Tag: honk

Ow my globalization: Chinese Dodge

Summary from Automotive Digest:

Situation

  • Chrysler Group to import small Dodge car from China’s Chery automaker, beginning in 2008
  • Deal confirmed by DC, 1st such pact w/ Chinese automaker by any major Western producer
  • Tentatively named Dodge Hornet, ‘B-car’ subcompact will be smaller than Dodge Caliber
  • Chrysler turns to China because cost of building domestic B-car all but wipes out profit
  • Deal pressures UAW on carmaking costs
  • Holding prospect of small SUVs, compacts also farmed out to China

Significance

  • Chery already exports cars to about 20 countries in SE Asia, Africa, Middle East
  • Chrysler CEO Tom LaSorda praises Chery’s manufacturing record
  • Says it’s “good fit” w/ domestic automaker’s engineering, design staffs
  • Chery deal still to be ratified by DC supervisory board, UAW chief Ron Gettelfinger is member
  • Chery-Chrysler liaison began after Chinese automaker broke off agreement w/ US dealer group working w/ Malcolm Bricklin

Detroit Freep news article has more

Why nobody ever reports anything to anyone, anywhere

If you’re a consumer, in which category I include ordinary members of organizations, citizens, enlisted men in the service etc., there is no point in telling the organization about a problem.

Try telling the call center at your telephone company about a problem with the phone’s software. Try telling the sad vest-wearing people at the megastore that the paint cans are all leaking. Experiment by pointing out a hugely embarrassing typo in the ads for your bank. It’s almost always pointless. Some combination of corporate hostility, personal resentment from the underling you encounter, “policies,” and the complete inability of “first line customer service” to communicate with functional parts of the organization occurs.

There are exceptions. 911, for example; they’re always glad to hear about an oil slick on the freeway or the smell of natural gas, or even the leaky paint can. Individuals who run small stores or one-person open source software projects are generally grateful and responsive to help. Journalists, when you contact them directly, like to fix errors and typos.

My example today is LJ. Once, there was a community of some kind for reporting problems, followed by a bugzilla installation, followed now by an RT installation. RT is a great piece of software. I reported on Sept. 22 that a good chunk of my comment emails were blank. No one took the bug and there were no replies; the problem continued. On november 30 someone categorized the bug but did not take it or assign it. Today I added some helpful information. It’s dead. A useful and necessary feature is totally broken, but submitting this information as an ordinary user is totally pointless.

I wonder what the minimum size is for an organization so that consumers are sealed off from any attempt to provide useful feedback from the bottom up? With big companies it appears to be a point of pride now that the call center droids and email answerers are forbidden to communicate with anyone. And even with a well-intentioned application of bug tracking software, it’s just ennui reporting anything.

But what about the Kottonmouth Kings?

I get the best anon comments. Today’s reader mail:

ok ICP N juggalo$ iN geNeral r the oNly ppl with ballz enough 2 $ay wat they have 2 $ay. N they aiNt a baNd! N if they r $o bad theN they wouldNt have made $o much fukiN mmoNey N they got famou$ from lo$erz like u who bad mouth them $o go ahead keep talkiN yo $hit cuz thatz wat makez them famou$. but u $hould really li$teN to their mu$ic b4 u talk $hit ok. thanx MMFCL haha

From this post: http://substitute.livejournal.com/446376.html?style=mine

today

Woke up somehow hung over without having consumed any alcohol.

Cat barf on carpet.

First attempt to make coffee unsuccessful because I did not use water.

Opened cat food can in wrong direction so that minute particles of wet cat food went in my eye. Eye care advice: do not put cat food in your eye.

Inexplicable communication from government agency regarding money.

Rushed shower to meet friends for lunch. Therefore had not completely removed soap from hands before putting in contact lenses. Eye care advice: do not put soap on a contact lens and then place it in your eye.

Lunch with friends was good!

Santa Ana wind gusts to 60 mph. High tension lines flailing in traffic with arcing and explosions. Trash cans bouncing down the street like Rover from The Prisoner. Big-ass brush fire up off Santiago with at least one severe burn victim.

Inability to clean house; spiral of shame.

Kéan Coffee: Good coffee. Ibuprofen and ranitidine. LA Times food section full of inexcusably bad writing, particularly from S. Irene Virbila. I maintain that she is one of the Andy Kaufman clones or possibly a tulpa manifestation of the narrator of The Debt to Pleasure. Examples today:

A fresh spirit is blowing through the Paris dining scene… …A friend who loves wine told me about Le Villaret, a small bistro with stone and half-timbered walls in the the 11th arrondissement, Paris’ equivalent to Silver Lake.

Also, a recipe for Blanquette de Veaux (HOW MANY VEALS ARE TO BE USED?)

Another writer suggests fancying-up mac ‘n’ cheese: My personal cheese advisor Steven Jenkins, who wrote the definitive guide “Cheese Primer,” suggests bringing the dish up to 2006 cheese-aisle standards by using a fresh goat’s milk cheese, mascarpone, Gorgonzola dolce and a sheep’s milk cheese from Spain (manchego, Idiazábal, Roncal) or from France (Ossau-Iraty). The combination is almost other-worldly, much more nuanced than the predictable original.

Start the reactor.

Back to cleaning; spiral of shame deepens. Fortunately, maternal flight delayed from 7 until 10:30 pm. Then, flight delayed further. Uh oh, I know where this is going. Yep! The flight will now miss the curfew for SNA and be diverted to LAX.

Folks I’m going to drive into L.A. to meet a flight at LAX at 1 am now. I wonder what I’ll put in my eye first?

items

  • Driving down Chapman in Orange today I saw a woman in a witch costume. By “witch costume” I mean the full Wicked Witch of the West outfit with conical black hat, flowing black garments, weird shoes. I could not figure out what this meant on the day after Thanksgiving in Southern California. As a bonus, the entire effect was ruined by the large neon pink duffel bag she was carrying.
  • The cranberry ginger cherry relish made by salome_st_john is Cranberry Crack.
  • culfinglin is a very cool person and I enjoyed the long convo over coffee today tremendously.
  • The “Holiday Season” has arrived in the traditional way here in Southern California. Today I was tailgated by my first SUV-with-grille-mounted-wreath of the season!
  • My cat has been staring at me a lot lately.
  • The new Pynchon has arrived. I am simultaneously eager to start it and afraid of its bulk. It’s like having an entire ten pound cheesecake in the house.