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Ball Media Productions

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This is a company that is owned and run by an old guitarist buddy that I use to play with way back in the day. His name is John Ball and what a success story his is.

John and I always played together but not in the same band. We hung around the same circle of friends and musicians and to make a long story short, we had different playing styles that never really over lapped. He gravitated to the harder speed metal sort of arrangements while I was under a more Progressive Rock, Jazz and to a lesser extent Pop genre.

My sister and John were closer in age and they both were in the same grade at St. John’s College. Boy did both of them get themselves into a little bit of trouble as kids during those years! Then again, I was no angel either.

His company is called Ball Media Productions and he had his humble beginnings in our home town of Brantford, Ontario. He at first started his empire with a recording studio in the basement of a well known Brantford music studio called Music and Sound. Over the years he has branched of into different area’s as he sees fit.

Now his company has a jaw dropping amount of specialized services that can now compete with the big guys!

Ball Media includes Printing/Bindery, Packaging, Branding/Indentity, CD / DVD Replication, Graphic Design and Web/Multimedia plus video area’s of expertise. Take a look for yourself and if you do need his services for anything no matter how small, just tell him “Stickman” sent you!

I wish him well with all of his company’s future endeavors but I know that he doesn’t need it!

Keep on Jammin’ Johnnie!




Back from Vegas Baby, part 2

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So, now for the our next experience in Vegas.

Tricia, the brains behind everything technical, was trying to connect to our hotel wireless connection while I put away all of our belongings in the room.

3 hours later and countless calls downstairs and the company who is running the entire network system and we had to get a new room! Yes, 3 hours into our stay in the hotel that bragged about their wireless internet connection, we had to move to a new room!

Before we even accepted any new room, we asked if we could go to the rooms that we were offering us, to check out our connection there before even thinking about moving anywhere. It was something that they encouraged as well. Ok, that sounds like a good idea, let’s do it!

They sent us a attendant with the new rooms keys and off we went. I forgot to mention that while Tricia was attempting to connect to the system, the one and only Mr. Fab called us on our cell and wanted to get together at the Outback outside our hotel!

Now with this little factor adding to the drama of finding a room in a hurry to meet the infamous Mr. Fab, the first room was chosen. Our signal strength was pathetic at best! In total, while being in the Imperial Palace for 4 days, we had 3 connections to the internet lasting 15 minutes each. That’s right, on-line for 3 times lasting 45 minutes in total.

I do have to say that they did not charge us at all for this unacceptable service. If they did charge us then the tone of this post would be considerable different. The staff on the phone was polite both at the hotel and the Hotel Wireless company who ran the system. The only thing that was unprofessional was some of the lies they told us. They may have been small but insulting none the less.

So my advice to anyone who is going to stay in a hotel on the Las Vegas strip and want wireless connection, do not go to the Imperial Palace. They didn’t even offer us a free meal or anything at all for all our wasted time – and that wasted time trying to connect to the internet and making all those calls must have amounted to about 6 hours!

In my next Vegas post I’ll tell you about partying with Mr. Fab and all the other bloggers we met Thursday night and so on!

Keep on Jammin’

Back from Vegas Baby

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If there is only one phrase that I can use to explain Las Vegas N.V. it would be, this place is way over the top!

las-vegas.jpg The buzz of the city was not that apparent when we landed at McCarren airport. We got off the plane, picked up our luggage then got a cab. I had never seen a live palm tree before so I certainly got my fill before we reached the new Las Vegas strip. There is a new and old part of Vegas, but we were going to be exposed to the new part only. Our cabbie informed us that these trees cost the city around $30,000.00 US each.

Now the buzz of the city did not just creep up on us, it exploded right in front of our eyes!

Traveling on the strip was like entering a place similar to Disney World, but for adults! The buildings were like nothing that I had even seen before and I love my architecture. They were polished like a brand new diamond rings, while being very ornate in every fashion. They all had their own individual architectural look to them that when all put together, surprisingly did not clash at all.

The people, well they must have numbered in the 1000’s, they seemed to be walking around in all directions, looking up and gazing upon these very large temples of excess in awe, just like I was! The billboards were in a category all by themselves. If you think that time square in New York has great billboards then you have got to go to Vegas.

We then were let off at our hotel called the Imperial Palace. Before we even walked in the door, you could hear sounds and cheering like I have never heard on any CSI show or a documentary on this famous city. You could feel the sounds of the machines that everyone was on. There was a strange and unique buzz in the air to put it mildly.

After trying to navigate through the literal sea of gamblers and onlookers, desperately struggling with our bags of belongings, we finally reached the correct elevators. The people coming off them were all acting like kids in a candy shop! They were all of different ethnic backgrounds wearing smiles on their faces as wide as the desert which we just flew over.

After getting off the elevator and into the suite, we were on a this adrenalin rush like only the great city of Las Vegas could provide! I was in this dream like state of mind and was just waiting for something else to happen, this time it was not that much fun.

I’ll fill you in on the rest in another post! Stay tuned!

Keep on Jammin’

My new fingernail experiment

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Well good readership, I have been going on for a while about fingernails. Let’s make things clear, I’m talking about the ones on my right hand only!

