Author: Tom

We all like a mystery, right?

Well, maybe not this per­son. But oth­ers, and espe­cial­ly out-of-town­ers, might be intrigued by this auc­tion of a mys­tery week­end in Welling­ton this week­end. Even if you’re in Welling­ton already, the accom­mo­da­tion for two, togeth­er with promis­es of “presents, choco­lates …” and “… some­thing in there that no amount of mon­ey could buy” could make it all worth­while.

You’d bet­ter hur­ry, though, since the bid­ding clos­es this evening.

Civic pride

It may not be Welling­ton­ista Awards sea­son just yet, but here’s anoth­er chance to put in a plug for your favourite things in the Welling­ton built envi­ron­ment. The Welling­ton Civic Trust Awards are com­ing up, and the trust wants your nom­i­na­tions for the best recent con­tri­bu­tions in the fol­low­ing fields:

• Build­ing
• Her­itage
• Envi­ron­men­tal
• Pub­lic Space
• Street Art

Nnom­i­na­tions close on the 18th of August, and nom­i­nat­ed projects must have been com­plet­ed since the pre­vi­ous awards in 2005. There’s also a sep­a­rate vot­ing form for best new sculp­ture, and if the sculp­ture that does it for you isn’t on that list, you could always nom­i­nate it in the Street Art cat­e­go­ry.

As well as nom­i­nat­ing your favourites, feel free to com­ment here and share your rants and raves.

Talking ’bout the weather

Appar­ent­ly all hell is break­ing loose in the Hutt: rumours of heavy rain warn­ings abound, and mes­sages are going around offices advis­ing peo­ple liv­ing in East­bourne to head home NOW. Cer­tain­ly the radar shows some nasty stuff around, the result of the souther­ly mak­ing its way north­wards, and the rain­fall sen­sors and stream flows are start­ing to pick up. If any­thing dra­mat­ic starts to hap­pen, do let us all know!

Hivemind: laptop repair without extortion?

Con­sid­er, hypo­thet­i­cal­ly, that one had dropped one’s lap­top, break­ing the back­light to the LCD screen but leav­ing the screen itself intact. Con­sid­er also that the autho­rised repair com­pa­ny for the lap­top man­u­fac­tur­er (name omit­ted to pro­tect the thiev­ing monop­o­lis­tic b*st*rds inno­cent) said that the whole screen has to be replaced at a cost of near­ly $500, when it seems that it is the­o­ret­i­cal­ly quite pos­si­ble to replace just the lamp, a com­po­nent that is worth in the region of $20.

Now sup­pose, hypo­thet­i­cal­ly of course, that the own­er of said lap­top is too stingy envi­ron­men­tal­ly respon­si­ble to throw away a per­fect­ly good LCD screen. Where in Welling­ton might that the­o­ret­i­cal own­er find a reli­able, rea­son­ably-priced inde­pen­dent lap­top repair­er?

Let’s go shwopping

Want new threads but can’t afford them in these strait­ened times? Got some old clothes that you want to see go to a good home? Wor­ried about the envi­ron­men­tal obscen­i­ty of our throw-away fash­ion cul­ture? Then The Big Shwop is for you.

The con­cept of “swish­ing”, clothes-swap­ping par­ties for eco-con­scious fash­ion­istas, has been around for a while. Our love­ly love­ly love­ly friends at Pret­ty Pret­ty Pret­ty also had a “dud-swap” for cos­met­ic prod­ucts at their big par­ty. But The Big Shwop takes it to a more pub­lic lev­el, with their first Shwop hap­pen­ing at the South­ern Cross on Sat­ur­day August the 2nd. For more details on how it works, see their web site.

Mighty-ness

As you may have twigged by now, we likes us some Mighty Mighty. How­ev­er, even we usu­al­ly draw the line at spend­ing two nights in a row there danc­ing our col­lec­tive ars­es off and get­ting Real Sloshed Bitch­es. It’s going to be hard to resist the temp­ta­tion this week­end though, kick­ing off on Fri­day night with TV Disko and car­ry­ing on with the L.E.D.s on Sat­ur­day.

