Kwai Chi's World » General Blog

The wedding flowers

admin — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 07:32:08 +0000

In the above video the future wife and Kwai go to Watanabe Floral on Hawaii Island to pick up the wedding flowers for the wedding later in the day. To view pictures of the wedding add me on facebook

Discuss this video here

Mauna Lani Spa, Gym and Tennis Facilities

admin — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 11:15:45 +0000

The Mauna Lani resort is vast, very large and offers plenty of world class facilities. Some of these facilities are highlighted in the above video which shows off the award winning Spa and world class tennis courts.

Discuss this blog post here

Click here for a tour of the Mauna Lani Spa, gym and tennis courts
Click here for a view of the Mauna Lani resort & Ocean from one of the Hotel’s corridors.
Click here for a review of the Mauna Lani Breakfast Restaurant, The Bay Terrace
Click here for a review of Ruth Chris Steak House @ The Mauna Lani Mall
Click here for a view of the Ocean from One of Mauna Lani’s Ocean Front facing Deluxe rooms
Click here for a tour of a Mauna Lani Deluxe Ocean Front Facing room

Mauna Lani Hotel view from the corridor

admin — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 08:40:21 +0000

Hawaii is a really beautiful place on a fine mild morning. After having a sumptuous morning wedding breakfast, we decided to go back to our hotel room, but the view from the hotel balcony just made us stand still and take notice of the beautiful day that the world had given us. If you believe in a God, then perhaps this was God’s work. It was quite early in the morning so there were not many people around the Mauna Lani resort still. Actually there are never many people around the Mauna Lani Resort. I guess that is a pretty good thing as it makes our visit much more relaxing. Watch and enjoy the video above and appreciate one of the many astounding views from the Mauna Lani hotel itself.

Discuss this article here

It rains all the time in London!

admin — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 22:16:18 +0000

In the above video Kwai Chi shows off a small part of Regent Street, London from the sheltered canopy of Hamley’s Toy Store.

Discuss this article @ http://kwaichi.com/forum/kwaigina-monovlog/london-rains-all-the-time!

Getting lost in Hawaii

admin — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 11:50:58 +0000

The future Mrs Chi was driving on the wrong side of the road (or the right side if you’re American or from continental Europe) for the first time in her life on Hawaii island on route 270. We were looking for Radioshack in Waimea and we had the address so we input the zip code and the first 2 digits of the 6 digit house number. This was our fundamental mistake. In England we are used to addresses with a number (usually 1 to 3 digits long) followed by the street name, city, county then most importantly the post code which accurate to a part or all of a street. The USA system of Zip code is quite different though with a zip code covering a much larger area (see the wiki on zip codes here). There is the additional 4 digits for more accuracy in big cities but we did not have that for Radioshack in Hawaii Island.

Fundamentally we took a right turn instead of a left at the junction of route 270 and ended up seeing another wonderful scenic area of the Big island. It’s not all bad in paradise I guess!

Discuss this article @ http://kwaichi.com/forum/hawaii/lost-on-highway-270-looking-for-radioshack

Balcony view from Mauna Lani Resort, Hawaii Island

admin — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 10:56:48 +0000

In the above video, Kwai Chi shows off the view from the Balcony of a deluxe ocean front facing hotel room at the Mauna Lani Resort. It’s truly breathtaking and if you haven’t ever been to Hawaii then pack your bags and get out there!

Discuss this post here

Creating a Path for Humanity

admin — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 10:35:37 +0000

There are times when things need fixing or things need clearing and the easiest reaction is to say that someone else will do it or that it’s someone else’s responsibility. The harder option is to do something about it yourself. When it snows and ambulances get stuck, why not help? If it floods, why not help pump out the water? Sometimes there simply are not enough public resources to cope and we, as humans, should help out if we are able to. It’s easy to cheat ourselves and only help ourselves but we should be asking ourselves whether we should be doing more.

Discuss this video here

What are you having to eat at xmas?

admin — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 11:43:19 +0000

Christmas is a time for sharing and a time for giving. It’s also a time for calorie busting food! In the UK the tradition is to have a gigantic turkey or goose as the mainstay of the table with sides of chipolatas (thin British sausages sometimes wrapped in bacon and called pigs in blankets), brussel sprouts, carrots, parsnips, gravy, cranberry sauce, roast potatoes, stuffing, yorkshire pudding.

For Desert, a rich Christmas pudding (steamed for hours and poured over with brandy then lit until evaporated) topped with clotted cream.

What do you eat in your part of the world at Christmas time?

http://kwaichi.com/forum/kwaigina-monovlog/what-are-you-having-to-eat-at-christmas-time

Which word annoys you the most?

admin — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 18:01:50 +0000

Kwai Chi poses the question in the above video. What word do you hate or annoys you the most?

Discuss this post here http://kwaichi.com/forum/kwaigina-monovlog/what-is-the-most-hated-word-in-the-world

The worst road conditions for over 25 years in the UK!

admin — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 09:52:23 +0000

If you got caught in the snow and ice yesterday then here’s a reminder in the video above. For all of you around the world who aren’t affected then take a look at a typical road in the UK last night. More than 3000 people were stranded and had to sleep in their cars or abandoned them! The AA breakdown service said that yesterday was their busiest day in over 25 years….

Discuss this video at http://kwaichi.com/forum/kwaigina-monovlog/the-worst-road-conditions-for-over-25-years-in-the-uk!

