Going into High Alert

To be honest I did forget about him once we all had left Penang and headed all over the world for studies and so on forth. Just a year older than me and back then very passionate and also on fire for GOD and music with varying styles and so on forth. We all came from out from FGA Penang, back then part of the youth group fireBRANDS where it was a group of youths passionate for Christ and also trying new and different styles of Christian music then. Hillsongs was just coming in and I still remember when our senior pastor banned the song churches on fire that was sung once during one of the main services and lead by the youth group then with Josh Yeoh just entering the team. Well we have come a long way now from there when our senior pastor said a new sound was coming forth and then we were really into hillsongs and such for the youth section but not for the main church services.

A keyboard player who also could play other instruments such as guitar, bass, drums and also the violin, and sing, worship lead a team of great musicians for God, truly we thought he was destined for great things to come. Now he has made it as such and that is impressive indeed. From the humble to mature Christian, from a guy who used to really be able to talk a lot and also yes some of us did not like him at some point, to now Christian musician I have to say I’m wow-ed at it.

You can also check out his myspace.

Including his official site.

Also YouTube, Bring Me Home and In The Wilderness

I realised that I haven’t posted in nearly yet another month again. Well to be honest I had my grduation ceremony.

NCLC trio, Sarah, Maria and me, yes I did get punched later for the scissors.

And when trying something like this, its not a good idea, I’m trying to not show that I’m in pain cause my foot is being stepped on so hence the winching of the eyes. Hoo yes I’m trying to encourage your minds to go wild then again if you did think it to be so, I’ll leave it at that for you to keep on dreaming in your alternate reality and options of things that are yet to be revealed.

My parents came over for the ceremony and also took a holiday visit around Newcastle. Behind them in the picture is the millenium bridge and the Baltic art gallery and the river Tyne.

Got them over to meet Ken and Isobel, our International Life hosts/parents to us. Great evening over at their place for food and so on.

Got into a scandal involving me and Evelyn here on the left. Not sure if some of you INTI ppl remember her though. She did law in INTI and then came over here to graduate. Well the scandal was apparently to cover up something much bigger that was going on behind the lines and for the time being I’ll have to keep it under wraps as it stands.

Stuck with these 2 again in yet another photo. Kinda wonder why most of the pics that I seem to be in have lots of girls in them and rarely any other guys other than a select few.

Also went to visit Durham with my maw and pa. They wanted to see the cathedral and that was probably yet another first for me since I didn’t get to go with the group on the last visit to the cathedral in Durham and ended up instead taking over the logistics job back in church. Alvin nice way to skip out on your duties.

The main tower of the cathedral where you have to pay £4 to climb up the 300 over steps to the top and take in the amazing view. We didn’t do that since that would only complicate my dad’s leg. Oh yeah he’s got a titanium plate in there due to a type of benign bone cancer which resulted in the formation of none bone material and had to be operated, removed and replaced with the titanium plate in order to support the leg hence he’s got metal in him alright but its not magnetic so, no worries when getting on the plane to fly.

Also took the guided tour for Durham castle. This picture is of the keep which is now a student accomodation and in order to get to stay here during term time when university is on, you have to take a lottery in order to get a room to stay for the semester. Quite an interesting place but not accessible to us since only students are allowed in there but the tour of the castle was fantastic but the only way to visit it, is to take the guided tour otherwise they won’t let you in at all. Rules have to be observed for the safety of the students. There was a wedding held there hence we managed to get the last tour before the function started.

Giant windmills anyone? These monsters generate electricity, and yes behind us, are cows, its farmland.

Got to enjoy amazing sunsets. Lots of pics of them but not now. This here is a summary.

Great mountain scenery.

Is that EWE?

This here rental got us out of driving “retirement”. Click on the photo to view the full size. That’s me driving the car. And finally we baked on the Tube. No pictures for that one since I didn’t get my dad’s memory card from the camera to transfer the photos over.

Well thats what kinda happened to me over the past few weeks.

Out of the blue Evelyn asked around, anybody want to go on a trip to Farne Island? Few of us said yes but it ended up with only 4 of us going on the trip.

Part 1 of crew, Ting Fan, Evelyn and me.

And Alvin, no sorry dude this picture is for revenge for making that crack video if u ever do come across my blog.

So off we went to the town of Seahouses by the seaside in order to take a boat round the place to head for the tour to see the birds.

Nice little round about in the town centre.

Fish and chips shops over here and there seems to be a lot of it but its kinda expansive to eat here and theres at least 5 of them in the area all fighting for customers.

Moving to the pier we find some booths here which cater towards people who want to charter the boats for tour round the islands. We had to pay £10 each for the trip which lasted an hour and a half but since we weren’t National Trust Fund members it would have costs us another £6 to land on the island but we thought to ourselves nevermind the landing lets just go see the birds.

