8:30 - 9:30 - Breakfast / Trying to practice My Redeemer Lives
9:30 - 10:45 - Played Bridge online / Shower
10:45-12 - Practiced My Redeemer Lives
12 - 12:30 - Learnt how to cook fish from Grandma
12:30 - 1:00 - Lunch
1:00 - 2:00 - Played Bridge online with Sy & Lk
2:10 - 4:00 - Practiced My Redeemer Lives
4:00 - 4:10 - Polished Guitar
4:10 - 4: 15 - Polished Shoes
4:15 - 4:20 - Kept Cables, Pedal, Guitar etc.
4:20 - 4:35 - Cleaned Room
4:35 - 4:40 - Shower
5:00 - 6:00 - Watched Kamelot "One Cold Winter's Night" DVD
6:00 - 9:15 - Went to Causeway Point for Dinner with Parents & Grandma
9:30 - 10:30 - Slacked around
10:30 - 12:15 - Wahjong & Bridge with Sy & Lk
SLEEP

Went out with muthu, gene, sy, hf & lk to toa payoh to have dinner. Then we went to the arcade again. I took a photo of sy and gene playing this weirdass video game where you throw stuff and ppl and your hero and take on different forms. Watching them was hilarious. It was more fun watching them then playing other games. Hahahahhahaa

Okay the first picture on the left is Chris' band. Watched them play at Blue Jazz Cafe on one of the friday nights. They play really old school funk. Never heard of the songs before but it was great.

You've seen my guitars, now you get to see my pedals! YAY? lol. Thats my pedalboard. Its a Pedaltrain SC 2. I have 10 pedals in total. 9 only shown on the board. 1 of them is my Drive Breaker II which I love and I constantly use with my amp when I'm too lazy to drag out my board. I don't know how my pictures got inverted upside down. The pedal on the far left is the volume pedal. Starting from the top (which actually is the bottom since the picture's inverted) its Fuzz - Overdrive - High Gain Distortion - Mid Gain Distortion. Then the bottom would be my Tuner - Phaser - Delay - Chorus. I love all my pedals. I make sure I do enough research on them before I buy them and of course I ask Brandon about them first. His advice to me has never failed me so far. All of these pedals have been researched on except the phaser. I tried it at TYMusic and loved it immediately so I just bought it.

The picture on the top right shows you my rhythm machine and recorder. Can never do without the rhythm machine (drum machine), helped my timing SO much.






Yeah so I went a bit crazy with the chips and bought 5 sets of Daniel Negreanu's Clay Composite 11.5g chips. It was on sale for 20 bucks a set, 200 chips a set. I bought 5 sets to make it an even 1000 chips & bought the 1000-chip aluminum case to carry all of it. The lowest picture is the 5 smaller cases which they came in. Pretty neat. Bought them from this guy called Ken. He owns a warehouse at Kallang. Sells poker stuff as something on the side. He gave me some extra stuff. His poker cards are pretty good, have to remember to bring them along to play with the guys when their A levels are over. I would have to say apart from playing guitar & listening to music, poker would be the next best thing I like to do.

Other than those things, I also watched Tropic Thunder with my girlfriend over one of the weekends. Funnyass movie. Hahahahhaha. You have to watch it to know why. I also managed to watch Pineapple Express cos gotti got me the link for it. It was one of the best movies I've watched. Hilarious crap. Ate dimsum with her and my family one sunday too. Omg so gooooooooooood. FOOD GOOD YES YES.

I haven't blogged in quite some time. Its due to the limited amount of free time I actually have to spend right now. I'm trying to get myself to practice at least an hour of guitar after work. After that I get so tired I just totally ignore the computer sometimes.

Yesterday was Eugene's sleepover thing. I met her at AMK MRT before we went to Eugene's house. Hy, Reca, Sy, Lk, Muthu, Nick went but only Nick, Hl and I stayed over. (Plus Eugene's school mates too) We arrived around 2:30. Played bridge until around 6pm when we left for Miss Clarity's Cafe. I seriously thought it was at Bugis but there was one at Thompson. Waited quite awhile for all of Eugene's friends to show up before we could order. Had the oxtail stew then the bread and butter pudding with ice cream for desert. OMG that was sooooo good. Once we went back to Eugene's house, played mahjong until 12 45am. When most of my friends left. After that we just hung around the house, played bridge blackjack, watched tv. Spent a lot of time with her, which was great. After a week of boring TIRING work, yesterday took such a load off. We both slept for like an hour+, I had breakfast with her and we both went back to my place for lunch. I couldn't sleep yet, I had an audition for the main service guitarist at my church. I managed to pass it but I just got a message from the guy saying I have to sign up for Ministry & Membership class but I don't even know what that is. Have to sign up by tmr and the next one's in Jan...so I'm clueless right now. Going to bed soon, will post up some photos soon. Its 8:20pm but I'm dead tired. I'm sure she's probably sleeping already. Haha. NIGHT.