Mauna Lani Deluxe Front Ocean Room Tour

admin — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 13:10:29 +0000

In the above video Kwai Chi explores what’s on offer in Mauna Lani Resort’s Deluxe Front facing Ocean Room. Mauna Lani is well known on the big island of Hawaii with much to offer including some top golf courses, stunning beach location and even a shopping mall. Mauna Lani is about 40 minutes drive north of Kona airport, 50 minutes drive from Kailua Kona, 20 minutes from Waimea and 1hr 40 minutes from Hilo (about the same time for route 19 or 200 Saddle Road).

Mauna Lani Resort is also known as The Mauna Lani Bay and also used to be known as Mauna Lani Bay Hotel & Bungalows. The address is the same though 68-1400 Mauna Lani Drive, Kohala Coast, Hawaii 96743. To talk to someone there phone +1 808-885-6622. To get the best room rates book directly on the Mauna Lani Resort’s website http://www.maunalani.com (they always have special offers on, although you probably won’t need to eat a buffet breakfast every morning and a la carte menu is cheaper)

Mauna Lani Resort also offer a competitive package for weddings starting from just $550 plus tax (4.166%). We had a sunset wedding with the cheapest wedding package and the Wedding planner gave us a choice of minister, time of day (morning, afternoon or sunset), location (several wedding locations around the resort) and helped us with the flowers.

I found my own photographer after much searching online and went with Angy Chesler at http://www.vip-wedding-hawaii.com (I negotiated a deal to have all our photos on a DVD so that we could print and upload them wherever we wanted). We got the bridal bouquet and the boutonnière from Watanabe Floral at http://www.watanabefloral.com/contactus.asp (We picked up from their Kamuela Store which is about 30 minute drive, so we could see the flowers and also so that we didn’t get charged the extortionate delivery fee). My wife got her nails done at the Mauna Lani Spa at http://www.maunalani.com/s_st_hawaiian_treatments.htm and we both got our hair done at Icicles with Shaloma and Randy at their Kailua Kona Salon at
74-5615 Luhia St # C2, Kailua Kona, HI 96740 (and in our hotel room on the wedding day). To book a trial and wedding style give Shaloma a ring on +1 808-329-1383 at least 3 months in advance (and don’t get your hair cut in the meantime!).

To discuss this article further come and chat in the forum (requires registration and is separate from the registration on this blog) at http://kwaichi.com/forum/hawaii/mauna-lani-deluxe-front-ocean-room-tour-1080p

I’m a Costco Convert!

admin — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 16:36:30 +0000

Costco in the UK

So the wife and I got a trade membership the other day at Costco (UK). Costco is a USA chain of member wholesale cash and carry stores that now span the globe. Their main principle is to have a limited range of goods but to sell in bulk at seriously low prices. Most items sold are well known or the best known brand of that particular type of product eg. Heinz Tomato Ketchup. There are also high end brands in the mix eg. Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein, Diesel, Tag Heuer, Analon, Global knives, the list goes on. There is definitely an American influence in the place with plenty of relatively unknown to the UK brands being sold at Costco eg. Hersheys, Skippy, Oreo. Costco buildings are big with long and wide parking spaces, massive heavy duty trolleys with a large 2 baby seat drawer for young kids, shelves are stacked by pallets high inside with only the ground level pallet taken out of shrinkwrap for customers. The scale of the displayed products and the value is unbelievable, and anyone up on their financial know-how or their lovemoney.com account (if you’re not, try it now at http://www.lovemoney.com/ – definitely worth the time) knows that a shop like this is a blessing to those who have a large family and love to shop in bulk or look for bargains. Although Costco has a warehouse feel it is very clean and well maintained. The staff are friendly and seem happy to help. There’s a tyre shop, an opticians, a 1 hour photo shop, a jewellery counter, tobacco shop (restricted) and a cheap canteen style restaurant.

Costco aftercare is pretty generous with a free phone technical support line for electronic items(0800 066 5091 open 12 noon to 12 midnight 7 days a week excluding bank holidays). As long as you stay a Costco member you are automatically given a free extension on your warranty on Televisions to 5 years and Computers to 2 years. Costco offer a 90 day no quibble return policy on Televisions, Projectors, Computers, Cameras, Camcorders, mp3 players and mobile phones.

There is a catch to shopping at Costco though, Costco is not open to the public in general – only to people who own businesses and Individuals who fit into the following categories:

Current or Retired employee of:
Banking/Finance
Civil Servant
Education
Fire/Rescue
Insurance
Local Government
Medical/Health Service
Police Force
Post Office
Airline

Or Qualified as:
Chartered Architect
Chartered Civil Engineer
Chartered Surveyor
Dentist
Optician
Pharmacist
Qualified Accountant
Solicitor/Barrister/Magistrate/Advocate

Membership also requires a fee of £20+VAT for a trade membership or £25+VAT for the individual one. There is an executive scheme if you plan on spending more than £150 per month which costs £30+VAT more but offers 2% cashback at the end of the year (on items under £300). The spouse or partner living at the same address gets a card too and each additional card costs another £12+VAT (trade members only). Cards can be used at any Costco in the world (handy for cheap fuel in USA). Each card holder can bring 2 guests ie. friends and family. Don’t try to bypass the system or think you can take a look around by sneaking in because security is seriously tight! Costco can search you on your way in, they search every trolley that leaves against your receipt and they hound you down if you wander in without showing your member card! If you do want to have a look around then go to the member desk to pick up a visitor pass. You still need to pass the eligibility criteria before they give you one though.