Nearby is a sort of like bench part for people to sit on but alarmingly to my horror each of the benches there were screwed to the cement floor and each had its own small brass plague for the people who have gone ahead of us. This place was a memorial zone where tourist were sitting at having their food and so on. It kinda irks me to sit on one of the benches but so happens I did sit down on one of em in a photo shot taken which shall not be displayed here.

4 decker houses by the seaside, would you want to live here? Its a nice community quiet and serene.

Plus the nice view of the bay area, would certainly be attractive.

Moving on, we boarded the boat,

Glad Tidings is the company that we got our tickets from and then off we went out to the sea.

So we saw birds, birds, birds and birds and more birds after that. I however am unable to recall any of the details regarding the birds in order.

In addition to that we were treated to some seals in vicinity on a neighbouring island. Nice.

Back on dry land we proceeded to Bamburgh, which is the neighbouring town, to the castle, Bamburgh castle. We did not go in to see the place as it was £5 entrance fee and we were also short on time as we wanted to catch the next bus back to Newcastle and be back in time for dinner.

Should have run round to the other side in order to take a pic but my phone ran out of juice and hence the pictures are from Alvin’s camera. Should have charged it to max before I left the house.

Down below it was a World War I and II memorial to the soldiers who gave their lives to serve their country and whom came from this very town of Bamburgh. There was an inscription below the figure but it seems somebody had chiselled out the remainder of it and we did not get to read the entire Bible verse that was on it.

Well we had fun. Good fun. Plus a sideline project.

I chilled.

The gang chilled.

We Ice-creamed chilled.

Chocolate bar pouted.

And lastly.

Posers.

Disclaimer: All of the people who went on this trip are Asians who attended International Life, NCLC, which is hosted every other Friday night by Ken and Isobelle at their place at Chapel House.

Yes it seems me and Alvin went down to Manchester with Phil and Andrew for a BBQ with friends of theirs well to be exact they also went for doughnuts. So where exactly is this place of all things? Its located in Manchester near the Trafford Centre. This place is like the main shopping mall in Manchester.

Thats what the main gate looks like or rather a set of arches to enter the shopping mall area. We couldn’t find a parking lot hence we decided head over to the place and drop the tour the mall walk. Oh yeah on the way we came past an interesting building.

Thats one end of it, the other is on ground zero.

To be precise is an artificial ski area. Thats the high end of it. Didn’t get to take the ground part due to the tress blocking the view. And next to it.

A driving range. Well this place is after all a recreational area.

Moving on to the main topic of the post.

This is Krispy Kreme. There are only 2 shops in the entire UK and one of them is situated here in Manchester. The other is in London and from what I hear there are outlets in various places around London so here in Manchester is one big shop.

Yeap fresh off the production line hence the HOT NOW.

So why are all these ppl standing in front of that large glass are?

In this shop, you can actually watch as the doughnuts are being cooked and then conveyored out to be packaged and glazed.

Yeap those are the doughnuts coming out of the machine.

The end result:

Nicely glazed doughnuts. In this shop they don’t put just sugar, they glazed the doughnuts with the sugar. Its really heavy stuff and after taking around 3 or 4 doughnuts, I’m practically a goner and can’t eat another bite. Not to mention Phil treated us to it and we had coffee with cream which made things harder to stomach.

The first dozen were the original glazed doughnuts and the 2nd dozen were the variety type where they had different fillings and also different glazings on them. Yummy? You bet its good, its so good that you’ll be lying on the floor with all the sugar rushing to your head in no time at all.

Alright I did promise that I would blog about how I would setup my bass for Sunday worship when I’m playing and I know its about 1 week late since I did last publish it only that I have been busy house hunting and all that and not to mention I have some sleeping issues that I needed to rectify. Anyway on towards the main topic.

First up we have the amp. Yeap thats the amp that I am plugged into. Its an amp that is left in the church by one of the other bassist since we have a new room in the “lock up” (our main church eq storage place) where he can just leave his amp there as our practices are now in the “lock up”.

Next the amp is liked to the output of the DIY by a lead cable. Its standing on the amp and yes I know the wording is upside down. the DIY is essentially a unit where I plug my bass into it, and it has 2 outputs, one to the amp and the other to main sound system input unit.

This is the main sound input/output unit. So from the DIY I have leads to the amp and a xlr (mic cable) to the input/output unit.

Before I plug my bass in, I have a tuner pedal between the DIY and the bass guitar. Its a BOSS tuner pedal and it cost me like £60 for it. Ain’t cheap I know.

Heres a shot of my tuner pedal.