I went to Davis with Sy and Tommy yesterday. Sy asked me to help him pick out a guitar for CL. I think we got a pretty good one. It sounded nice for something that costs $120. We got a Fina acoustic, I chose the one with the non laminated neck, its so much smoother. smoooooth yaaaaaay
I met her at Fish & Co. I wanted to stay for like 5mins but I just accompanied her all the way. Haha

The working life is so much different. Its good cos it has no exams but on the other hand, studying is less stressful. Last weekend was so much fun. Celebrated Andrew and Hy's birthday at Sy's house. Played poker, pool and bridge. Then went to Clarke Quay for dinner. Ate at Central and drank at Brewerkz. Its just a summary, not much details cos I'm tired. On Sunday, I met up with her and went to church. Spent half the day together til I had to go meet Brandon & Chris and she had to go meet her friends. Met them at Blackwood to just look around and try out guitars. Got pretty disappointed with the Custom 22. The guitars there weren't great. They were overpriced for the conditions they were in. Don't know how they're going to sell them.

Rafael Moreira

Me & Johnny Rabb's drumset, I still can't believe I missed him.
Virgil Donati. I think he's tired. He didn't even smile in all the photos.
Mr Q. Jay Chou's drummer. Nice guy lol
From the left, Me, Edmund, Mark, Brandon & Simon. Chris isn't in it cos he's taking the photo.
More pics from drumfest. Got them from Chris.

Work is endless. Yes it is.

It was such a kickass weekend. Got to meet people like Rafael Moreira, Corey McCormick, Johnny Rabb, Chris Patterson, Nate Morton, Virgil Donati, Mr. Q, Teddy Campbell and his band, Storm Large, Sy Smith etc. We actually got to meet and talk with the musicians. My only deepest regret was not pulling Johnny Rabb aside to take a photograph with him. He's like my favourite drummer ever but I did buy his CD and got his autograph. Best weekend of my life. So great that I had to go on MC today cos I had a splitting headache at the back of my head until I couldn't wake up til 12 20pm. That like never happens ><. I'm going to start planning a schedule for each day of the week so that I don't slack off and I actually practice guitar more. At least an hour each day and 1-3 on weekends depending on what I'm doing. I have never EVER taken a picture with someone I've enjoyed listening to before. This weekend was a first. Hopefully not the last. I've got quite a few autographs on the CDs I bought. I spent about $150 which was crazy. Now I can't spend anymore for the rest of the month cos my budget for extra stuff each month was $200. I do not regret it though cos the autographed CDs and the memories were priceless. PRICELESS.

Work has been killing me. I DO NOT enjoy ITP. Why you ask? It's taking up too much time. The work for my company is endless. I'm required to stay back after 5:30pm (the time I'm supposed to go home at) to finish the endless work I think. Looking at the previous intern, he leaves really late. I have lesser time to play guitar. Lesser time to just relax.

I got to meet new people through Brandon. Chris, Mark, Simon, Edmund, Jason were great people to talk to, very knowledgeble about music. Its like finally I have more friends to talk to about guitar and the kind of music I love. Sometimes when they talk I have no idea what they're talking about which is great. Means I have so much more to learn. Chris asked me to watch their jam session as they're practicing for their new instrumental release. I said okay since its at a reasonable time from 5pm-8pm on Sunday and I'll be able to learn much more by watching. Love to listen to music. Love to play music. Love to learn music. Love to live music. However, a music career would be cool, but its sadly extremely difficult. Especially in Singapore.

"For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.
Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them."

-Mark 11:23-24

I learnt these verses in church today. During the last 10 minutes of the service, Pastor Rony told everyone to pray out loud and to do what God's Word told us to do. I did it and guess what, I got healed instantly for the very first time in my life. I had a cough since last night, I prayed that my cough would be gone from my body and it happened, I came out of church healed totally. I mean I just ate ice cream 5mins ago and I feel fine. By having the faith of God, the sky's the limit. There's a first time for everything. I'm a stronger Christian than I ever was now.