It’s odd that the UK stores seem so secretive about who Costco are and what they sell compared to the USA where they are the 3rd biggest retailer. Even the UK Costco.co.uk website hardly has anything on it, only offers for mypublisher.co.uk. The USA site allows so many more discounts from other firms and also offers some online shopping. I’m not complaining though – at least we have the chain over here in the UK! Having visited them 3 times over 4 days I don’t know how I managed to do any shopping without Costco! I only wish that we had joined sooner so that we could have enjoyed the USA Costco in Kona, Hawaii, USA. The petrol is cheaper at Costco’s own gas station than anywhere on Hawaii Island which which have saved a few dollars on our honeymoon out there not to mention the immense amount of shopping that we would have stocked up on!

To have a glimpse of what’s on offer, here is a list of prices inc VAT (by unit where appropriate as much of the goods are sold in bulk) and a comparison lowest price elsewhere (All prices accurate as of 9th November 2009):

Store Cupboard
Lucozade Sport Still 12x 750ml (9 litres) £8.61 Asda (made up of special offer price per 100ml on 4x packs) £11.25
Napolina Tomatoes 400g 12x £5.49 Tesco (Made up of special offer 4x packs) £5.70
Skippy Peanut Butter 1.13kg £3.79 Ocado (made up of 340g jars) £5.65
Nutella 750g £2.49 Sainsubry’s £2.74
Mission Wraps 8 pack 2x £1.49 Tesco £3.50
Part baked Petit Pain 4 pack 4x £1.95 Sainsbury’s (made up of 6x packs) £2.11
Vittel 1.5l 12x £5.39 Tesco (Vittel not commonly sold so Evian brand 2x 6 pack used) £7.16
Vittel 500ml 24x £5.73 Asda (Vittel not commonly sold so Evian brand 4x 6 pack used) £7.96

Produce
Fresh Leeks per kg £1.79 Sainsbury’s £1.98
Fresh Rocket Salad per kg £5.53 Asda £11.10
Fresh Baby Plum Tomatoes per kg £3.87 Tesco £4.00
Fresh Vine Tomatoes per kg £3.32 Asda £4.00
Fresh Medjool Dates per kg £6.05 Sainsbury’s £9.04

Fridge
Fresh Potato Gnocchi 500g 2x £1.99 Waitrose (Equivalent quality) £1.49
Fresh Buffalo Mozzarella per kg £9.58 Ocado £17.96

Fridge Meat & Fish
Fresh Whole Chicken min weight 3.4kg 2x £6.69 Tesco (min weight 3kg x2) £16.74
Fresh Chicken breast Fillet per kg £6.49 Tesco Value £6.56
Fresh mini Chicken breast fillet per kg £5.49 Sainsbury’s £9.08
Fresh Chicken thigh fillet per kg £4.89 Sainsubury’s £5.82
Fresh Chicken thigh per kg £2.39 Asda £2.88
Fresh Sea Bass fillet per kg £8.69 Asda £17.28

Frozen
Frozen Chicken breast fillet (no added anything! Air frozen) per kg £4.77 Tesco £6.66
Frozen Whole Aromatic Duck kit (with 24 skins & hoi sin sauce) £6.59 Sainsbury’s (similar kit but 16 skins) £7.32

Various Other Products
Photo prints 6 by 4 inch £0.04-£0.07 per print (dependant on amount purchased, upload online pick up in store) Snapfish.co.uk costs £0.09 per print
Photo prints 7 by 5 inch £0.09-£0.12 per print (dependant on amount purchased, upload online pick up in store) Snapfish.co.uk costs £0.19 per print
Eye test £9.99 High Street Optician £15-30
Lacoste Frames £29.99 Lacoste Store £150
Essilor 1.67 ultra thin lenses £49.99 Standard optician price £125
DKNY ladies watch £58.90 Goldsmiths £89
Tag Heuer Link Ladies watch £865 Goldsmiths £995
Windows 7 Home Premium upgrade £58.96 Amazon £64.38
Braun Oral B Professional Care 1000 £22.98 Boots £29.99
Wii Console with Wii sports resort £158.88 Game £164.99
Kirkland Alkaline AA batteries 48x pack £8.04 Tesco Value Batteries 48x (made up of 4x packs @ 99p each) £11.88
First Class Stamp £0.37 Royal Mail £0.39
Current Magazines 20% discount on all printed prices
Finish Quantum Tablets 60x £9.76 Asda (made up of cost per tablet on 40x pack on special offer) £12
Adidas Clima 365 tracksuit trousers £19.54 Sportsdirect.com £26.99
Honda Cars 10% off price

The Restaurant after checkout
Luxury Cottage Pie £2.45 Square Pie £4.50
Hot dog and soda (free refill soft drinks) £1.47 Ikea £1.80
Danish Pastry £0.59 Waitrose £1.09
Pepperoni Pizza slice £1.47 Mulberry Street £3.50
18″ BBQ Chicken Pizza £7.33 Papa Johns (15.5″) £18.99

As you can see from the above list, it is clear to see that if you buy a small combination of the above products then you will easily make back the membership fee over a year. Don’t forget that you will have to visit fewer supermarkets to grab a good deal saving time as well as money. Also keep some bags and boxes in the car as no bags are provided and the vendor boxes that are available after checkout often run out. Maybe I’ll see you in Costco sometime soon

X Factor’d: Stacey Solomon

admin — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 14:29:25 +0000

As the show intensifies, so does the competition. Will Stacey Soloman conquer all with her personality and performance and ‘Do it for Dagenham’ or will she fall flat on her face? The judges form their opinions and Stacey is counting on you, the viewer to get her through the competition! Watch the above video to find out!

