Contact and Request

If you would like to contact us for anything, generally leaving a comment (say, in the latest post) would do, since we get notified duly. Feel free to use the shoutbox too.

Request an upload/re-upload/anything
Because we can't always respond promptly to the re-upload requests that we sometimes receive, we suggest you leave some way of contact in the comments, the most convenient being an email address of course, so that we could notify you when it comes, and need not let it expire quietly again. To avoid getting spammed yourself, spell it out like "xyz at abcd dot com", with liberal splashes of (){}[] too if you like.

You may also want to check out some news/blog aggregator services (we recommend google reader and bloglines) and subscribe to our feed. That way you'll never miss an update. =) Happy listening!

New Template!

Hi long estranged readers, this is your rusty techie speaking, in quite a while. Basically I'm announcing another site appearance makeover (Which means we are probably going to return to regular updates. Again.) shedding the cuter, more feminine (read: pink) but narrower template--with original art from Contributor Zhu, see below!--

..with this much more subdued background and wider layout adapted from a wordpress theme.

How do you like it?

Also updated in this edition: to trim the sidebar length a little (it was sprawling), charts of fancy, flipping album arts are taken down (awwwww). But you can always visit our last.fm pages to find out about our favourite artists, or better, get your own going!

an update

(blogging out of pure frustration that I am in no shape to attack a congested desk of work right now..) Finally got this blog into the post-beta version, which looks pretty much the same as before except for the hierarchical archive list (which does not load and expand well in firefox, just this single case. I am investigating) and the ability to rank tags—I don’t like it in this case as the numbers are not very helpful excepting indicating this blogging circle is primarily into north American and Japanese music scene—so I put that at the bottom of the sidebar, in case you still want to know the stats.

In other news, two other albums that I noted in the upcoming release list of ’07 have come out-- Air’s Pocket Symphony and Guns N’ Roses’ Chinese Democracy—zhu still owes a sweet mini-review on Norah’s latest Not Too Late released in January. Well zhu, you know the saying, and you are not too late if you cough it up about NOW. B-) Back to the new stuff, I'm look ing forward to hearing them, especially Chinese Democracy. With the complete line-up change and this long of hiatus and no studio album I wonder where GNR stand now, and if they have gone entirely obsolete for that matter. That’s a sad nagging thought, but I’ll hold off my doubts for now.

Put on old Grammy compilation music all afternoon, they made up a long playlist and I didn’t bother to change—it was just…mindlessly easy on the ears, and a lot of them remind me of the times when I still bought cassettes (a lot), and recorded radio programs and trading with friends…good old days. And after this revision of pre-Britney pre-hip pop music I have to say they were almost too sweet…melodious sometimes to the point of being formulaic. Is it a thing of the late 90s or has it more to do with whoever voted for those Grammies…just a thought, I have not been following the award for years..

and Last.fm keeps recommending me stuff that either I already own but have yet to scrobble, or stuff that I went to try and really liked, gotta love this brainy music bot…

new radio up!

I finally got our own radio up and running (YAY!!), almost a year after we said we would! Still building the playlist, so many items I wish to cram in and dish out....meanwhile I'm taking down the sidebar listing and archive it here.

::Previously Featured & Highlights::

(click for pop-up radioblogs)
7. noir, robert post, keren ann (again), rufus wainwright (again), keane, various OSTs
6. the mamas and the papas, laurie andersen, bjork, this mortal coil, laura fygi
5. U2, radiohead, moulin rouge, guns n' roses
4. yann tiersen, keren ann, alanis morissette, damien rice, gabriel yared
3. stan getz, sting, bic runga
2. anggun, simon & garfunkel
1. rufus wainwright, pink floyd, nirvana

group email

Since Jeremy mentioned it, I think it's a good idea to get a group email address so everyone can receive updates/comments/new posts in real time. I've sent out the invitation to all except yy (Jady, tell me her email address).

Group email: ukulele_ensemble@yahoogroups.com
Group homepage:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ukulele_ensemble

Cheers!

weekiversary, and update on...Everything!

