Second batch of pictures from a very busy December is up! We are celebrating my sister Jemima and Grandma aka Popo's birthdays. All these just the day before Christmas. A very packed schedule you can see. =P Anyway, we had 2 cakes from Secret Recipe. Lemon cheese and Oreo cheese. And yes, we are very very cheesy people (no pun intended).

Cakey. And darn good cakies too.

Jasher and Sue preparing the cakies.

The Chews and Wees.

Singing. Obviously.

Solely the Wees.

Jasher is the picture of impatience.

And gets what he wants. And desires.

My man Joel had the brilliant idea of using a plate instead of the oh so very conventional methods of the tissue.

And gets a slightly bigger piece for a reward.

Show off.

Trying to copy Joel. Failed miserably as you can see.

Jeremy was so impatient he decided to cake his hand instead.

And went mad in the process.

Rocking out on acoustic guitars?

And the joys of having one's lappie. FM 2008 and bang-bang right up the doorstep.

For more, click here.

Cheers.

Phew, finally, the first batch of photos are up! This is taken for our youth Christmas celebration on the 20th. The theme this year is 'Different'.

The ushers at the door.

Our relatively simple deco this year. Those who attended last year's will attest to this.

Our speaker for the night! Ps Bill Eng and his family. Youngest son Nathan loves to play the air drums!

Mingling around before kicking things off.

With our president, Eliza. Not many pics of me though. =P

The worship team in action!

Altar call.

Part of the drama team. Presenting to you the dark side! Taken backstage.

Junkies has become part of the Christ Ignitors staple diet and we were keen to share that with the rest.

This is just a few shots. Malas to upload it here la. Click here for many more.

As promised, videos of the first two songs 'Point of difference' and 'break free'. Both songs are broken into two parts. Video and audio isn't of the highest quality though. An extra thanks to Chin Jek for taking it down.

Band :
Worship leader: Jared
Vocalist: Jacinth, En ning
Drums: Timothy
Keys: Viv
Guitars: Joash

Back in Kuantan for Christmas! Have eaten plenty of food and met up with friends! I can't upload videos and pictures as yet as connection here is very slow for uploading stuff. Five PCs at the same time you see.

Been playing plenty of bang-bang and busy sending out Christmas greetings.

We're having another Christmas party today and it's gonna get busy! Hope no one gets drunk today.

Cheerio.

The Christmas celebration went exceedingly well, attracting more people compared to last year. All in all, I figure there were approximately 100 youths yesterday night. We all had a great time worshipping God, doing the banana dance, enjoying the play (where I'm sure josh will soon be nominated for the best actor/angel award), listening to Pas Bill's msg and stuffing ourselves with food!

We had around 6 decisions for Jesus/rededications. PTL!! It was certainly invigorating to be able to see these young people take the step of faith and move boldly to the front of the stage. Lets hope and pray that this would not just be a one night thing only for them. That that act of faith will go on all the way through their lives.

I wanted to posh some videos of the first 2 songs we sang that night, Point Of Difference and Break Free, unfortunately Youtube is having some glitches so that have to wait.

We took plenty of pictures too but I dun have much here, so that will have to wait too. Bummer.

And I am gonna save up money to re-setup my strat! Gave me a few problems during worship and even practice. Might have to change the electronics, pots, and gauge definitely. 009s aren't doing me much favour to be honest. Then again, this red beauty is almost 12 years old. Its high time she went for some plastic surgery for some uplifting of the tissues. =P

Ok, Have to get to bed soon. Having practice again tomorrow for the 23rd celebration. And carolling at night.

Why la why la you want to break down on me?? Heh... Just a day before going live too. Guess it's back to good ol' Laney. Used to be my amp of choice over the Marshall, but I have since done to like the it for its clean sound it gives. Not as smooth and warm like a Vox amp, but nonetheless very very satisfying.

With the Laney, I have to reset almost my entire tone setup as both amps give quite different tones from it. Sounds more 'solid' if there's a word to describe it. Not my particular brand of sound to be honest. To make matters worse, I have to configure the drive setting again, after i deleted it by stroke of luck. Haha

But one thing I've learn over the years performing and playing for worship, is that God is able to turn a bad practice session into an awesome time, when performed live. So I'll be heading into tomorrow's final practice with a clear head. Knowing fully well He's in the driving seat and that all's well.

Nitey nite peeps!!

I'm back in Muar! Just spend 9 bloody hours in the car. Had to do a complete detour to return to Muar as there was flooding on the usual route. What usually takes 4 hours was added an extra 5! Anyways it's always good to be back.

Woohooo....Christmas time is here! Time of remembering the birth of Christ and of course  feasting on Christmas goodies...Very sinful for some, but I ain't feeling any pangs 
of guilt, in fact, the sooner I grow fat or plump to put it in a nicer word, the better! I'm getting a lot
of stick for being too skinny. (Which I strongly beg to differ).

We're having the Celebration Of Hope in church tomorrow for the youths where we'll be showing a film plus lots of fun! Anyone that's available is more than welcome to come! Just msg me for further details.

My church's Youth's Christmas celebration is coming up too on the 20th so make sure you guys come in full support!! I believe the current committee is working hard for it so let's give them all the cheer that they need!

I'm in Kuantan. My home way from Muar and KL. Been raining heavily for the past few days and doesn't show any indication of stopping.

If anyone's looking for a nice place to unwind and can't stand the hustle-bustle of KL or the slow moving pace of Muar, then I would recommend Kuantan to ya. Good food, Great weather (notwithstanding the moonson season now) and the most amazing beach.