I got pulled over by the police!

admin — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 12:50:11 +0000

On my first night in Cornwall I got pulled over by the police while I was trying to look for somewhere to eat in Hayle near St Ives.

The trouble with the NHS

admin — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 07:44:55 +0000

With the USA considering whether or not to adopt a NHS style healthcare system, Kwai Chi highlights the pros and cons of the nhs and suggests improvements and alternatives drawing from personal experiences having lived in other countries.

RIP MJ

admin — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 00:20:56 +0000

Rest in peace to the legendary Michael Jackson.

My Hair

admin — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 00:18:07 +0000

Things you didn’t know about my amazing hair…

Twitter

admin — Thu, 14 May 2009 14:47:37 +0000

Follow my twitter @ http://twitter.com/kwaichi

Noisy Neighbour

admin — Fri, 08 May 2009 18:00:05 +0000

Annoyingly when we tried to complain about a noisy neighbour at 4am we had no help! See the above video to see what I mean!

Facebook

admin — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 11:00:25 +0000

The above video is about facebook fan sites

Wii Fat

admin — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 10:24:30 +0000

Did you buy the wii fit just to get a little wii fatter? Well that’s what’s happened to me. Watch the above video to find out more…

Why I write

admin — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 07:44:10 +0000

Writing is such a discipline and it’s so easy to get sidetracked don’t you think? Well In the above video I explain why I still strive to create new material.

Justice is done – Alexandra Burke is the winner!

admin — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 23:02:56 +0000

Watching the X Factor tonight I was really worried that either JLS or Alexandra would not prevail as the winner of this year’s X Factor. Luckily Alexandra was on sensational form and sang her strongest type of songs – ballads. She is the ultimate ballad singer who can just belt and vary her vocals at will. Her performances tonight were just absolutely amazing and although she found it difficult to talk in between singing – she had little problem singing her heart out.

The Irish kid was deservedly out first to leave JLS and Alexandra to battle it out singing their own versions of this year’s Christmas number 1 ‘Hallelujah’. I really liked the JLS version but when Alexandra started to belt, her performance was giving me tingles down my spine. Thankfully the presenter was kind enough to only leave a 20 second pause before announcing that Alexandra had won. In hysterics, Alexandra Burke could hardly speak and finally the situation had built up to the stage where she had to pause in the middle of her song to take a breath.

With a further 3 million votes on top of the 5 million after the Irish kid was ejected – there could only be one deserving winner – and I was sure glad it went to Alexandra!

The Big Three Oh!

admin — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 18:29:05 +0000

So the big 30 has come around already! You know, time passes by way too quickly don’t you think? One second you’re looking left and then someone drives straight into the side of you and it just hits you – BANG! I have been anticipating, waiting, thinking, preparing, eating for 30. Just in case you haven’t looked above this post yet I’m not talking about being 30 years of age, I am talking about scoffing 30 full size Pringles in my mouth in one go. No mean feat! Check out the video above if you haven’t already and see how well I fare.

In case you are new to my Pringle challenge I stuff a set amount of Pringles in my gob (goes up in increments of 5), and see how far I can get. Enjoy the video!

Diana Vickers is out at last! A decent final is in store!

admin — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 01:17:32 +0000

It’s weird that I have let myself get hooked into this year’s X factor competition. This is the first year I have bothered watching. I have watched every episode and it has provided compulsive viewing. There has been a wealth of talent but I have to say that in this type of competition the voting public do sometimes go a bit potty when it comes to picking a winner. Out of the windows goes the raw talent or all round gifted talent and in comes the ‘Let’s vote for the cute one’ or ‘Let’s vote for her because she’s so young’. It’s wrong plain and simple.

I thought Eoghan Quigg had a strong first couple of weeks but has since started sounding a bit like a nervous croaky girl. He sounds like his balls still haven’t broken and cries like a toddler. ‘Oh but he’s so young’ – give it a break. He’s going to grow up one day – he might even reach puberty! I hate it when people go on about how young someone is. It’s a talent show – not a ‘Look how much you can achieve by the age of 16′ contest. Diana Vickers was another singer who looked like having promise in the early weeks. Although not my cup of tea, she did command the audience well early on in the contest. The last few weeks however, I feel she has looked nervous and her song choices have been awful.

I have liked JLS from the 2nd week and think they have had some songs which could well have done well in the charts. The last couple of weeks have seen them falter under nerves a little but they are well deserving of their place in the finals. I think if they can get it together they can do really well as a boyband. They do best when singing boyz2men style songs in my opinion.

The strongest contender but least likely to win is Alexandra Burke. She has the most gifted voice and would win the competition easily if she was the talent she is now but 15 years old. As she is now a cripplingly old 20 years of age she has little chance to overpower the might of the Irish in Owen or the cunning of Louis Walsh’s hidden call centre rigging the votes for JLS.

Luckily for all of the final 3 contestants they will all have recording contracts just as last year. The most successful single artist to come from reality TV singing shows in the UK is Lemar and he only came 3rd – so in reality it doesn’t matter who wins this year. It’s all down to who’s got the legs for the real long haul and the survival that is the music industry. the main advantage of the Xfactor show is just the initial exposure which can go an really long way for a kick start to their careers.

I’ll be watching next week as will millions of others. I will be routing for both Alexandra and JLS hoping that high school musical cheese Quiglet will be out in 3rd place. As usual in these competitions the judges will go on about how great each act was in their final performance as required so that they don’t bad mouth the winner by accident. The same old clichéd responses from the judges will spill out like water from a bottle as will Cheryl’s tears. Same old, same old! The last laugh will be with Simon Cowell who will once again be rubbing his hands at the prospect of managing yet another number 1 single.