“Bonjour Mesdames, Monsieur, here’s your industrious technician reporting on the latest updates…” (‘Oh spare us…’) Hehe but I am afraid I am very compelled to; it is merely a week since the ensemble was born, and I can barely believe how fast this little alcove gets this live and buzzing with life. Zhu and I have been revamping the place again on this weekiversary, and the newly added features are—

- New members and members’ profile, see zhu’s post or the link in top column of sidebar.
- Permalink to individual post, at bottom of each post.
- Took out the autoplay function in the radio, so that you don’t have to listen to the same song every time you enter. Turn the knob on the radio yourself~!
- And with that, a new, superb radio! Check it out!

Now, allow me to get a bit excited over this newly found gem…radio No.4 has really great picks, not just in diversity of genre/artist (jazz, blues, rock, alternative, folk, what-have-you), not just in language (English, French, Spanish (if am not wrong), Hindi (or a similar language)…), but the number of items in it is also…staggering. It could sustain me for at least three days. So allow me to introduce some of my much adored artists featured in this long, alphabetically ordered super-radio.

Billie Holliday – I’ll be seeing you
One of the greatest and most influential jazz singers, Billie’s melodious and often melancholic voice would hypnotize you, enchant you, and leave her lingering sounds in your heart for very long. A bit of her dramatic life and career here on wikipedia.

Cocteau Twins – Alice
If you appreciate the early works of Faye Wong, notably Impatience [Fu Zao], you should be aware of the influences of artists like Cocteau Twins and Bjork on Faye’s dreamy, nonchalant and chanting way of interpreting songs. ‘Alice’ might not be a best illustration of that, but it sure makes an interesting listening.

Damien Rice – the blower’s daughter
Ah my new favorite, I’ll do a longer post on him later…for now, let’s just say, if you watched Closer (the critically acclaimed movie of 2005, staring Natalie Portman, Jude Law, Julia Roberts and Clive Owen), if you remember the ending scene of a glowing Natalie walking down the street, you’d sure remember the poignant song that accompanied it. The music and words put shudders and goose bumps all over me when I first watched the movie—only particular, wonderful kinds of songs do that to me—and this is one of them. Listen to it.

Gabriel Yared – Betty Blue
Mr. Yared has been the one of the common favourite of zhu and me ever since we sat watching The English Patient together. His composition seems to always have that inexorable power to instantly transport the ear drums, together with the rest of which attaches to it, to another time-space, often the exotic, the quaint, the melodramatic, and the most moving. His prominent work in movie soundtrack include The Talented Mr. Ripley, Cold Mountain, City of Angels, L’amant (The Lover, of Duras’ novel), Camille Claudel (critically acclaimed biofilm of Rodin’s lover, a most talented sculptress), and a whole lot of French films that I haven’t a chance to see. ‘Betty Blue’ was for the French movie of the same name (or ’37.2 degres Le Matin’, its original French title), and though I can’t say it fully exhibits the power of Gabriel Yared’s scores, it is a very fitting item to the movie (if you have seen it.) Compared to other great music composers like John Williams or James Horner, I’d think Gabriel Yared’s no less great, if not more full of delights and wonders of his own kind. Overall: highly recommended. See Wikipedia entry, and Official site (also contained in sidebar).

Indochine – le grand secret
This is a famous French rock band, christened after the French colony in Indochina. I knew little about them, except they are a cool looking bunch of lads, write their own songs and lyrics, and has quite a following in France. ‘Le grand secret’ sounds kinda soft and tender with the guest female singer, which I totally adore, but I am sure they have more rocky stuff up their sleeves. I’ll check them out personally…

-----------
Arrrhhhh I am seriously overshooting the length I set for myself…sighs, ladies and gentleman, watch this space for update part 2 then…

Coming: Keren Ann, Yann Tiersen, and more..

Things to do, and things to come..

21 dec


- NEW CAMEL&WHALE PINK TEMPLATE! we decided it's time to go simple and easy on the eyes. template from blogbus originally and the banner is zhu's very original sketch. Howdya like it?
- updated link list of artists
- add zhu's and jady's personal music blogs

1 mai
- added wikipedia search form
- added more (lots more) links to Rock, Country and Indie sections
- radio no.6 up.

***
21 avril
- changed technorati search bar to blogger search bar.
- added photo credits to credit section
- radioblog no.5 up.
- more jazz artists links added.