I envy people with finger nails that they could use as screw drivers! I just wish that there was a product that really made a difference on mine. The only thing that I found on line is the Guitarist Guide to Fingernails.

At work in the surgical area, there is a new finding that acrylic finger nails trap germs on them and that we are told not to use them. Ahhhhhhhh, but I need mine to play at the level that I am accustomed to. So, I have decided to go a different root this time. I am forgoing placing the regular acrylic tips on and just placing the hardener right on to the nails themselves. This totally eliminates the tips that are causing the problem.

In order to pull this off, I had to let my nails grow a bit longer then I would have them praying just to have a larger surface to work with. You know just in case things went south very quickly.

I am now back from my secret manicurists hide out and we’ve successfully applied the above mentioned hardener right onto the nails on my right hand. To the axe cave I go! I then picked up the axe and started to put my experiment to the test!

At first, I tried a bit of Bruce Cockburn’s If I had a Rocket Launcher and it was not that bad. I then began to adjust the length and shape of the nail to my specifications with my handy dandy file.

Now it was time for tougher challenge, playing Blackbird at warp speed! They are holding their own so far. Finally, the acoustic version of Neon from John Mayer, perfect!

Now let’s hope that it will continue this way!

Keep on Jammin’

New Look

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So what do you think of the new look of Guitar Licks?

I think it’s much better than the old look! When I created this blog my wife quickly picked out a theme and we realized fairly fast that we really didn’t like the look of the theme. Unfortunately I don’t do any of the design work. Tricia does all of that stuff. She’s been so busy with her other blogs that she just didn’t have time to get around to changing this theme. It’s always been on the list … but ya know, other things come up and a big job like this gets pushed aside.

Anyway, she worked all evening modifying a theme for this site. I like it.

The Guitarist

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Mark Goffeney is definitely in the running for my vote for the most unique guitarists to have come around in quite some time.

I saw this somewhere and when I saw it I knew that I had to post about it.

I mean have you ever tried this feat, no pun intended!

It is hard but this guy makes it look just plain old easy? Check out his site and enjoy the show!

Mark also has a great myspace account.

Keep on Jammin’ indeed!

Funny thing happened on the way to the Vatican

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Well my mother works in a church and the church decided hey, why not go the the Vatican for a holiday! She also had the idea in he head that mys sister’s son A.J. who is half Italian, might be interested in going to Italy and maybe see some relatives there time permitting. Nice idea there mom!

A.J., is a great kid around 17 years old. He is unbelievably smart but not too ambitious. He has some great taste in music and tried the guitar but dropped it early in his oh too short career. He is a really cool kid!

So last night as they boarded the chartered bus to take them to the airport, my dad and aunt Helen saw them off and then went home to have a cup of tea. After wards they would then go out for dinner at my Aunt’s favorite restaurant, dad’s treat.

So, A.J., my mom and around 27 older people (yes 27 older people) were finally off to see the Pope!

Back at home having their tea 1/2 an hour later, my aunt was reminiscing about the time she and her mother went to Rome and had the time of her life! “Oh the places we went, the art we saw and we met the Pope!” she said to my father! Screeeeech! They then heard the sound of thump, thump, thump, getting louder, louder and louder!

The door swung open, my mom flew by both of them with their tea cups just about in front of their mouths, grabbed something from the bedroom while screaming something unbecoming of my her and then said “A.J. forgot his wallet” all while running back out the back door!

My dad and aunt looked through the dinning room window towards the front of the house only to see the charted bus stopped there with the bus door open, the driver and some of the passengers looking perturbed and A.J. was looking out his window with a smile on his face! Priceless!

vaticancartoon.jpg

I wonder if the Pope had good old A.J. in mind when he was thinking this one up?

Keep on Praying!!!

Well, that was fun

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My wife and I are going to a blogging convention in Las Vegas in November, but we both need passports! If we don’t get them we won’t be able to fly into the United States.

I had to get photo copies of this that and the other thing Sunday night, get our photo’s from this Greek Photo Finish shop in the heart of Greek Town (The Danforth to Locals) run by this really nice little Asian couple on Monday. Gotta love the big city or what?

I went downtown one day last week. On that day I got up at 6:45 (early for me) so I could go see my old buddy Dave the Criminal lawyer guy downtown Toronto to do his part with the Passport legalities! When that was done I was going to go home pick up the wife, go back downtown to do the Passport paperwork stuff when it dawned upon me that, “Why don’t I just do it when I was downtown doing some paperwork stuff with Dave? So I did it, thus eliminating around 2 hours of driving downtown.

While driving home I picked up some earth worms for our pet turtles. Nice! Had to go there anyway at some point in time. I was busy that day. I also ended up getting the muffler replaced, now our car doesn’t sound like some kid’s street racing machine, that just got his ride pimped right!

While I was waiting for the car to be finished I walked up to my favorite store in the world, the 12th Fret and bought some new strings for my Fender Lead II. Walking into the store I was greeted by the presence of a new White Gibson SG Double neck, now that’s a greeting! It was about $3568.00 (Can) by the way in case your wondering.