Christmases or Christmasses?

admin — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 12:12:23 +0000

What is it with people who can’t spell? Even worse is when people can’t even copy words. In today’s society where we can simply copy and paste text – why can’t people get the plural of Christmas correct? I’m not even talking about small companies or individuals either. A new film called ’4 Christmases’ is currently out at the cinema but Cineworld andThe mirror fail to copy the correct spelling from the film. Another notable mistake not related to the film but the same word comes from amazon.

In the age of txt spk its ez 2 _stand why peepol cant spl anymr. I for one am not a fan of text messages whatsoever and much prefer to do things the old fashioned way – well not letter writing, but I prefer talking to people. There is less room for misinterpretation of an intended message. A message like ‘You looked good the other day’ could be taken as both positive and cynically negative. Hearing someone on the phone leaves that doubt to one side. Anyway back to poor spelling, I don’t know whether simple editorial mistakes are down to poor education, poor environmental factors, laziness or ignorance, but I do know that they should know how to run a spell checker!

The pringle challenge get’s ridiculously hard at 25 pringles in my mouth in one go!

admin — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 19:24:59 +0000

I’ve got the video above as usual for you to see whether I achieve eating 25 pringles at once or not. I’m really starting to hate pringles now that they are slowly but surely ripping flesh out as they fragment and split off in my mouth. That and the phenomenal amount of fat and dodgy flavourings which are giving a big fat belly and a sore throat – oh and the dehydrated headaches. For training I go through mouth excercises to help stretch out the height of my mouth to increase volume and to increase jaw strength. Yep – I’m taking this seriously! The only positive side effect from this is the high volume of water that it forces me to drink and the naturally formed belly tray for my dinner plate. As I have gone through so many pringle tubes I’ve been experimenting with other functions other than holding pringles. I have found pringle tubes to be totally useless at most functions I previously thought they might be able to serve. The list includes:

Drum sticks – way too big
Sugar pot – can’t get the spoon down
Water holder/jug – not waterproof after a while and still tastes a little like pringles
Pen pot – way too deep to get pens out
Spaghetti holder – doesn’t quite hold enough pasta and not quite long enough for some brands.
Standard potato chip/crisp holder – hard to get product in and then goes everywhere when you try to get them out.
Pummel sticks – hurts too much when victim of a hit
Christmas tree decoration – absolutely rubbish looking and tacky.

Feel free to give other suggestions in the below comments.

My girlfriend crashed my car!

admin — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 23:28:08 +0000

My newly dented car

It was really cold yesterday morning so I thought I would warm up my car while she was getting ready. She uses my car as it’s more economical over long distances than hers. As soon as I stepped out of the door I noticed that it was snowing and had been snowing already as there was a small coat of snow waiting to be ploughed through with every step of my walk to the car. I walked out to the car and the warning lights came on as usual to tell me that it was really cold outside and I let it run for a while.

The weather forecast on the TV had no mention of snow apart from the forecast for Thursday. My girlfriend got ready pretty quick and was out in the car ready to drive into freshly laid snow. We live at the top of a hill and because she works far away it was about 6.50am. Our road is not a major one either and so had not been gritted.

I waved my girlfriend goodbye and she drove off down the hill. I watched on as I saw her slowly moving down the hill and then I saw the brake lights come on. They come up bright red and they stayed for quite a while until I heard a loud bang. I ran down the hill as quickly as I could yelling out her name and almost slipped on my arse a few times on the way down. The car was sat sideways at the bend located at the bottom of the hill. I quickly opened up the passenger door and to my relief my girlfriend was fine albeit shaken up. I walked around to see that my car had collided with an old battered little parked car. Let’s just say that I couldn’t tell which dents my car had caused!

Leeds seem to be packed with cars just the battered parked one and in the time that it took me to get the car back up to the driveway, I witnessed another battered car drive round a bend too fast in the ice and saw it go straight up the rear of a parked car. Whereas I did the good thing and contacted the owner straight away, they just drove off! My girlfriend still understandably shaken can be a bit stubborn and still wanted to get to work this morning to help care for patients in her hospital. I reminded her that she was better to the patients alive and well than injured or worse. Tomorrow is forecast for worse weather and so I have left risk of doing the weekly shop with the Ocado driver who is coming tomorrow night with my groceries.

With the weather so bad and a lack of forecast on the TV I was annoyed that my council had not bothered to even provide a grit bin down our street. I am not exactly in the middle of nowhere. I witnessed some superb stunts (people falling on their arses) today at popular junctions by walking pedestrians crossing the icy streets across from my kitchen window. I almost fell on my arse myself trying to get to my car this morning and got as far as 10 metres from my door. I wonder how many people are going to bother turning up at the M&S one day sale tomorrow!

Here are some more dent and scratch photos for you to enjoy!

Close up of door panel

Door panel

Dent on wheel arch

Scratches on front of wheel arch

The pringle challenge starts to get hard – 20 pringles

admin — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 21:58:55 +0000

I had no expectations of how many pringles I would be able to eat in my mouth at one go and I value the argument that I am helping to promote an unhealthy snack, but for me it’s just a bit of fun. Back in my uni days I was so hooked on pringles that I would stuff a tube’s worth of pringles down my neck in no time at all and it got me a whole lot fatter. I haven’t eaten many pringles since those days but I believe in moderation. I’ve been through a time when I ate a very boring diet of chicken and rice with veg or chicken with pasta with veg but nowadays I am happy to enjoy my variety a little more. This pringle challenge does mean that I will eventually scoff as many pringles down my jugular as I can which is binge eating of sorts but I really do not condone binge eating for the sake of self image. I don’t think most people will see this series of videos that way either. It’s purely a fun thing to do which I just felt like doing. Although now I am getting a whole lot fatter!

