Silicon Welly
We didn’t even have to come up with that pun – it came preformed via Idealog, in an article which talks about how Wellington is helping to make the web ‘cool’ again in New Zealand.
With the likes of TradeMe, ProjectX (the latter being the creators of zoomin.co.nz), and, well, us, being based in our fair old town, not to mention those movie guys over at Weta, Wellington is quickly making a name for itself as a hub of creative technological endeavour. As is pointed out over at the ProjectX blog…
Wellington is hotting up with start-up fever. I know of 4–5 startups that are currently in the pipeline. With Weta now scaling up in terms of people and projects (more movies, animation and games) , Wellington is a buzz with all the activity. There are going to be some good opportunities for skilled people to work on some kick ass projects.
How am I funny?
What do ya mean, funny? Let me understand this cause, I don’t know maybe it’s me, I’m a little fucked up maybe, but I’m funny how? I mean, funny like I’m a clown, I amuse you? I make you laugh… I’m here to fuckin’ amuse you? What do you mean funny, funny how? How am I funny?
Errr, that’s not really relevant, but it is a good scene.
Anyway, if you think you are funny, register yourself for the Wellington Comedy Club’s Rookie competition, taking place at the San Francisco Bathhouse on October 21st (as per the Comedy Club’s website), or maybe the the 19th of October (as per Newtown Ghetto Anger’s website). Head over to the Wellington Comedy Club website for more details.
There’s also a related workshop for budding comedians to hone their skills – a one hour session with some local pros on the 12th of October, again at the SF Bathhouse. More details on that at Newtown Ghetto Anger.
Links for Monday, 9 October 2006
- Gen XY’s Top 10 list of what’s wrong with Wellington parking.
- Mystery Bar 45 at WellUrban.
- Surfaid have a concert coming up in November at the Town Hall, featuring The Phoenix Foundation, Open Souls, The Little Bushmen, Twinset, Odessa and The Wellington Ukelele Orchestra.
- …and Cactus Kate has never “really understood Wellingtonians.” Likewise, we don’t really understand Ms. Kate.
The Player and the Advocate
Oscar is a hotshot young actor in the bustling Elizabethan Wellington theatre scene, loved by the Publick, but resented by the authorities. When he is kicked out of his theatre company for ‘improvising’, he must fight, not only to get his job back, but also to stop the Queen from pushing the country into all-out war…
What if Wellington were the centre of the Elizabethan world, pioneering an explosion in theatre, fashion, new music and coffeehouses at the birth of the modern age?
Awesome. The short pitch is ‘Whale Rider meets Shakespeare in Love’, but the above is the longer synopsis of the plot for The Player and the Advocate – a new film being written by Wellingtonian John Parker.
John’s having a public reading of the feature film treatment on…
Sunday 1st October, 4:00pm
@ Katipo Café, 76 Willis Street, Wellington
Duration: 1 hour (45 minutes for reading, 15 minutes feedback session)
Cost: free!
Featuring: Erin Banks and James Stewart, two of Wellington’s finest theatrical talent
…so feel free to head along and help shape what will hopefully be one of the next great pieces of Wellington film-making at its earliest stages.
More reasons to moan about the buses…
The fares have gone up! Well, for some of us they have. The new zones do make things a little simpler, but one gets the feeling the 1, 2 and 3 stage price hikes will generally outweigh the discounts the more rare 4 stage traveller will be making. Don’t know about you train users. You can fend for yourself.
If you’re a little confused about it all MetLink have excellent online info about the new zones and fares.
And to the bus-driver who looked stroppy at me this morning when I presented my brand new (but old-school $20 three-stage ten trip), and griped that I should be using one of the new cards, and made his decision to let me on regardless seem as if was the greatest show of magnaminity shown by a single person across the Wellington region this year, might I now say (having checked the rules): “Get stuffed! It’s valid to the 17th!”
Dear Fellow Bus Passenger,
…if you find yourself halfway down the bus, during rush-hour, with the entire rear of the bus’s aisle not only empty, but with half a dozen seats still there for taking, please don’t just stand there, acting as a dam against the ever-increasing human stream forcing its way up against your inconsiderate arse.
Moving back, and up that one small step is all that divides you from a possible seat, and from allowing another ten or so people onto this bus, instead of causing them to wait 10 minutes until the next (probably also overcrowded) bus arrives. Arsehole.
Tom’s Martini on National Radio
For those who missed Tom discussing his Wellington Martini mission on Kim Hill’s Saturday morning National Radio, here’s a streaming mp3 link of the show. (Just click on it – it should fire up your default mp3 player and play the file. Don’t know how long the link will stay active, though.)
If windows media format is more your thing (and, if it is, may we recommend you review your digital media usage options), then head over the National Radio site and try changing the settings there.
Wellington JAFA?
The Generation XY crowd are having a competition to find an equivalent for the phrase used to describe a certain type of Aucklander: the JAFA.
It took about 35 or so comments before someone finally conjured up something for the JAFA’s age-old ally in movie-theatre tooth-decaying crime: SNIFTA (Suited Nominal Intellectual Funding Terrible Arts Snivelling Nerds In Flash Terrace Apartments).
But my personal favourite is…
AGENDA
Another Government Employee Not Doing Anything.
Which naturally leads to the ‘Hidden Agenda’ which are the New Govt Employees that are artificially holding the unemployment rate down.
Brilliant. Add your own suggestions to the Gen XY comments thread over here.
Photo Credits
Thanks to the photographers responsible for allowing us to use their work as the background image at the top of each page. If you weren’t aware, the image rotates for each individual browser every 24 hours.
The images are…
- Inside of the Embassy Picture theatre: ???
- Mephisto Jones grafitti collage: ???
- Flat White and a Cheese Scone: coffee photo by Taniwha. Not sure about the scone, to tell the truth.
- Wellington from the Turbine: noizyboy.
- Wellington Cityscape at Night photo by ???
- The City-to-Sea Bridge Icons: Taniwha.
World Cup Alter Ego: Take Two
Well, our initial short-list of potential under-achieving teams to support through the World Cup has proved somewhat too accurate: site favourite Holland weren’t in such Ruud health; personal pick Spain went down the drain like rain on the plain; and the poor old Mexicans wave goodbye to their cup hopes for another four years.
Of the initial shortlist, only Portugal remain. And of the other quarter-finalists who meet any of our criteria (under-achievers, exciting players, erratic form), you can’t consider the Ukraine, who are really too boring by half, as are one-time winner England, who might have come away with our sympathy vote if it wasn’t for the fact they’re playing such dour football.
Italy, Brazil, Argentina and Germany are all multiple winners, so that rules them out, leaving the other one-time winner France as our outside pick. They might be the go, actually, as on closer analysis, they certainly meet the criteria: only the one Cup championship in 1998, but then had the form-reversal of the tournament’s history when they couldn’t even score a goal in defending their title at the 2002 tournament. And plenty of flash players: Henry, Zizou, Saha, Vieira…
So, who’s it to be? Portugal, France…?