While walking back to Speedy Muffler King to pick up the improved ride, I walked into this neat sidewalk patio and had a few light refreshing liquid beverages. The finger foods were nice too, as was the conversation with the owner an older Macedonians lady.

When I finally returned home I had a well deserved rest. What a busy day that was! Cheers!

Keep on Jammin’

To the guy who practises random acts of kindness

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I hereby announce the winner of this years “Practice random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty” award is R. JACKSON the proud owner of Prestige Glass International!

Ok everyone … please calm down and take your computer seats!

It wasn’t hard to come to this decision. You see … Earlier this month I was ill and we thought it might have been a heart problem that had plagued me a few years ago. You might have heard about this on my wife’s blog You are in my World Now. During the short period of time that I was ill, I’m better now, I found out that one of the greatest keyboardist in Rock history, no it’s not Robert even though he is an accomplished keyboardist in his own right, Rick Wakeman, is playing a concert this Sunday at the Danforth Music Hall here in Toronto.

The prices for these tickets were quite pricey and at the moment I couldn’t afford them. The concert might even be sold out by now too.

Now this is where Robert comes in. He was searching for information about the Rick Wakeman concert and he came across the post on my wife’s blog that discussed how much I wanted to go to the concert. He read it and then replied:

I just realized that Chris is ill, by looking at this site a little closer. The spare ticket to Rick Wakeman is yours for free.

Now that is the reason why he is this years recipient! The man went way out of his way to provide me with music that will sooth my ill heart!

At the beginning of this post I mentioned that Robert has a company called Prestige Glass International. Well I took a moment to visit his company site and his company makes some very cool stuff that you should check out.

My favorite pieces are under “Canadiana” Inukshuks (in-ook-shook) and Vases & Bowls. The Vases & Bowls remind me of some of the ones that my relatives make in Ireland.

I don’t think that I told you about my family roots, but we are from Waterford Ireland. Yes, the place that makes the world famous Waterford Crystal. As luck would have it, I still have 2 cousins that do the glass blowing and cutting at the plant. Too bad they weren’t there when we were doing the tour of the factory a few years ago.

Since my cousins weren’t at the Waterford factory when we visited we did a tour of the plant with the regular tourists. While watching some guys do their work on their benches I kept asking the the tour guide some detailed questions about cutting and the tools they used. After a while he kept wondering why I had many questions I told them that I was a goldsmith and diamond setter. I also said that during the tour we saw some pictures of our cousins through out the plant. He then laughed and said “Oh ya, they did say some of their cousins were going to show up some time.”

At this point we were nearing the end of the tour and he said why don’t we hang out and talk to the boys on the floor, and that’s what we did. After being introduced to them the tour guide told them who we were and they said “Do you want to take a crack at it?” and I said “Why not!”

So cheers to this years recipient! Maybe he’ll let me take a crack at glass blowing behind his bench.

Keep on Jammin’

Who needs coffee to wake up in the morning

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Well kidz I woke up this morning, thank God for that, and was surfing and collecting e-mail at breakfast when a nice women started to rapidly knock on our front door. Looking at her she could have been easily mistaken for one of those Jehovah Witness people, but she had a look of concern in her eyes.

I got up off the couch and opened the door. She immediately started to talk about the next door neighbour’s hydro wire making strange buzzing sounds and the smell of burning wood in the air. She dragged me outside and I soon realized why she had that look in her eyes.

A branch the neighbour’s tree was hanging precariously on the upper tier of the hydro pole. We could smell burning wood in the air and see some leaves on the branch starting to smoke and then just suddenly went out. Wooo, that was close.

As the threat subsided I thanked her and she went on her merry way. I then went inside our home to explain to my wife what had just happened. We both agreed that I should take pictures to have just in case something happened later for insurance purposes. She said that she would also contact the City and the power (Hydro) company to inform them of the incident. So at this point I went back outside to see if everything was still ok.

Upon going outside to take a few pictures of the branch in question, another branch caught on fire. After the shock wore off, I had this vision in my mind of the whole damn tree catching on fire followed by our neighbour’s house soon after. Did I tell you that we are in a semi-detached home right beside said neighbour?

I then ran over to the neighbors to try and get them out of their home. After telling them to get out I walked back to the sidewalk and all of a sudden there was this HUGE BANG sound followed by little shards of cement and little burning leaves flying through the air. Who needs coffee to wake up in the morning when a BIG BANG can do the same at the fraction of the cost.

I wish someone had caught my body and facial expression at that moment on tape! I bet that I looked like one of those people in a wild west movie being told to dance while the local drunk at the saloon peppers the floor below their feet with bullets. I felt like I nearly jumped out of my skin. That would have been hilarious to see.

Next thing I know, half the neighbourhood was beside me asking me what happened and saying that their power is out. My wife was now on the cell phone, hanging out our front door while talking to 911 and the fire people. She then gave me the phone and I was talking to a woman. I told her quickly what had happened and she said that the fire fighters and police were on their way. Just as she said that, they were flying down the street and right in front of me. Boy, now that is service!

So all is well in our neck of the woods and now I can get back to my morning coffee.

Keep on Jammin’

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