Author: Joanna

Have a Caeli — that’s Ball to you!

Cys­tic Fibro­sis is a cause close to the hearts of some of the Welling­ton­ista, so we’re real­ly hap­py to pro­mote the Win­ter Caeli (Scot­tish Ball) at the Inter­con­ti­nen­tal on August 23.

This fundrais­ing ball will be an event like noth­ing ever seen before in Welling­ton — find out how things are done the Scot­tish way and help raise mon­ey in style

Tick­ets are $90, and for that you get:

• Wel­come bub­bles
• Three course meal
• Wine with din­ner
• Live music
• Scot­tish danc­ing
• Fundrais­ing auc­tion and raf­fle

For more infor­ma­tion or to buy tick­ets, con­tact 0800 651122 or CFwinterball@gmail.com

Afterblaster: Awesomeness in a ring

I’ve said it before and I’ll no doubt say it again, but there are few things as fun as going to the wrestling. Just check out the audio of the video below if you don’t believe me.

Yes, that’s the almighty Lazarus Volt kick­ing the Con­dor’s ass quite sound­ly, and he’ll be doing the same thing to the crotchety old Brute this Fri­day July 24 at Afterblaster and you should be there to see it. Details are on the Kiwi Pro Wrestling site, but what you need to know is that doors open at 7.30pm and tick­ets are $15 pre­sales, or $20 on the door.

Girls are different from boys — apparently

So tonight was the Sil­i­con Welly mag­a­zine launch par­ty (which we twit­tered about yes­ter­day), and nat­u­ral­ly I was there, rep­re­sent­ing for the Welling­ton­ista. I was inter­est­ed to see that in this IT net­work­ing occa­sion, the ratio of guys to girls was about 7/2, and in talk­ing to the rare woman there, I found that — like me — the major­i­ty of them worked in project man­age­ment, comms or organ­i­sa­tion. As Welling­ton’s offi­cial Queen of the Geeks Bren­da has asked before (sor­ry, I can’t find the link, maybe she’ll com­ment with it) — where are all the female pro­gram­mers at? And if you look at the cov­er of this issue of Start-Up, you’ll see that only ONE of the Sil­i­con Welly hon­orees is female. What’s going on, peo­ple?

I don’t have the answers, so I sup­pose all I can do is pro­mote some gen­der-sep­a­rate events. Pret­ty Pret­ty Pret­ty which is the girlie site I run with Wellling­ton­ista PAG Amy, is hav­ing a big girlie par­ty to cel­e­brate our third (month) anniver­sary, and if you’re a lady, you’re invit­ed. Mean­while, in response, the boys are hold­ing anoth­er Chap’s Night that you might hap­pen to come across. Enjoy!

Cellar-Vate Nga Waka Dinner Menu July 9

We men­tioned it before (and reviewed a pre­vi­ous din­ner), but if you need fur­ther con­vinc­ing, here’s the menu for the Cel­lar-Vate Nga Waka din­ner on July 9

Nga Waka Three Pad­dles Sauvi­gnon Blanc ‘07
Corn, cap­sicum and pars­ley risot­to with goats cheese

Nga Waka Ries­ling ‘03
Skin-on Ter­ak­i­hi, water­mel­on, red onion and dill sal­sa

Nga Waka Mar­t­in­bor­ough Chardon­nay ‘07
Gin­ger, soy and chilli chick­en pieces

Nga Waka Home Block Chardon­nay ‘04
Sliced pork rib­eye with Dijon, cream and white wine sauce

Nga Waka Pinot Noir ‘06
Rab­bit pie, mash and jus

Nga Waka Late Har­vest Ries­ling ‘04
Coconut pan­na cot­ta

You don’t get huge por­tions of any­thing, but you do get lots of taste­bud par­ties in your mouth, and stim­u­lat­ing con­ver­sa­tion. There are still some tick­ets avail­able for this tast­ing. Book­ings can be made by e‑mailing Rebec­ca — becs[a]cellar-vate.co.nz. The event costs $40.00 a head and starts at 6pm in the Cab­i­net Room (func­tion suite above the Back­bencher).