***
26 mars
- changed to radioblog no.4, yann tiersen, keren ann, etc.
- added new members--fish, yy, carrot.
- adding member profile page (template/post)
- adding by-genre post directory
- added permalink to dateheader

jady & zhu.

***
23 mars, 22:00
- added technorati search bar, firefox icon
- categorised and added more links
- changed to radioblog no.3 - girl from ipanema et al

jady and zhu.

***
23 mars. 18:00
Only 2 days have passed since the last entry, but a dizzying flurry of changes/updates we have already seen made to this newborn baby--we are something of a hive of ultra diligent music bees. First of all, the hive welcomes a great many great new members--Esther sama, Jeremy san, Yaya san and Mina san. Esther sama, who exhibited an initial reluctance to take the plunge into this crazy obsessive enterprise, has been one of the most frequent contributor since (the other one been the omnipresent (in a temporal sense) zhu..)

We have yet to get our own host for music, but we nevertheless managed to keep this music blog a music blog--by stealing other radioblogs. see zhu san's post for detailed crime record. The blue radioblog playing 'deep blue sea' is the second one we've taken to date. More to come.

Finally, on links. Some compulsive-obsessive member has been changing link colors up to 3 times--lilac, yellow and i forgot the first one(!)-- within a single day. Insupportable! To settle the matter once and for all, at least for the current week (we are a volatile bunch), moi, I scolded this overworking perfectionist and set it back to blue and crimson as requested by zhu. Also changed title color, position, and text-tranform (capitalize). (Now I sound overdiligent.) So much for now, I plan to hunt for a new radioblog myself soon. =D

Jady.

***
21 mars
Updates on radioblog
Seems the setup is easy, except that finding free hosting sites is still a problem. I registered at 5gigs.com but no idea how to login, let alone upload songs..waiting to hear from the helpdesk.

Jady.

***
20 mars.
Evening updates:
Gosh, now the whole layout is so blue my eyes start to spin. Finally everything's in order. I grabbed a tempalte from that author (your 9stories blog) and did some adjustments. The border's still a problem and the ukulele icon is somewhat out of chord now everything's so blue. You can change anything that stings your eyes. I have absolutely no objection ^^

Still, here's toast to our music blog!

zhu.

***
19 mars.
at the beginning..
- pulldown menu for recent posts
- head-banner with title merged in
- banner for tagboard
- a suitable separator
- more, categorised links - no end to this..
- mediaplayer and editors' pick of songs
- check out free hosting sites for songs
- check radioblog and similar applets
- and of course, music reviews/recommendations/downloads/related/...
- inviting friends (i typed 'fiends') to join =D - invitation always open.

event log

Purely for housekeeping:

1 mai
- got rid of the original olive bg and changed to the current cappucino tinge. widened the mainblog box. added permalink etc standard ones.

avril
- applied caz's coffee time template. added blogger search bar.

26 mars
- changed bg color to crimson. how do you find it?
- added technorati yesterday and firefox icon today.
- added permalink to the dateheader, and comments now come in pop-up form.

24 mars
- changed intro

as of 13th mars 2006 we
- removed the blogger bar at the top, finally..
- added pull-down menu for archive and recent posts
- rearranged the very incomplete links

yet/proposed to do:
- change the light yellow grey background to another color/pattern? - no.
- and more poring over html tutorials for me..now I want to do a 'map' code on everything..the onset of mania, tata~

Cheers!

21 Aug 05
Jade & me finished house-moving. Wanted to celebrate with champaign & pizza. But sorry I had long beans cooked with green pepper, and a cup of plain water to wash away the greasy feel in my mouth. And Jade headed for her money grossing business (aka private tuition).

The furniture was so dusty we couldn't even remember its owner. Jade looked at the photo in which a black chimp died mysteriously. Alongside its bloody corpse lay three arrows. The hints missed her and Jade looked again, baffled. Oh I took the photo last year. Isn't it classic?

'Write something if you're in the mood.'

So here I am giving the brush a deliberate stroke. Whether in or out of the mood, there it was, a new trail of paint on the wall. I would be glad to mark the first stroke which I know, would soon be lost in a sea of coloured graffiti. Or at least I hope.

