Why I prefer buying from Geekay Games

This is a very Dubai/UAE centric post but I just feel I need to post  something positive once  amidst all my negative rants.

When I want to buy a video game for either my Playstation or my PC I go to Geekay Games as opposed to other outlets and shops that sell games and/or accessories. So far I have been to three Geekay outlets in Dubai:

– Beach Centre

– Mall of the Emirates (though this was only once)

– Deira City Centre

Each time I have visited I have been greeted by very helpful and friendly staff. When you ask them if “Game X” is available you usually get a very accurate response from the staff without waiting for them to check on the computer. The same applies when you ask them if they know when a game is coming out.

Secondly, I like the layout of the shop – certainly the City Centre and Beach Centre outlets. Though based on general perceptions they are pretty small, however I find it very easy to locate the things I need without asking the staff for help. Though it can get a bit cramped at times when waiting at the cash counter!

Thirdly, and possibly a very important reason, is that when I buy something that contains a game code, for say World of Warcraft, then the staff pretty much most of the time opens the box to check if everything is in place before handing it to me. They do this even without me prompting to do so, which I find highly professional and very endearing.

I haven’t used their website yet to buy a game but compared to other stores in the UAE it seems to be very up to date on the latest games etc.

So if you happen to be in the UAE and want to buy a game for you console or PC I would highly recommend going to Geekay Games.

13 Places That I Have Visited

So this is my first Thursday 13 (and I hope I have done this correctly) so I shall start with 13 places that I have visited/lived in my life time (in no particular order):

1. Dubai, UAE

2. Sharjah, UAE

3. New York, USA

4. London, England

5. New Jersey, USA

6. Chicago, USA

7. Hawaii, USA

8. San Jose, California, USA

9. Amsterdam, Netherlands

10. Mallorca, Spain

11. Pune, India

12. Bombay, India

13. Hyderabad, India

Chris Brown

I really dislike Chris Brown, it is apparent for anyone that follows me on twitter. There are many reasons to dislike this cretin but I shall list a few reasons.

Firstly, and perhaps not so importantly, his music is horrid. This is purely an opinion of course and one that isn’t shared by members of Team Breezy. Chris Brown constantly comes out with the same tried and test formula of a million wannabe rappers and the end result is always the same. The end result is a ear shattering, brain-cell destroying piece of rat garbage that has been dubbed “hip-hop.” Now it earns him money from those of us who are on the poor end of the musically inclined spectrum, can’t blame him for that. Let me quote some lyrics here and you tell me “I got to give her game proper.Spit it so she get it.” To you and me this sounds like some sort of euphemism and it probably is, but lets take into mind that a majority of #TeamBreezy are under the age of 16, sometimes even below 10, so maybe this is just a one of. Let me try another song, “Sweet Love” sounds cute here are some lyrics “All these sensations got me going crazy for you. Inside on top of you. Grinding inside and out of you ” Oh.

The second reason why I dislike Chris Brown is very simple. He beat a woman. Willingly. If reports are true he had Rihanna in a headlock and that is just at the minor end of the scale. It is fairly obvious from the pictures of Rihanna post-assault  that Mr. Brown was ruthless.  His post-fight demeanour, and more to the point that of Team Breezy, seem to be to hit out at anyone who criticizes him or calls him out about  his woman-beating incident. A great example of this cretinous behaviour is his recent tattoo that, rather shockingly, resembles a woman that is beaten up (i.e. Rihanna). Now if the man had any remorse he wouldn’t have got the tattoo but, and this is where this rant goes towards Team Breezy, his fans have been attacking and abusing anyone who tweets any remark about Chris Brown’s tattoo. This is very reminiscent of the situation with Liverpool fans and Luis Suarez.

Team Breezy religiously follow Chris Brown that is fairly evident for anyone but what concerns me most about them is the vast number of this cult are ladies and ladies under the age of 18. I find it concerning because it is beyond me why people would support someone who beats women. Even more concerning is the way they follow him and aspire to be him, if he was a better human being then fine I would have no problem. They say Chris Brown deserves a second chance but with his latest ‘stunt’ it is fairly certain that he won’t be getting any more chances. Surely now is a good time as ever for the vast majority of Team Breezy to say no to Brown, will it happen? Of course it won’t.

Wings Radio Cab – Pune

The below is a duplicate of a review I posted on MouthShut.com regarding Wings Radio Cab Pune.

I took Wings today to go somewhere. I am a visitor in Pune and don’t know the way. We wanted to go to place B so we asked Wings on the phone to book a car + driver to take us there. The driver arrived on time and that is where all the goods things about Wings stopped. We asked the driver if he knew the location and he said yes, but less than 10 minutes into our journey he stopped the car and asked someone for directions!!

Secondly he couldn’t drive and he hit or almost hit a traffic cop. The traffic cop made him park the car and he got off leaving us inside in the heat without any AC on. The traffic cop spoke to us and we said we are new in town and we wanted to go to the location and he was very nice to let us go on our way.

Then we were just blindly following road signs hoping to get to our destination, all this time we were trying to get hold of the operator at Wings but they kept saying they would call us back and 10-15 mins later each time they never did. I would gladly explain to them over the phone but they don’t seem to care about their customer service hence I am writing this.