We got a great big convoy, filling up the streets

If you’re plan­ning on dri­ving to work tomor­row, or even if you’re plan­ning on tak­ing pub­lic trans­port, you should read the fol­low­ing press release about the great big moth­er-truck­ing protest that’s planned for tomor­row morn­ing in Welling­ton.

Analyse this!

I’ve been pok­ing around in our site stats which tell us every­thing about you, from the colour of your eyes to your home address, and whether any of you are scrawny with big noses, small chins and many issues or not, and I’ve realised that the Welling­ton­ista is fail­ing you in a cou­ple of areas.

1. We haven’t made any procla­ma­tions as to which is the best broth­el in town, or even done any reviews that we’ve writ­ten about.

2. We haven’t writ­ten any Flight of the Con­chords slash fic­tion. Well, out­side of our heads, any­way.

3. We can’t tell you how much Short­land Street actors get paid. I don’t think even the Auck­lan­dista could help with that one, although they’d like to.

Per­haps our love­ly read­ers could address or answer these issues in the com­ments?

Molesworthy updates

Item! The next Cel­lar-vate din­ner, which we have drooled about before is on July 9, fea­tur­ing Ngawa­ka wines, and it costs $40. Give the love­ly Rebec­ca a call to reserve your tick­ets.

Item! The super­cute Green Land Cafe under the Min­istry for the Envi­ron­ment on Kate Shep­pard Place is run­ning a com­pe­ti­tion to win a bot­tle of the famous olive oil grown on Mt. Vic. Buy a cof­fee, pick an num­ber and go into the draw. Actu­al­ly, don’t, because it’s a gor­geous green vir­gin, and I wants it. So back off! Also, how love­ly are the staff there? They total­ly but­tered my scone for me, if you know what I mean. And of course what I mean is I think it’s part of their waste reduc­tion respon­si­bil­i­ties.

Item! It’s not near Molesworth Street, but it’s just as bleak — Stan­ley Road on the cor­ner of Vic­to­ria Street and Wille­ston is run­ning Hap­py Hour from 4pm-6pm, with all kinds of beers (Coro­na etc) for just $3.50. It’s not a par­tic­u­lar­ly cosy spot, but hey, giv­en how dry this part of town is, con­sid­er it a good oasis to stop at while you cross the desert of Willis Quar­ter.

Eat Lessbanese

We’ve men­tioned Habe­bie Restau­rant before (well, actu­al­ly I can’t find a link, so maybe we did­n’t actu­al­ly) but we have excit­ing news — it’s BYO now (and may have been for a while now), but more impor­tant­ly, from Mon­day-Thurs­day, all mains (except seafood) are $17. And since prices for mains usu­al­ly go from $22–28, and that includes meze starter plat­ters, we’re telling you to get your ass­es down there for some awe­some big piles of meat. But take a cardie — it’s not the warmest place ever.

Have you ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?

As we move through the elec­tion year, we’re going to start get­ting plen­ty of invites to “Meet the can­di­dates” type events. We wan­na know about the nefar­i­ous ins and outs of invi­ta­tions you receive. Are they unso­licit­ed? Do they pro­vide you with instruc­tions on how to get there using pub­lic trans­port or are they pure­ly for the car-dri­vers? Are they encour­ag­ing healthy debate or unhealthy drink­ing? Or are they, as one invi­ta­tion the fly spot­ted recent­ly, sug­gest­ing that you park in near­by super­mar­ket carparks, per­haps because they’re work­ing in an unholy alliance with a tow­ing com­pa­ny?

Spill your guts. Keep us in the know.

Winter tidbits

1. Plum is now doing 2‑for‑1 for small plates on Tues­days
2. It’s 1994 all over again with the new plaid shirt uni­forms at the South­ern Cross
3. There is a Lon­es­tar open­ing in Petone. Get your big plates of meat in the Hutt with­out a sur­charge on pub­lic hol­i­days!
4. Mojo Bond St have mulled wine, as does the Green Room.
5. Cafe Ital­iano is offer­ing 2‑for‑1 pas­tas for $15 on Mon­days and Tues­days.

That’s all we’ve got for now.