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!