see. I first received a call saying that in order for my car to pass the MOT test, I will have to repair certain things which would total up to £1,400. When I reached Kwik Fit, I was given a list of faults and also warnings. Of all the years of sending my car for MOT test, I was never asked to repair anything in the advisory section but this time, Kwik Fit included everything in the repair list. The number plates were in the advisory and they look perfectly fine to me and it’s only the letter ‘T’ that looks a little bit out of shape. But anyone looking at it will know that’s a ‘T’. They adjusted my car’s headlamps’ beaming height last year and this year, they wanted to change the pair of headlamps because it’s old. The catalytic converter was again, changed by them last year and they wanted to replace it this year again. I told them that it should still under the warranty. I was then told that the damage was caused by the engine and not the catalytic converter itself. Next is the brake pipe. I was told that the brake pipe has to be replaced and they have to custom made one which of course will take a lot of labour hours. I reached Kwik Fit at around 5pm and I was told that my car can be ready in an hour. While I was thinking whether or not to trust them, the manager asked the staff, who was talking to me at that time, to cross out one of the issues with my car on the sheet of MOT results.

Okay, if it was an error, can you then suddenly decide that it’s not an error anymore? I reached Kwik Fit around 5pm and I was told that my car can be ready in 6pm. If they have to repair and replace so many things, and also the alleged labour extensive custom made brake pipe, how is it possible that they could do it in an hour? When I refused, they just kept on urging me to repair if not they would not have enough manpower to do the job next week. Basically, they could say anything and write anything regarding my car.

As I said, my car passed the MOT test when checked by another workshop. I wonder if I was cheated by Kwik Fit when I let them repair my car last year in order to pass the MOT test.

I will never send my car to Kwik Fit. In fact, I will never step into that Kwik Fit. I have been waiting for Kwik Fit to send me a survey about the recent service but I never got one. I used to get one but only for this particular service, I got none. I think I will write to their head office sometime.

Anyhow, I am quite pleased that my car’s MOT test, road tax, insurance and breakdown service are all on different renewal dates. Otherwise, I will have a hard time to keep up with the payments should my MOT costs me a fortune.

Paradise Island

Well, what else, it’s Paradise Island again. I am still playing it and now on both devices; HTC Desire and iPad. I know I have said that I won’t be playing it on my iPad in my previous post but now that I have learned a lot from playing Paradise Island on my HTC Desire, I have decided to start fresh on my iPad. It is so much faster running on iPad and there are more features available on the iPad version. For example, I can give presents to other online friends whereas the Android version has no such feature. With the speed and the screen size, I am able to gain points quicker, therefore, up my level faster. However, I have experienced some buildings disappear but I am thinking that I might have accidentally demolished the building instead.

I have to admit that I am quite a TV addict. When I was still studying and living with my parents, I had a set of timing where I would need to study an amount of time before I could sit in the living room and watch TV. I always looked forward to the TV time instead of paying attention to what I was studying. When it’s school holiday, it’s heaven. I watched all day and all night. Us siblings would also cycle to town to rent video tapes. Well, did we really need to spend a few dollars to rent some movies even though we knew that the quality of the videos would be dark at times? Yes, we needed. When I was sick, my mother would help me pull the lazy chair to the living room facing almost directly to the TV. And that would be my whole day’s activity and I would be dozing on and off.

Now, I think most people like to live in the world of TV in reality. For me, I always thought that every office would be separated into cubicles and the office of the manager would have an incredible view. It’s somehow true but just not for everyone. I have my own cubicle now but it’s still far from what we normally see in the TV. The idea of people in suits, carrying briefcases is hardly seen. We might see a lot in big cities where briefcases for men and women are widely sold in business area. The place where I live now, men and women in suits carry backpacks most of the time. Most probably they have laptops and it would be much easier and less burden to carry it on the shoulder. Well, for me, I will prefer carrying a briefcase instead.

Every since I was not able to watch Friends on the channel which I no longer subscribe, I have been searching for a comedy show that will interest me. I have seen a few but none really clicked. I guess I have mentioned this before, The Big Bang Theory is what I found in the end. What might be really sad is because they are a bunch of geeks in the show and I guess most of their audience would be geek too, which would indicate me as a geek. I might be wrong but I certainly don’t consider myself as a total geek. Well, at least I don’t part my hair or tuck my shirt in except when working.

A lot of people might see Sheldon Cooper in the show as their favourite character. My favourite character is Howard Wolowitz. However, they all talk funny phrases and if you googled for the phrases that they used in the show, it’s definitely LOL! Or even ROFL!

Though it’s not strictly a technology show, I quite like some of their ideas on technology and of course with science. The robotic arm episode was quite funny and the web video conferencing kit that Sheldon Cooper used to replace him physically in daily life was amusing! Friends is the only comedy show where I can watch over and over again and I think I could do that with The Big Bang Theory too!