Lastly, the car kept switching off by it self at times and we it was jerking about everywhere. And the AC even at times just wouldn’t work and it was blowing hot air.

All in all if you are ever in Pune and need a tourist car do not use Wings.

The misuse of Culture

Throughout my 4 years at university I have found what I believe is one of the biggest fallacies in life,  well in certain aspects anyway. The word culture. I mean sure it can be used to describe certain things (artistic things) but when it is used to describe a whole nation of people is when I have a problem with it. You can use the word culture to describe say a footballing culture (a stereotypical example would be Spain’s tiki-taka) or a gaming culture, or indeed an art culture. Yet when people say, for example, the Indian culture what do they exactly mean? The Indian culture can be combination of many things and I have no idea what. A quick Google search reveals to me the only way I am “culturally” attached to India is through my name.

I’ll hark back to my university where there were a lot of “culture” clubs based on the nationalities that made up the university. I did a rough poll in one of my courses where I asked my fellow students how many of them attended their own nationality’s culture club event meeting recently to which only 5 people raised their hand (in a class of just over 30) then when I asked how many of them attended another nationality’s culture club only 1 person raised their hand (to put it into context we are told by these clubs that the main aim  is to increase awareness and bring other cultures together). Now I didn’t attend a single culture meeting at my university as it really doesn’t interest me. I am more interested in meeting people who share a common interest (such as football for example) as opposed to meeting people who are Indian. There are over 1 billion Indians in the world and we sure as hell don’t share the same interests so what exactly are we going to talk about? I would rather interact and talk about football/gaming and not care about where they come from. This fascination of someone’s culture is baffling as it is silly, okay I mean I love history and love reading  about historical and mythical events but why, in the 21st century, are we bothered about a country’s culture. The want to create a melting pot around cultures is also wrong in my opinion, I believe if you can get a bunch of people with similar interests around a room there will not be a single utterance of the word ‘culture’ unless perhaps, as I mentioned above, someone talks about gaming culture.

Maybe I find it odd because I have never lived in India so my ‘culture’ is very grey yet we continue to use culture as an excuse for  our actions in some cases. In the 21st century to use culture as an excuse for an action (honour killings being the most brutal one) is just not on. Culture should just be put on the back burner and forgotten, as we progress with time we are getting more and more interlocked with other (yet elements still remain, an example being the different nationalities in Dubai still living mostly in their own areas) we should move towards celebrating interests instead of celebrating culture.

UAE Dress Code

This might sound a bit nonsensical as its just something I really need to get off my chest.

Over the past month or so there has been a campaign set up to ‘implement’ a dress code for nationals, expats, men and women a like in the UAE. Now when I first thought of this I thought that this didn’t concern me as I believe I am a sensible twenty year old (at least when it comes to clothes!) and I just brushed it off at first. However over the past couple of weeks it became clear that this campaign had turned sour especially on twitter (@shivamLM if you want to follow me by the way). People were bringing in religion, insulting each other whilst not really providing a proper solution to what some perceive is a problem.  Personally I don’t feel twitter is the best platform to have a discussion on such an important issue as it is open to abuse whilst hiding behind a mask, yet there have been some very good points and bad points brought up around this issue through twitter and through the media.

Firstly, to make it clear I have no problem with what people wear it is their choice and that doesn’t concern me one bit. But we are in a country where there are certain guidelines to follow and you have to be respectful towards that. If you are a lady you really shouldn’t walk into a shopping mall wearing beach wear. Yet in my twenty and a half years of living in this country I have yet to see someone dress in a way that is offending to others (unless you are wearing a QPR shirt you won’t offend me). I have also never seen anyone complain or be asked to ‘cover up’ more by mall security etc. There will always be a minority in anything in life regardless of people trying to eradicate something. But to make it clear I have absolutely nothing against you wearing whatever you want.

Secondly there are strong reports in the local media that a law will be made enforcing a dress code/dress guideline. I am strongly against this I don’t think it sets the right message to have a law for this issue which I think is pretty trivial certainly to me. I mean sure you can create awareness such as brochures, posters and booklets but at the end of the day it comes down to the individual alone and how much responsibility they have to do the required research about the country and its customs. Most of us are responsible human beings and 9 out of 10 us are going to dress sensibly most of the time  (certainly those of you reading this), but by setting a law it creates that sense of control within a society which I am sure most wouldn’t want to be burdened under.

Thirdly and probably the reason I am posting this garbage is this word that is being carried on twitter and in the media – “influence.” I have seen people say that children will get influenced by what they see people wear in the mall… REALLY? ARE YOU KIDDING ME!? This word has been used on children who play violent video games, I have been playing games that people consider violent since the age of maybe 10-11 and I am certainly no murderous psychopath.  Children are far smarter than the media make them out to be, just annoys me that this lazy and pathetic excuse gets dragged out every single time an issue such as clothing and gaming comes up.

In any case, I believe there does need to be a certain amount of respect for the country we are in however let us not go too overboard. There are far more important issues to deal with within the UAE at the moment (such as traffic deaths, sexual abuse, increase in Barcelona fans and so on).

Thanks for reading this and if it doesn’t make sense feel free to click control + w.