(more syn­th­tas­tic good­ies after the jump)

Opening and closing

Here’s a cou­ple of exhi­bi­tions with open­ings that you’ll want to attend, and one that you real­ly ought to see before it clos­es.

First up, Page Black­ie Gallery (which is a much less geo­graph­i­cal­ly con­fus­ing name than its pre­vi­ous incar­na­tion as Tinako­ri Gallery) launch­es a new exhi­bi­tion of Gina Jones’ light works tomor­row night (Tues­day 24th from 5:30pm). Jones’ work will be famil­iar to many from her per­ma­nent instal­la­tion in the gallery, and even if the Page Black­ie crowd tends towards an old­er demo­graph­ic (you could almost hear the old mon­ey rustling at the recent Max Gim­blett launch), the open­ings can still be live­ly affairs: the Masked Barfly warns us to get there ear­ly and stake out the drinks table.

The open­ing of Jane Kel­la­han’s Humankind exhi­bi­tion, from which the above image “The Heal­ers” is tak­en, sounds like it’s aimed at a slight­ly dif­fer­ent audi­ence. It will fea­ture live music by mem­bers of Phoenix Foun­da­tion and Fat Fred­dy’s Drop, and it’s on at the Wool­store Design Cen­tre (262 Thorn­don Quay) from 5:30pm next Wednes­day the 2nd of July. If you miss the launch but want to see her work, you’ll have to be quick because it’s only on until the 5th, or if you’re real­ly keen she also runs work­shops.

(more after the jump)

Electro-rock overload

Expat Welling­ton­ian key­tar-tot­ing fash­ion­ista sex­pots Char­lie Ash are back in town and play­ing at Bode­ga this Sat­ur­day.

There’s the usu­al huge line-up of sup­port acts, includ­ing MC Stormtroop­er, Tri­mas­ter­bate and Heat Like Me, who some of you may remem­ber from the recent L.E.D.s gig. They’re a lit­tle bit Eight­ies elec­tro and just a lit­tle bit late-Nineties tech­no (not that there’s any­thing wrong with that), and they should com­ple­ment Char­lie Ash’s punky lycra-glam just so.

But for those who want their rock with a lit­tle less glit­ter and a whole lot more feed­back, Sat­ur­day night may be bet­ter spent at Hap­py, where Welling­ton’s favourite post-prog-drone-noise out­fit The Stumps take on Mel­bourne’s Elise & Jem and Hut­tite ambi­ent-art-met­al super­stars Black Boned Angel. If you’re unde­cid­ed and brim­ming with sta­mi­na you might try mak­ing it to both: but good luck try­ing to find an out­fit to suit both gigs.

Hump Day Air Humps

Looks like our inver­te­brate col­league has been doing what flies do best: spread­ing dirt. But the fine weath­er has made us cheer­ful, so we thought it was time to spread some sun­shine about some of the things we love.

The Chef’s Café, 251 Cuba St. Not exact­ly high-class decor, but at $12.90 all-inclu­sive for bet­ter-than-aver­age cur­ry, rice & naan, we’re not com­plain­ing. Plus, it’s BYO.

Sprin­klers saved St Peter’s: might they save you next?

Sta­ble, at 47 Willis St, seems like the most inter­est­ing of the Chews Lane retail offer­ings. More than the usu­al Huffer/Diesel streetwear (though there’s that too): Marc by Marc Jacobs, Kate Sylvester menswear and Cheap Mon­day.

Dymocks’ Tues­day Temp­ta­tion deals (20% off and changes each week).

Sweet Fan­ny Anne’s. The delight­ful Claire has a total­ly win­ning smile and atti­tude, and if you buy a cof­fee, you get to draw a card. If you get an ace, you get the cof­fee for free. If you draw the Jok­er, you get to tell a joke, and if you make Claire laugh, you also get free cof­fee!