Well instead of telling people about my day, I think I'm going to do something different this time. I know like everyone knows I play guitar but I don't think anyone knows who my influences are.
They're not listed in terms of who I like better or who has affected my playing more. They all have shaped the way I play one way or the other. Even Hendrix but I don't listen to him a lot so I didn't list him down as an influence. Don't listen to Brett Garsed as much cos I don't have his songs but I love the way he does his solos way too much to not list him down.

1) Stevie Ray Vaughan (died 27th August 1990) =/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWLw7nozO_U

2) Paul Gilbert
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ES1RypBww_g

3) Guthrie Govan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yPEewaalik

4) John Frusciante
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzCk31-XAfw

5) Marty Friedman
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6u1YmHkVNMc

6) Nuno Bettencourt
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeKqqnFFTdo

7) Andy Timmons
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgELKnnHtkc

8) Rafael Moreira
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySWpjcl4b5o

9) Joe Satriani
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4fPv450OYM

10) Steve Vai
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yw74sDWPH7U

11) John Petrucci
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t25AOSxZZkI

12) Greg Howe
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Px1TUrCx4Ak

13) Scott Henderson
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ll_W6kvCWN4

14) Brett Garsed
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgaZjcrKejU&feature=related

Its a 12:04am on a Wednesday and I can't stop thinking about that girl. Yeah I think I miss her.

Friday - Went to play pool with Hy. Crap? Ya talked lots of it. Damn funny and retarded. Every pool session is like that. Super fun cos of the crap talking. We went to eat dinner after that at some coffee shop near Yishun MRT. RAMEN, okay for coffee shop standard. After that, crazyass Hy STILL hungry so we went to the Cheers nearby to buy Nerds. I dunno why he loves Nerds so much. No Nerds, so...Bakery! Walk by...saw chocolate cake with CHOCOLATE CHIPS on top..OH MAN..chocolate cake..I lifted the lid to smell it. WA LAO EH SMELLS DAMN SHIOK. I was like NO cannot buy must watch my weight etc. etc and plus I had biscuits at home. Hy was like Screw your biscuits lah, buy this now eat biscuits later. Eh so I bought it anyway. It was like 1 huge piece. Imagine a swiss roll, YA that size, the auntie cut it into 6 pieces. Hy took 1, I ate 2, went home ate the other 3. I played dota with them and typed retarded crap cos of the cake. Too much cake...but so worth it. $2.50 only for the entire thing.

Saturday - Took her out for her birthday. Surprised her downstairs her block with the jelly my Dad made. YA my Dad didn't let me make. "I make better" thats what he said. hahahahaha. Sy and I got candles from some cake shop at AMK Hub a few days before. I decided to bring one of my guitar books so I had something to read while waiting for her to get ready after I surprised her. I gave her this crappy gift. I took one of my comic books, wrapped it up in junk paper and wrote Happy Birthday! on it. She looked at it and laughed. I didn't want to but I couldn't bear to let her think that that was really her birthday present so I told her she'd knew it by 8pm that night. Walked around for awhile then went for dinner at this chinese/hong kong restaurant at Raffles City. Food was DAMN good. Yeah I took her on the Singapore Flyer. It was a fun experience. The only bad part was the photo they took of us. So fake LOL. It was a great day. Memorable indeed.

Sunday - Went for an event at Sy's church. Trinity@Paya Lebar. Damn fun. Played games that introduces everyone. I managed to make people laugh. Hahahhahahaaa. Met new people. Surprisingly very fun people. They gave me a mug! LOL gonna use it. Oh ya so I wanted to buy this Christian T-shirt but no size, nvm I shall buy it next time I see it. Usually a lot of places got sell. I got to know Hong Liang, CL and Tommy slightly better. Fun sia Sy's juniors, reminds me of my juniors but we're just not as close as they are. Whole morning just have fun, BE YOURSELF? ya I was myself, crap like siao. After that we went to cineleisure to watch WALL-E. Ate lunch, watch movie, went to get CL's slippers then went to Far East to see Sam. I got kinda pai seh when I brought them to the shop cos got those "posters" that I never liked that Sam puts up. I just never look at them. His CDs and service are always good so I like to buy from him. Buy so much til we're friends now. I bought this 2nd hand Dream Theater Live in New York 3CD album for $15.90. Condition not THAT good but Awesome? YES of course haha its Dream Theater PLUS 1 CD is about 60mins long. They also play Acid Rain in the 2nd album, one of my favourite songs. (even though it is by liquid tension experiement) Want to buy a 7 string guitar next time...next time when I'm older and more crazy about guitar. hahahaha