The social networking minefield

admin — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 15:07:18 +0000

It’s taken me absolutely ages but I have gone through and updated all my social networking pages and set up fan pages where appropriate. As a youtube partner I have several branding options available to me which has taken me a month to utilise. My banners still look simple but I like the bold touch. Some more complexity and additions are required in order to maximise my cross network promotions but the next thing for my youtube page is to produce great quality innovative content. It’s a little bit like my kwaichi.com site – it needs to draw an audience for anyone to be interested in the first place. Having been out of almost all social networks for over a year I’ve lost the momentum and following I once had which I am fine with, but now I have the time I am committed to reaching out again and gaining an audience. I have about 1k subscribers on youtube which to some sounds like a lot but I’ve had that number since I turned my back on social networks. In that time I’ve seen newcomers reach out to an audience 10 times as big on a regular basis. I am also content with that. In fact I am happy with the progress of other filmmakers and vbloggers as it shows that there is definitely a future in the medium. With the seemingly exponential growth it gives me confidence that I can gain rewards for putting in some time now in my creative work. One massive complaint from youtube partners in the past was the lack of monitisation from people who embed their work outside of youtube but that has been fixed lately with ads now appearing on the actual videos themselves. Also recently youtube has gone high def at 720p I think. This gives partners great motivation to make high quality vlogs and clips.

In my social networking exercise I upgraded my myspace site to the new 2.0 version which does look way better although some html coding is still required if you want nicer fonts etc. I made a new fan page on facebook to keep it separate from my personal account. I set up a new bebo account and a fan page there too. I have a plugin for myspace and twitter from this blog and a feed from twitter to my facebook and bebo. Running so many sites and RSS feeds at once can get a little confusing especially with all the different interfaces available. I’ve even updated my old stickam account although I wonder if I will have much time to even go live anytime soon.

I have wondered if anything new is coming over the horizon and I have seen that youtube will be introducing a live element much like stickam but because of the sheer amount of traffic they get I imagine it will take a long time to implement. With the downturn in the economy I think it will be especially tough on the smaller tech companies trying to make a mark on the web and with the big guns like google and yahoo buying everything decent up I think it will now be a long time before we see anything really fresh come to market. I even worry for sites like twitter during these turbulent times as I can not see any money making avenue for them as they refuse to show adverts. As hard as it is to maintain so many sites, they are still all important and rank highly at alexa. For me it is going to be my only form of syndication and advertising outside of the youtube partnership program. I have to be careful though as I got my first warning for spamming on facebook for posting 2 similar posts in succession – before you pass judgement I had just joined the youtube group and accidentally posted kwaichi.com instead of my youtube.com/kwaichi site. I hardly call that spamming! From now on I will tiptoe around facebook and just leave an RSS feed running. I am contemplating reusing my old flickr account to host my photos in the future instead of facebook too. I would host the photos myself but I like the flexibility of linking.

I’ve changed wordpress theme a few time the last few days on kwaichi.com and run into countless bugs and headaches. There is still a bug in this Carrington theme if you try to click on a category it will show you a correct summary page but then when you click on it again it goes blank! I am banking for a solution soon rather than experiment with yet another theme though.

I’m knackered and so is Woolworths

admin — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 19:21:45 +0000

After an intensive session in the gym yesterday i feel absolutely knackered today. I’ve still been productive in planning future posts for this website and videos for youtube. I’ve even written some stuff today, but not as much as I had hoped for. I did go out today to post some mail but didn’t feel great. It’s cold outside and so much warmer inside. The temptation to just stay in pulled me away from both the gym and the supermarket. As a result I’m eating takeaway tonight!

I should get on with wrapping some pressies. I got the tree up after all. Which reminds me – Woolies is in deep ****. My sister had to tell me that they had a 3 for 2 offer on Xmas decorations, not an advert or marketing of any sort to remind me to go to the old penny sweet store. They are in deep debt and likely to crumble any day now. Their shares were taken off the stock market which is extremely serious. It’s quite a turnaround for an institution that was larger then M&S at one point in history. Woolworths began life in Liverpool as the people’s hero. Things used to be cheap and accessible for all. Now they are easily outpriced by the big supermarkets. Generally the stores are harder to reach now too. These factors sadly go too far for the chain. As for me, I’m off to eat some fish & chips.

Win a camcorder – only 5 days left! Easy to win.

admin — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 18:32:17 +0000

My mate runs a youtube forum and has been running a competition for the last month. With only 5 days to go it’s really easy to win this competition still. Simply put, set up an account at Tuberavers and then set up an account at Youtube. Go back to Tuberavers and copy your unique verification code. Paste this into your description field on your Youtube page. Go back to Tuberavers to verify your account. You will be given a unique referrer code which you can give out to your friends and family to repeat what you’ve just done. There are vids on Tuberavers if you are confused with what I’ve said here. It’s easy to win at the moment with the leader at only 5 invites. Good luck to you all!

The Xmas Tree is up!

admin — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 11:32:13 +0000

Top of the Xmas tree

The Christmas tree is up for this year. I haven’t had a tree up for a few years now and felt like a change this year.