Here comes Cigarettes & Chocolate Milk...
- These're just a couple of my cravings

Cigarettes and chocolate milk
These are just a couple of my cravings
Everything it seems I like's a little bit stronger
A little bit thicker, a little bit harmful for me

If I should buy jellybeans
Have to eat them all in just one sitting
Everything it seems I like's a little bit sweeter
A little bit fatter, a little bit harmful for me

And then there's those other things
Which for several reasons we won't mention
Everything about 'em is a little bit stranger, a little bit harder
A little bit deadly

It's not very smart
Tends to make one part
So brokenhearted

Sitting here remembering me
Always been a shoe made for the city
Go ahead accuse me of just singing about places
With scrappy boys faces have general run of the town

Playing with prodigal sons
Take a lot of sentimental valiums
Can't expect the world to be your raggedy andy
While running on empty you little old doll with a frown

You got to keep in the game
Retaining mystique while facing forward
I suggest a reading of lesson in tightropes
Or surfing your high hopes or adios kansas

It’s not very smart
Tends to make one part
So brokenhearted

Still there’s not a show on my back
Holes or a friendly intervention
I’m just a little bit heiress, a little bit irish
A little bit tower of pisa
Whenever I see ya
So please be kind if I’m a mess

Cigarettes and chocolate milk
Cigarettes and chocolate milk

Progress report

Okay, after so long, finally set to work on this little corner of ours and fixed the few problems. The comment function beats me though----can't figure out how to create a comments page, even after pouring over all the html codes I altered before. Anyway, guess we should be more anxious about writing more than editing the template, else we can work together in a web-design company by the time we graduate. Which ain't too bad, hohoho. Now, feedback, s'il te plait! Guess we'll have to make do with the tagboard first..or a new post!

tentative skin

ripped this skin off www.blogskin.com didn't realize it's not ad-free. I have no idea how to remove/restore the blogger search bar. It looks weird. Changed all the designs of course just to go slapstick. Hope it's not too nitty gritty girlie. Since you like gree, i added green chili. and since i like red, i did a mirror image. soo haha, my job's done. I'll leave the thousands links for you to sort out... Dun call me cruel, baby. I'll be happy to move everything else from moviegoer.

sooo I decide you're the better one at html, if you could remove/restore the blogger bar that'll be perfect. and the line {blogauthor}slapsticked at blah blah, if you could change it into another colour so as to be distinct from blog entry title that'll be great. And also there's no comment bar. I haven't added the codes yet...

ok just make any changes to ur liking. I shall take a break ^^

great great

ah good..i put up the 9stories template for the time being, but i'll be searching for nice sets of wallpapers and picture that should please both of us for substituion. and the sidebar..well, we'll sort them out..bravo, go on working now! and all the best for your tests!!

testing

site under construction..

'moviegoer' tagbox conversations..