Finally the tuner pedal to the bass guitar. Yeap that pretty sums up how I setup for the instrument part. So here its Bass -> Tuner pedal -> DIY -> Amp & Sound unit.

Then again I did mention its an input/output sound unit and why is there a need for so many cables on the I/O unit?

The answer,

In-ear monitors. Yeap on stage we have our own in-ears as we are unable to hear most of the sound produced, the main speakers and all our amps are facing away from the stage so we do not have any sound coming towards us at all hence we need the in-ears.

However how do we plug the in-ears in to the I/O? By means of a sound pack. Here is what it looks like, so its In-ears -> pack -> I/O unit. We have to use a xlr from the sound pack to the I/O unit. Hence all musicians have 2 cables one for the instruments and one for the in-ears that we have. This is sounding very complicated now.

Heres the pack hooked on to may jeans, I usually put it between the belt and jeans as when I do take off from the stage it won’t come out as it did happen once where the pack ejected from my belt as it was not secured properly and it fell to the stage and I didn’t have any more sound but I kept on playing as it was.

This is what it looks like finally on stage with all the gear good to go. The rest is sound check and service.

Well its not that simple after all as we need to have the system in order to hear ourselves and also to project the sound out. This is the actual reality in the sound system that Hillsongs churches use. Where the worship team has the same system, in-ear sound for each individual member on stage and a general PA for the rest of the congregation. The added bonus to this is that we also have a music director on stage, which is usually one of the band members giving out instructions and also any particular modifications to the songs and also what key notes to play during certain times. The worship leader gives hand signals from time to time but the MD is the main person monitoring the entire team and the music flow. So hence only us and the sound crew can hear what he says and there are times also when he does make jokes behind the lines where only the worship team can hear but not the rest of the congregation nor the pastor (uh oh).

Previous Sunday the evening service was off but then again where did we go instead? Simple to the beach. Yes you got it right we went to the beach here in South Shields where the sand is nice and brown? BROWN?? No kidding the sand is brown in colour and not the khaki colour that we have back at home in good old Malaysia and almost snow white in Singapore (manhandled probably). Well to put things into perspective, NCLC’s tradition for baptisms during the spring and summer months are held at the seaside. The breeze is <strike>soothing</soothing> freezing cold actually and wow everybody was there in their sweaters and jackets walking around on the soft sand quite high away from where the water’s edge is during high tide and thats like 6 feet up high. The tide must really be high for that. Well on to some pictures of the scene.

Heres everybody gathering at the seaside. To note the person carrying the camera is Matt Lewis our main lead guitarist in church.

Heres Paul Ellison, the man with the yellow towel and the hat. He’s our main man who’s in charge of the New Christians Team and also Baptisms. So if anybody in church wants to get baptised, he’s the man to talk to and also our senior bassist in church.

A word from our Pastor Jon Cook (guy wearing the wet suit) before starting the testimonies by the participants.

One of the people who got baptized. 21 year old guy and passionate for Christ.

Pastor Jon and his wife Dee usually handle female participants. Hence they’re a team when it comes to this.

Heres the person earlier. His name is Bob by the way. Oh yeah here when its the guys then Paul will be the one who is the other person involved with Jon as the team for the guys.

Everybody was in a very happy mood taking pictures as the baptism went along. However…

the tide came in and yes I got wet in the process to boot.

Overall it was a great time at the beach and freezing cold then again I’m kinda used to it and my jacket was missing. I think Nadeen had it with her (one of the teenagers under foster care with one of our church members Aileen Daniels) and she probably was running around somewhere with it. Oh yeah if you start asking me funny questions all I can say is that if theres anything you’re thinking yeah right now, its jailbait to me so please spare me and save the thoughts and brain cells for other purposes.

Well as you all know this coming Sunday I’m on team again and be ready to check out the process of how set up is done on my part as the bassist. Till then. Matana.

IT WORKS MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!………..

MY HATSUNE MIKU CLOCK WORKS!!!!……….

Ok heres how it works, in order for miku to tell you the time (yes she speaks), click on the picture/clock and watch her wake up from her sleep and tell you the time. This is really cute.

I found a nice clock actually that I want to add here to the site but however wordpress does not code in coding for adding .swf files here into the blog for security reasons. I did find plug-ins that will help make it work however it seems that I am a long way from getting it to work as there seems to be a lot of coding required in order to actually run the clock and its not appearing on the block in the meantime and so you’ll probably be wondering whats that white space there on the left side bar for the time being. Really all the tutorials don’t seem to be helping me at all till now and theres a whole lot of things like fvars and all that which seems to work when people are adding their videos to the thing. I wonder if what I am doing is actually right cause all I’m adding is not a video unless it really needs the same coding in order for it to be clicked. Really am on my wits end on this matter as it goes.