Followed sy to buy his pants. He got a pretty good pair of black pants from Giordano. LOL so I bought boxers and used Andrew's voucher. It ended up to be 3 pairs for $10. Reaaaaally CHEAP. Met up with Yi He & Adrian for Dinner at AMK Hub. We wanted to eat at Pepper Lunch cos we had these 10% discount coupons LOL but there was a long queue so we just ate at Mos Burger. Everytime I go there I'll order the Ebi Rice Burger meal...I never change...Kinda expensive though. $7 bucks for a meal. Trying to save up atm. People keep asking me what I'm saving for. Its just to SAVE, doesn't have to be something there lol. Its just for the future.

August 27th 1990 - Stevie Ray Vaughan's death anniversary. May he rest in peace. He has been and always will be one of my major influences in guitar.

I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

Galations 2:20

Extreme - More Than Words

Saying I love you
Is not the words I want to hear from you
It's not that I want you
Not to say, but if you only knew
How easy it would be to show me how you feel
More than words is all you have to do to make it real
Then you wouldn't have to say that you love me
Cos I'd already know

What would you do if my heart was torn in two
More than words to show you feel
That your love for me is real
What would you say if I took those words away
Then you couldn't make things new
Just by saying I love you

More than words

Now I've tried to talk to you and make you understand
All you have to do is close your eyes
And just reach out your hands and touch me
Hold me close don't ever let me go
More than words is all I ever needed you to show
Then you wouldn't have to say that you love me
Cos I'd already know

What would you do if my heart was torn in two
More than words to show you feel
That your love for me is real
What would you say if I took those words away
Then you couldn't make things new
Just by saying I love you

More than words

I SOOOOOOO DID NOT KNOW that Extreme composed More Than Words. OH MAN LOL
Love this song.

The chalet was awesome. I drank quite a lot but I didn't get drunk. (I wasn't supposed to anyway) Now I understand what my Dad meant by drink slowly or I could use Wei Lun's words and say SAVOUR IT. It was much better than the last one. 1 night is better than 2. All I had to bring was an extra t-shirt, the liquor, poker chips and this small speaker which ran out of battery cos I had no time to charge it. (quite pai seh, the guys got quite disappointed) Our class gets more united during the chalet, that's why I enjoyed it so much. I got to know people I didn't know last time much better.
We played Texas Hold'em. Darren, Louis and I LOL. Darren lost a lot. Louis won like 20+ and I won 18 but we decided to just play for fun so he didn't have to pay anything. Those games are like the best. You think there's money so you play seriously but there's actually none involved. Drinking games were next. Difficult to explain over a blog but it was fun. Osman, Chit, Savio & Gerard came over. Savio stayed the longest, quite obvious lol
He told Thondres to go get booze at 3am, hahahhahahaa
We danced quite a bit, it was pretty tiring, after that I just sat at the patio with Joel, Wei Lun, Yuen Tuck (Sleeping) and Yue Sheng.
In the morning, we had breakfast and I realised that Wei Lun's character is similar to a few of my friends that I've known for a long time. I haven't laughed so much in months. It was great, love laughing LOL.
I got to know her better too. I think..no wait I KNOW I made the right choice. I just want to wait for the right moment.

"Since I can't read music and everything. I find out that I do the best when I just listen where...where I'm trying to go with it and where it can go and not try to rush it. Not try to make up things as I'm going necessarily, just let them come out, then I'm a lot better off. If I try to pay attention to where I am on the neck and this is the proper way to do this or that you know. Then I end up thinking that thing through it and instead of playing from my heart, I play from my mind and that's where I find that I get in trouble. If i just go with what's in my heart and let it come out, then I'm okay." -Stevie Ray Vaughan

Ever since I've heard what he said on this 10 bucks album I bought from this random person..I've been a better blues player. It wasn't even my technique or style or anything, I was just thinking too much.

All exams are over. Wheeeeeeeee!! Played pool with Hy today. We're trying to get back that weekly friday night thing again LOL Spent about an hour to restring and polish the acoustic, but it sounds good now. Not great but good for an epiphone haha. Andrew found out about his birthday presents -_- damn his curiosity. nvm, it'll still be a fun day. We're going to combine hy and andrew's birthday celebrations together, man I'm going to be so broke. doh!