I remember back to the days when most people got real trees which dropped needles everywhere. With plastic trees now becoming the norm I opted for Asda’s own pre lit white tree which cost £25. With 100 blueish lights and measuring in at 6ft it’s a bargain. I shopped around for a decent tree without paying the earth and am really happy with the quality of this one. The colour was not a difficult choice either – trees now generally come in traditional green, white and black. All were prelit but I didn’t fancy green this time. Black looked like a burnt green tree. The white reminded me of snow on trees and so I felt that was right this time around. I bought some cheapo smart price baubles and tinsel from asda but only put up the silver tinsel at the end opting to use a 60 piece decoration set from Debenhams instead which I got at the pre Christmas sale after seeing how well blue, silver and white go together. My girlfriend and I put up the tree and decorations and finished off with a few of her favourite soft toys (as pictured).

Christmas tree at night

2.5% sale everywhere in the UK!

admin — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 12:43:04 +0000

Quick, quick – get over to any shop, etailer or service in the UK! There’s a 2.5% sale coming soon for a limited time only!

Sales can be had absolutely everywhere!

There’s bargains galore; were you looking to get that shiny new car like a Ford Mondeo? That’s a massive £400 something saving. How about a set of those Callaway big berthas to lower your handicap? That’s a massive £17.50 saving! Wow, wow, wow! REWIND and let’s get back to reality here. Who are the government kidding? How is a drop from 17.5% to 15% going to stimulate the economy and get us to go shopping to spend more of our savings and increase our debt? The simple and hard answer is that it won’t. It’s a waste of time. For a limited time only our retailers are going to spend loads of money discounting the 2.5% on all their tills, receipts etc. But that will be paid for by the extra 2.5% margin that they will make off the consumer. Let’s put things into perspective here – 2.5% is nothing. You get more back on Boots advantage points (4%). If your maths is bad then for every £100 you spend you will save £2.50.

Going back to just last Wednesday Marks and Spencer aka M&S and your M&S announced an unprecedented one day 20% sale for the next day. That’s £20 for every £100 spent on top of any offers already going for the Christmas festive season. On the same day Debenhams began their pre Christmas January sale. I went along to the M&S sale at the Pudsey Owlcotes centre which is massive. They have a huge car park which they share with the Adsa Walmart supacentre. Usually I can park pretty close to the store, especially during the week – but last Thursday was ridiculous. I had to fight for a spot on the edge of the car park. When inside M&S I could hardly move it was so busy. Most annoyingly I ended up with no sale items and only non discounted food products and had to wait 30 mins in the queue only for the till to break down 2 customers before I was due to pay. The checkout lady told us to join another queue so I did. Some other people took my place in the broken till line that went back online just moments after changing queue where i waited a further 30 minutes! Anyway back to the point of sales is that people will go crazy for a 20% sale. Imagine M&S now announced a 2.5% sale… Most normal people would care.

Other retailers wet their pants on seeing people go mad for the Debenhams and M&S sale so they too announced temporary sales. Department stores Selfridges put on a naf sale and so did John Lewis as well as normal retailers. On Friday I went to see what was happening at these sales at Trafford Centre, Manchester. I went to Selfridges first which was relatively empty. The sale was poor and the reduced prices could be found elsewhere as the normal ticket price. Unless you were pushed for time, required a certain brand unavailable elsewhere or wanted a Selfridges shopping bag, this sale was not worth the time. I tried out the John Lewis sale too which was annoying because you had to look out for the red and black label which was hidden away at random places. You could see that they were not at all prepared and the crowds saw through their flaw too as their store was virtually empty too. So where was everyone at Trafford Centre? Well walk over to the opposite end of the centre and you’ll hit Debenhams which was heaving. The first thing I was greeted with was the overwhelming amount of 50% of signs plastered over countless displays right at the entrance. This was a massive draw. It was just Christmas cards which donated a percentage to a random charity but when Clinton cards are selling similar cards for more than double the price it seems like a bargain. Walking round it seemed like there were endless bargains to be had. As a cooking enthusiast they were selling a 5 set of Circulon Elite pots and pans for £100. Some of the pans in the set retail for £80 and the set is usually £240. There were many more bargains like this and most things were at least 20% off. This was a good sale. Over the tannoy they announced that due to unprecedented crowds they were extending the sale to the weekend so I bought nothing so that I could go xmas shopping with the missus.

Next day (saturday) came and there were hardly any car parking spaces when we arrived at about 4.30pm. The Trafford centre was busy for quite a while until about 6pm when it just got kind of empty. Even debenhams was quite empty – especially compared to previous days. Unfortunately as with January sales many of the good stuff were already gone including those Circulon pans. Boots also had a sale of sorts, no discounts here but they gave out £10 of points for every £50 spent. They had other points offers too like buy 2 Lancome products and get £10 worth of points. So dependant on what was bought, customers could receive a virtual 30% return on their purchases.

With all these offers on the market I’m sure the shops will be empty up until the next big offer and a 2.5% saving from the government will be totally insignificant. Those who are not spending now will not likely be tempted to spend for the foreseeable future.

