Wellington’s Tranz Metro trains have lately been known for certain carriages with broken heating. It’s horrible enough being (relatively) young and only faced with a 30-minute chilly commute. I wouldn’t want to be a Paraparam gran making the hour-long trip to Wellington in an unheated carriage.

But it seems that while the carriages are slowly being fixed, Trans Metro are also paying attention to, you know, being nice to customers. This morning when I was waiting for my usual train, a fellow came up to me representing Tranz Metro and asked me a few survey questions about the cold carriages.

One question was the toss-up between removing carriages with broken heaters from service and therefore having more crowding in the usual train servcies.

But most interestingly, it seems that Tranz Metro will be offering passengers a 5% discount on monthly train tickets for July, or else a couple of free Fridays in July if you use a daily ticket.

The survey asked if this was adequate compo. Well, for me it might be, but probably not for an arthritic senior.

Let’s hope that Tranz Metro gets their heating problems sorted out before the end of winter.

This Friday June 5 is World Environment Day, and in our fairy capital city, and in other spots around the coutry hundreds of people will “freeze” together to show united action for climate change.

The Freeze is set to kick off at 1pm for just five minutes.

Right now the location is all secret squirrel, but stay tuned

Nick Potter, Personal Assistant to Mr Freeze and lead co-ordinator of a team of volunteers, says

“If there was ever a time for you to get involved – it’s now. 2009 is a crucial year of action and in December, a new global climate treaty will be negotiated in Copenhagen. We need to come together and send the message that global agreement is essential and that bold and urgent action is needed.”

And look you can even check out last year’s freeze, on the you tube.

I’m thinking standing in the middle of the road is not the most ideal place to freeze, so as the girl guides used to say, be prepared.

People can join the Freeze and find out more at www.freezenz.wordpress.com

What are you doing on Saturday? How about you go on a treasure hunt to find me* yourself a diamond ring? iChild on twitter explains it:

So, what’s this all about then?? Story goes, guy bought ring for girl, girl didn’t want ring. Guy couldn’t give it to another, and doesn’t want to sell it. Guy also happens to be the guy behind Donoogle.com …Guy decides that rather than just having this ring sitting around, he would create a treasure hunt around Wellington to give away said ring and use it at the same time to promote this choice website which everyone should use!

So if you want to participate, you should start following donoogle_com. It does seem a little bit astroturfy to my eyes, but hey, treasure hunts are always fun. Especially if you do it dressed up as a pirate. Or a panda.

*(Although I must state for the record that I would rather have a single diamond on my ring, and I’d like it to be aproximately the size of my fist, thanks.) 

This morning-ish, I was juggling headphones, iPod, scarf, hat, satchel and extra bag on the bus, as well as trying to text, and unbeknownst to me, I managed to drop my phone on the bus.

When I got into work, I had a message on my answerphone from my mum, saying that she’d got a call from someone who had my cellphone, and that I should call my number to arrange a pick-up. Right now I’d like to take a moment to say that everyone really should have an ICE (in case of emergency) number saved into their phone, it really makes everything much more awesome.

So I called my phone, and a lovely girl answered, and after a brief freakout ("You’ve got my phone and you’re in Taranaki???? Ooooooh, Taranaki STREET!") I arranged to grab it off her at the railway station this afternoon. I bought some chocolate, and met her, she gave me my phone, I gave her the chocolate, and she told me that this morning getting off the train she’d dropped her phone, and someone had called out to her about it. Yay happy karma!

Anyway, my point is, this story is full of happy goodness. I mean, you can only imagine how many top secret Wellingtonista secrets and dirty photos that my phone contains. I’m so glad I got it back so easily, and I hope that you will all consider doing a good deed tomorrow as well. Wahoo.

Now, I’m not sure if you’ve noticed or not, but the weather lately has been somewhat less than pleasant. Unless you happen to be a wavewatcher or rather crazy surfer, that is, in which case there have been some rather spectacular things to see. If you’re the kind who’d rather stay inside nice and warm, here’s a fantastic video that Dave Frampton has made to show you what you’re missing

Storm in slow motion from David Frampton on Vimeo.

X Way Vision is a video of live performances by artists from the Dunedin-based Xpressway record label. Performing artists include The Dead C, Alastair Galbraith, Plagal Grind, Chris Heazlewood & Greg Cairns, Shayne Carter, and Chug.

Screening at the Film Archive, Wednesday 27 May at 7pm. Tickets $8/6 concession.

[Read more after the jump]

So, the John St/Riddiford St/Adelaide Rd intersection has undergone a bit of a lights phasing tweak. It took this particular Wellingtonista by surprise when, last week, I confidently started to cross John St as the lights turned to red, only to discover that instead of my little green man, I was now the target for traffic coming down from Adelaide Rd.

There’s been some good that’s come from the change – the most obvious one being that pedestrians crossing John St (with the green man, that is), are no longer in danger of being skittled by right-turning traffic from Adelaide Rd heading up John St (it was a common trick for the first one or two cars in that queue to dive across the intersection as soon as the lights turned green).

On the other hand, pedestrians crossing at the same place now have to contend with traffic run the orange (or, even the red!) from Riddiford St and heading up John St. Every single morning I’ve had to cross at that point, cars have sailed through the intersection a good few seconds after the green man has gone off. It’s particularly bad if you’re crossing south-to-north, as the traffic is coming from behind you, out of your line of sight. It won’t be long before someone gets knocked over: mark my words!

How’s it working out for you? Drivers – any thoughts?

Alert reader Andy writes to inform us that it is free day Te Papa! (Today being Thu 7 March May).

…so if you want to go see the Monet exhibition you can do so without paying $15 entry. Te Papa is open until 9pm tonight.

Be warned though that there will probably be crowds.

Thanks Andy!

Update: As Andy points out in the comments, the offer is only valid for Wellington residents, so bring along some proof that you live locally. Because we all know what happens if you’re not local…