All the main exams are finally over, stress is gone! I got new trousers for work. I have to cos all I have are jeans and shorts. Got posted to this Japanese company, Tokyo Marine at Shenton Way. Quite happy cos the main aim of it was to be near town, so I could meet up with my friends after work. Picked up the trousers today while I was at Raffles with Louis and Darren. Borrowing Louis' acoustic guitar tmr! sooo I don't have to buy one, kinda miss the acoustic sound =P Going out with her on saturday, I hope it goes well.

Muthu's Top Phrases

1) mao mao chong
2) u and me have the best gan qing
3) kan jian
4) the sex man
5) the twins!!
6) mahjong is a strategic game
7) MFORCE!!
8) gostop
9) u are not the kor i know
10) mind games

It isn't in order of which is said the most.

OJOJOJ

Aaron loves orange juice. That is all.

Guitars?

I'm going to start blogging again. Due to the fact that I finally have stuff to talk about now. Also Muthu kinda suggested I should blog again eh so why not.

1) Epiphone Les Paul Zakk Wylde Custom (Bullseye) a.k.a Moontar (don't ask why)
-24.75" Scale
-Mahogany Body, Maple Set Neck, Rosewood Fingerboard
-Made in Korea (KIMCHI?)
-Seymour Duncan Jazz (SH-2) @ Neck
-Seymour Duncan JB (SH-4) @ Bridge
-Coiltap Function (humbuckers can become single coils!)
-Gold Hardware, Antique Ivory Finish

I traded my Tom Delonge Fender Stratocaster (MIM) for her. The condition was retarded when I got it, I'm quite a perfectionist so I changed the strings and cleaned everything. Brandon helped me to do a quick set up and here it is! Sounding even better than when I first got it. Its more for....I would say rock and metal but the clean sound is still greeeeeeeeat.

2) Ernie Ball Musicman Steve Morse a.k.a Hazell
-25.5" Scale
-Poplar Body, Maple Neck, Rosewood Fingerboard
-Made in San Luis Obispo, California, USA
-Schaller M6LA Floyd Rose tremolo
-DiMarzio DP-205 Morse Signature (From Neck to Bridge)
-DiMarzio DP-108 Vintage Single Coil
-DiMarzio Proprietary Custom Wound
-DiMarzio DP-200 Morse Signature
- Gunstock Oil & Hand-Rubbed Special Wax Blend Finish
-3-way lever and 2 toggles. (11 different tones)

Smoothest neck I've ever set my hands on. I'm probably the only person in Singapore who owns the same guitar model which looks like this. Loved it ever since I got it. I kinda doubted it at first but I don't now!

I've finally sorted out my life. No more worries or emotional moments. So far it has been:
Eat Sleep Computer Guitar, rinse and repeat. I'm improving every week so I think I'm on the right track in terms of guitar. As far as girls are concerned, only have I in mind and whether I get her or not won't really matter. She's in a relationship which sucks apparently, We're not even in the same school. Sure our interests are terribly similar but it doesn't matter. I don't really look at other girls lol, not really interested anymore. Hah, finally freedom.

Lessons are getting boring by the day. Thank god that next week's the last week. I recently recovered from a cold and caught one again from Muthu on New Year's Eve when he stayed over. I feel like crap. I've been looking forward to the Dream Theater concert next Thursday. Its during the exam week but the next exam is Cargo Handling and its at like 2:30, so I don't think it'd be much of a problem. I haven't really gotten into the exam mood yet. For the stats practical, I looked through my notes for like a minute and just shoved it in my bag. I couldn't really care yet I want to do well. LOL I hope the last minute thing pays off again. It kinda sucks that all my close friends are in J2 and they have to study hard. Its getting boring. Sometimes the only person online I can talk to is gotti, but he's fun to talk to so I don't really care.

I'm still saving for my PRS. I'm 1/3 of the way there and hoping I get more money during the Chinese New Year. Its kinda cool that Adrian's giving me a hundred bucks for my birthday at the end of the year for my guitar. <3 him for that. I used the money I won from toto to buy this Paul Gilbert DVD from Sam and I ordered 2 CDs by SRV, looking forward to that. It was really worth it, he's a great player and I've learnt a lot from just half of the DVD. I've recently learnt how to play more relaxed. Its pretty awesome. Its a great way to destress.

Can't wait for this Saturday or Sunday...don't know which but its going to be fun, I'm sure.