I attempt to eat 15 pringles at once

admin — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 23:08:42 +0000

I attempt to eat 15 pringles at once. See the vid to see the results

What is it with parcel companies?

admin — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 11:53:46 +0000

So I missed a parcel the other day because I was out. I arranged the redelivery using the royal mail website to get it redelivered today. I got up early – about 5.30am and had a light on and the TV. My flat is not massive and I have a bell that works. Whoever came by was dead quiet because at 8am I had another redelivery card throught the door! What is with delivery companies and parcels? They seem intent on taking the time out to fill out the ‘You weren’t here’ cards and dropping those through instead of the parcels. I took the time out today to make a complaint but that doesn’t go very far unless I complain a few times with the same reference. It concerns me a little that they must have so many complaints to warrant a 3 times before a real complaint is taken seriously. What it all boils down to is the price. With online shopping at such high competitive levels (even at today’s current credit crunch), the pressure is passed onto couriers to keep prices and overheads low. This results in low pay to the delivery drivers with little incentives and low staff retention and poor performance levels (resulting in a card drop). To cover low staffing levels they hire temporary staff who simply do not care about any company values or targets (resulting in a card drop). Perhaps a better solution would be to totally revamp the whole system so that there are thousands of pick up centres across the UK where we can have our free deliveries, for example use all the corner shops, post offices and supermarkets for convenience. Customers who then want a house delivery can then pay a delivery premium for the pleasure. Even better would be for some clever person to invent a matter replicator and we could just have our online shop appear in our replicator machines. Yeah I know it won’t happen – it’s more likely that in a cost driven market deliveries are just going to get worse.

I attempt 10 pringles in my eat as many as you can in your mouth at one time challenge

admin — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 13:11:24 +0000

click on the below video to see what happens in my attempt. Feel free to join in!

I eat a load of hot raw chillis

admin — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 06:40:51 +0000

I eat a load of hot raw chillis to help promote tuberavers again. See below video

Kwai Chi’s Pringle challenge is now live!

admin — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 13:11:07 +0000

My new challenge involves trying to eat as many pringles as possible in one go. See above video or go to http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ISRkgVoeneU where you can post up your video responses

Dodgy watch repair and tuberavers.org youtube promos

admin — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 00:46:40 +0000

To cut a long story short I needed a new battery for my Tag Heuer watch and there is only one place in the UK to get it officially repaired. The only problem is that you have ot send it off to them and you have to wait 3 weeks for the watch to come back because they are really busy. I thought I would look up somewhere else to get it repaired so I found the The British Horological Institute @ http://www.bhi.co.uk and looked up a repairer. I contacted one close to me that could get a battery changed same day and landed with Mr E C Shimmin at Ripon. I arranged to meet the man today and all seemed well. I left my watch with him – my watch in near new condition as it’s been on my wrist pretty much for the last 5 years. When I went back my watch was ticking again but my bracelet and back casing looked different. It was totally scratched! He queried me straight away to tell me that there used to be a leather strap fitted to the watch because there were a series of marks on the back of the watch. Why would there be be markings from leather? He then said it must have been the way I stored my watch but I keep the thing on my wrist all the time. Besides him saying all this and winding me up I reminded him that I gave the watch to him in good nick and now it looks 20 years older. I got a huge gash in one of the links and there are small marks all over the watch. I was so unhappy and angry at this guy it was unbelievable. OK so the short version wasn’t quite so short. You can associate with my general fury though I’m sure. Who hasn’t experienced an encounter with an absolute arsehole? In future I will just wait and get it done at the official place in Manchester. Actually I’ll just go with a Breitling or Rolex next time and save myself the hassle.

As Harrogate was on my way to Ripon I met up with my old buddy Sean aka Ataraxicstorm on youtube and administrator of tuberavers.org. He’s not had too much activity on his as of late so he’s running a competition to get more people involved. To help him out we started creating a series of virals to be shown over the month of November. They should be out soon and should gather a little more interest. To see more about the competition where peeps can win a camcorder check out http://www.tuberavers.org/index.php?referredby=517

Marketing is such an important part of business and a friend in business learnt how hard it is to survive without a budget for advertising. He phoned me up this morning to tell me that his business had gone under. In these harsh economic conditions it is vital that your brand stands out from the rest and his company was too far away from achieving that. That and some fundamentally poor decisions led his business to the point where he could no longer pay the rent on his premises and the place was shut down at short notice. It’s very sad that this is happening at a seemingly accelerated rate at the moment. Perhaps with Obama in power there will be a shift in consumer confidence and the economy can once again grow instead of the predicted shrivel we are expecting for the next year. Only time will tell but I would not like to speculate. If I were braver I could make a killing… Then again, knowing my luck I would get it wrong and lose my money. If you want a good tip then place a bet to counter mine

Improvements are slow going on kwaichi.com

admin — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 23:22:43 +0000

I’m impressed to see that site visits have gone up very quickly to my kwaichi.com blogsite. It feels slow going but I am making a lot of changes in the background. For a start in a few hours this blog will be displayed in about 30 different languages. Spam prevention has been high on the list and the content is slowly increasing. Slow but sure progress is the way to go I think.

Elsewhere I have started up a kwai chi fan site on facebook and worked to promote tuberavers.org.

Today I got my car serviced in Sheffield a traffic nightmare full of bus lanes with no access to cars and plenty of pedestrian only zones. My service was far cheaper than expected but I have a few things to fix including a new flywheel for my clutch and a new breather pipe for my fuel line. Whilst waiting for the car i explored Sheffield town centre to see that Christmas is well under well with promotions galore everywhere you look. I think I’ll wait a little longer until my santa shopping gets under way, Christmas eve perhaps?…

An exciting new chapter

admin — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 17:33:07 +0000

Out goes the old and in comes the new funky website for Kwai Chi. It’s been a really long time since I last touched my website but I have a bit more spare time than usual and my old site looked… well…. old. Hope you like the face lift!