I'll be here till friday at the very least. Sis have followed cousins to HUGE camp in taiping. This is the first time I'm missing it since going for the one in Penang in 2002. Another record broken. Wasted.

I managed to attend John's concert after all! :) And to top it all off, I went to Jeff Kollman's mini concert/clinic! How awesome is that?!

Yesterday morning, first thing I did was to call the axcess ticket hotline. I asked the pleasant operator what tickets are still available for the 
concert. I mentioned about Ro's unsuccessful attempt in buying John's tickets, and just for hopes, I requested her to double check its sold-out status. She came back surprised,

"There's 300 hundred more tickets"

I normally don't use this emoticon but....

-_-" !!!!!!!!!!

Ro inquired bout the tickets at 1U's booth. The operator was surprise too.

"I don't know why he said it was sold out"

That daft prick almost made me miss one heck of a concert. Which was exactly that. I was late for 10 minutes but then the rest was just......amazing. With just the one light shining on him at the centre of the stage, sitting on a chair with guitar at hand, John gave us very fine fingerpicking jazz licks indeed. Pity it only lasted an hour though.

And guess how large the audience was?

Less than 20.

Really disappointing. They say rock and roll saves lives but sometimes you gotta have a different perspective right?

Then headed to Bentley's as wanted to look up for pastor some drum kits. That's when I knew.....taaaadaaa....Jeff Kollman's in town! Ok, I admit, till then I haven't heard his stuff, but that name certainly rings a bell so I decided to part with my 30 ringgit.

Spend around 3 hours wandering Sungai Wang and all music stores in the vicinity. Was really bored and couldn't wait for 7.30 to arrive!

It did finally, so headed down to Planet Hollywood and for the next 2 hours was immersed in a world of blues,funk,jazz, this guy just incorporates so many genres into his music, it's hard to nail him to a particular type. His main reason was to showcase the Fender VG strat and it's amazing array of features. I've previously have already tried it and will attest to the fact that it's an awesome guitar. Price is RM8k++.

Sham was the opening act (He's Malaysia's Fender endorsee btw) and I was surprised by his versatility. In my mind, Sham was always in my image that typical malaysian rock guitarist who only knows to shred at 22 million notes per second which in other words = tasteless. But, this being the first time seeing him play live, I was pleasantly surprised by his tasteful playing and yeah, shredding. I noticed he had a few Hendrix's chops thrown in. Oh, and some jazz stuff too. All in all, good stuff, good stuff. Was really impressed by the drummer who suspiciously looked like Adam (of DragonRed). Good solid player. It's always comforting to know you have a solid drummer backing you up.

After that, Jeff took centre stage. Was amazing, which was what I expected save some minor defects such as the sound crew (Who repeatedly put Jeff's mike at mute even though he has repeatedly told them not to). And also the stupid and dumb questions some people ask Jeff during Q&A.

"Do they have maple trees in Canada?" (After Jeff told us about the maple fingerboard of the 
VG strat).

"Play some Shadows stuff" (Err, hello, this is a Jeff showcase ok? Not the Shadows. Unless Jeff does a tribute song to them, I consider it really rude to be demanding songs from artistes while they're on stage).

"How do you get feedback?" (Feedback is the loud humming sound from amplifiers heard regularly on heavy rock and stuff).

Basically, 80% of the questions asked that day was a waste of time. I wanted to ask a question too, but considering he didn't seem to noticed my meekly raised hand, I forgive him. I managed to ask him at the autograph session anyway, so that's cool.

And I really regretted not bringing a camera. I want one!! Come to think of it, I want a lot of things. Christmas is coming up, muahahahaha........

All in all, a day very well spend. Thank God for the opportunities.

Cheers.

Oh, and if anyone goes by 1U, say hi to the ticketing officer for me.

I'm flippin pissed off right now. Ro just notified me that the tickets for John Goldie's concert tomorrow is sold out! Arrrggghhhh!!!!

That was one concert I really wanted to catch. In fact, this was one of the main reasons I'm up here in KL. Dang. Man, I MUST go to at least one of it. I didn't realise that there's so many guitar concert goers in Msia. That's good news I guess...

But it just wouldn't be the same la, going to the others, I mean, they're all amazing in their own rights but this was one that I really wished to attend. :( But I want to comfort myself with the fact that at least I went for one of it. Should I go for it? Should I? SHOULD I? Ro mentioned that the ticketing personnel said that the other tickets are selling fast too.

Really sad now la.

Self reflections aside,

Our very own Tim is in Manchester right now!! FYI, he's the dude at the far left. Lucky guy, he's going to watch live at the Theater Of Dreams ManUtd vs Fulham. I'm really pleased for him as I know how much of a hardcore fan he is of United, oh and because he has promise souveniurs...hehehehe...Can't wait *Rubbing hands in glee*

Check out his blog, I think he gives reviews for every United game.

While Tim is rejoicing away in cold Manchester, me and RuBEE (yeah, that's us) have to live up to the fact that we'll only be staring blankly at the telly for this match. No matter, one day man, yes one day.....

Here's a light exchange we exchanged a while back over his blog.

And that wraps up this edition of my post. Thank you all for reading and I'm still feeling disappointed.

Haiz. Cheers anyway. Here's to a great match and to Tim streaking across the pitch.

The other day I was paying for Gigi's CD, and the Malay cashier was surprise. "Awak dengar Lagu Melayu?".

Sigh. Am I one of the few surviving  species who listen to quality music regardless of the language?
And so far, most of these Indonesian bands have not disappointed me other than THAT band who names itself after a Disney movie.

papercut....papercut....papercut....papercut

And I don't mean the LP song....