As some of you know I do not hang out in the library that often when I was back studying in INTI nor either in the public library either when I was living in Penang then in high school. Primary school yes I did hang out a lot in the public one for kids but that was rare and not much time in there. The other place is the Penang Sports Club where mom and dad often went there and we borrowed books rather than sit inside there for hours.

When I was in INTI there wasn’t much time in the library spent there studying in Penang. At least I did go to that one and spent time in there. Then the migration to the main campus but then again I didn’t spend hours in there. I spent time in there studying and probably took a nap or 2 in there studying for exams and such. After a while I ended up not going there at all due to the lack of books on biotechnology and most of it was related to biology which is basic principles. There were story books though but then again I have never borrowed a single book from the library in either campuses. Its ironic when there is a resource centre and yet I don’t frequent it enough for information to study and so on.

Its really fun to be in the library, no noise, very quiet, and you lose all track of time the longer you spend in there among the sea of books. Reading, studying or in my case here in Northumbria, blogging and also gaming on the sidelines. Due to the net distruption back in my room I decided to come to the library and hang out instead. Its cold in here due to the air conditioning and I actually can’t believe that I’m blogging here at 3 am in the morning. Yeah its cold and nice and studying my notes. Took a game break just now and now the blog post.

Sounds nuts right but its exam period and hence yeah time to study for the first paper that is coming up on Friday. I usually shun the library then again the net is here really good compared to my room which is in shambles now. Once again I’m here in a zone where I once felt really comfortable being in and to boot studying and accompanying a friend of mine here also to study though we’re in different courses. Met through church and also during international induction first.

Its really fun to be in the library that opens 24:7 during exam periods. You can see ppl busy studying here round the clock even though it kinda things out from 2:30 am onwards. Some people are sleeping now in here on the various floors and also some are just waking up from short naps in here. It really is a different world here in this sea of books which is really quiet. I’ll definitely be here till my net line improves back in my room as I can’t use IRC here in the library then again even if the line improves I’ll still be coming back here for the ultra fast lines that they offer here.

Back to work now for me. Not sure when I’ll be leaving for sleep though……….

Easter is over, everybody is back again in uni but we have a problem, recently a person tried to hack the network and clone all the available internet protocol addresses (IPs) and knock the rest of the people here off the network. All for the sake of downloading a 300 mb file which is probably some chinese drama video or show which you can directly download of the internet. The culprit has been banned by Spectrum Interactive our dear internet service provider (ISP).

So problem solved? No unfortunately after that the speeds did not recover and lots of users have issues with the net line and are experiencing slow speeds, frequent disconnections and so on. So just what exactly is the cause of all these problems?

I put a call for myself and on behalf of my fellow residents in Lovaine Flat and Lovaine Hall respectively to Spectrum in order to lodge the issues and complains that we have. Thus I was told to wait a few days for a call to come back to me on this matter.

2 days later they called me up and asked and went over some of the issues that we are having. Some statistics to show, there are currently 70 users or more which are connected to the net now and that has taken up nearly the entire bandwidth provided by them. Wait a minute theres at least 400 or more people living in here. Just my block alone has 5 people per flat, and 10 flats which make up 50 people already. There are 5 blocks to the flats and 2 entire blocks of around 20 people per floor in the hall. Each of these buildings are 5 stories high. Thats a lot of people in here running around. Looks like its battle for the net line of the users. Putting that aside its not so much of a problem if everybody shared the line proper and kept the network stable.

Next part apparently seems to be the major cause, we have hackers who are trying the same thing that the initial person started, network hogging yet again. Thus more problems for the rest of and dear Spectrum is trying to find these bunch of selfish idiots and ban their IPs. Well thats not really going to help much unless its banning their user logins and slapping fines for abuse of the network. In a normal case where everybody is using the network normally its stable in general though the line is split in order to accommodate more people using it. However if you add in an equation of a hacker or more then we get an anomaly which knocks the rest off the network and makes it unstable.

So why all the fuss about wanting more bandwidth? 300 mb show episode? I’m fine running my downloads at around 20 - 50 kilobytes a second though its a few hours and worth the wait. Unfortunately some people want it now, I, ME, MYSELF, MY RIGHT, MY… cut the <strike>i</strike> nobody is going to listen to you on this issue, we all need to use the net thats a given and we want you to stop being and idiot and share like the rest of us. If you can’t share the net with us then get out and get ur own line and abuse it however you want.

Other than money, what about water? What about electricity? What about food? If you’re that greedy for the net line why not be greedy for the rest? Its all part of whoever’s personality and nature is. If you’re not then respect that we’re living with 400 over other people here and  not your own home somewhere in Cowgate or elsewhere.