jady: after some relentless refreshing of the page it finally turned out right......
jady: relieve relieve relieve..now going to have lunch..been munching chocolate all day...
zhu: jadyyyyyyyy, tell me how to access this blog, what username n passwd in order to post
zhu: or can i just post msg in the reply box? hope not
jady: hey hey how come you still ard?! i emailed you the username and pswd, didn you get th
jady: i'll send again..of course you shouldn confine yourself to tiny shoutbox spaces..
jady: you are the all-important other half of SlapStick the enterprise!!
jady: :P
slap: carried on another verse with 'a bird', keep loading
slap: hew, made great progress, starving, out to dinner
j: good god it's HUGE progress!!! i am so very happy and energised!! gonna work on it..
slap: stick, help me complete slapstick timeline n moviegoer list
stick: sure sure,working on them now..
stick: updates still refuse to show their faces on main page..frustrating..se-nt another
stick: complaint to blogcn.hopefully the matter will be soon looked into and solved..
stick: the broken english too..shouldn't appear this way at all.gotta wait for their response
stick: and where's the birdie continuation? i can't find it...
slap: it's right after wat u wrote
stick: 555 i think it's lost in the posting process...see4 yrself, it's not there...
stick: try post again..and it will go on and on and on..hohohoho
slap: it's under that same old title 'a bird, a continuation'
slap: i added on another verse n saved it under the old title
stick: strange..when i click on it all that shows is the old one..i'll go control panel n c.
slap: i think this's really
slap: funny,
slap: that we're conversing in howler boxes hahahahhahaha
stick: haha you are not on msn! that's why!
stick: not that i have read it thrice i think it now is a rather self-contained egg...
stick: neatly packaged and finished. start another one maybe..shall we?
slap: great! start on another one, prob the novel too. i can't go on msn, my dad's there,
slap: and it's bloody late, and it's sinful to block one's own parents on msn
stick: :P as you say..i always go invisible on yahoo and they can buzz me if they feel like
stick: go to bed dear slap..it's indeed bloody late..i'll see you soon..
slap: i'm going sleep, why am i not sleeping yet, mad
stick: am going sleep.it's 2am sharp. just posted the movie list.not yet writing on ss days.
stick: blogcn will get a new server next week, or so they say.hope things get better then..
slap: sweet dreams pal! movie list up, keep loading
slap: i'll delete the eng patient quote, repeated
stick: philosophy test tomolo..gonna revise revise revise today..i'll see what i can do toda
slap: mug today, don't do anything else. damn msn
stick: seems the broken word problem is fixed..now only the update display prob..biggest one
stick: great.that bloody piece of blade runner review finally disappears..hope e rest appear
stick: very soon, and neatly formatted too..es complained lengthily abt blogcn the other day
stick: coz o biology...blog isn functioning smoothly either..persuaded to change to blogspot
stick: but i think i'll stick to here for the time being..thoughts?
stick: stick wanna stick here and slap may want to slap stick for that..­
stick: oh b4 i forget--compose in msword or somewhere stable and paste into box to post..
stick: coz it's customary tt blogcn loses stuff in the process..i got tt e very 1st time...
stick: maiden post 'lost in translation'...and wary of bloody blogcn ever since..
slap: stick, you're safe. let's stick to this blog.
stick: last exam gone.wasn as bad as i tot.raging storm outside.working full power!!!!!!!!!
stick: uploaded some munch...but unable to get SHRIEK up there since it's way too big..55555
stick: also uploaded friend's painting tt i promised..take a look in e folder n u'll c ­
stick: xiaocui's bday..ate cake juz now..so poisonously sweet n creamy!!!!!!yum yum...
stick: oops i juz saw tt dog paw quote fr EP is alr there in e original post..did u add tt.?
stick: or was it my glassy eyes tt tricked and fooled me into such blunder as to repeat it.?
slap: i added ur paw quote there afterwards, haha nothin'g wrong w ur eyes
slap: geez i forgot xiaocui's bday, and cakes...555
slap: stick, let's embark on our novel soonish!-after my exam... Dec 20th
slap: saw the 'twilight' pic, gd colour, gd feel
stick: SURE!i'll try work a little sth out today..it's 14:17 n i just got up...:P
stick: HAHAHA juz sent blogcn a 3rd, V ANGRY complaint, and there~blog updates duely appear~
stick: persistance leads to eventual victory wah!!
stick: made some changes to chap1,which hasn shown up.will continue later.it's 8am now and
stick: i'm going w/o sleep for 20 hrs..so, going to bed!!hoho, cya later~
slap: thining hard on the novel...
jady: jude! my blog mania surfaced again!! i just registered a new blog on blogspot....­
jady: what madness. what illness!
jady: i'm gonna repost 2046 when i finish it, and you shall see the tony leung bit then..
jady: thoroughly exhausted again..intense activity alternates w/ indefinite inactivity..
jady: such is life. c'est bizarre!
jude: norwegian forest, beetle song??
j: norweigian WOODS by beAtles..hehe yes
slap: hahahaha lol i hereby claim the typo queen crown
slap: ok from today onwards i'm gonna check n update our jj blog consistently
slap: on dan brown, i dun know him so i can't say much
slap: wait till i come back after dinner n continue with the reply
slap: the lover looks great read! i'm gonna borrow the book
j: haha great u finally drop by!! stick is lonely here..
j: and happy valentine's..which isn't for lovers narrowly defined only i believe..hehe