Tae Kwon Do World Champs

hiii-yah!Wellington has secured the rights to host the 2011 Tae Kwon Do (or Taekwondo, Taekwan-Do, or other variations, depending on where you look) World Champs. 

New Zealand finished 3rd at the 2007 World Champs (note, link is to a PDF of the medals table), and, with the sport thriving in NZ, the home team is expected to do well with the next event on home turf.

To celebrate, the International Taekwon-Do Foundation of New Zealand has organised a Taekwon-Do demonstration today (Thursday 30 Oct), which will, ahem, kick off at 2:30pm at Civic Square.

When you discover the irrefutable truth about demons can you still survive?

Halloween approaches and what better way to celebrate than to scare yourself shitless watching what’s rumoured to be the scariest movie ever produced in this country? Yep, the Wellingtonista Film Season at the Film Archive continues at 7pm on Wednesday the 29th October with Glenn Standring’s notorious The Irrefutable Truth About Demons.

A demon, yesterday

The Irrefutable Truth About Demons (official site) centres on Dr Harry Ballard (Karl Urban), a University lecturer who has become obsessed with exposing cults since the recent death of his brother. “The story unfolds,” explains Standring, “when Harry is attacked by this horrible cult, at which point he has to try and work out whether there is just a weird cult chasing him, or whether, there are in fact demons. So he goes through a whole reality shift that he’d never considered before – embarking on a journey to discover the irrefutable truth.”

More (including a 7 minute documentary video) after the jump

Samurai Store Coming

Almost in order to prove that rumours of the death of genuine, good quality music retailers in this country have been greatly exaggerated, on November 6 Wellington will have a new specialist music retail store. Samurai Store will be the retail extension to the long standing Samurai Distribution and the recently established ‘Samurai Music’ record label.

Samurai Store logo

Owned and operated by Geoff Wright (aka DJ Presha) with the assistance of Darryl McGown (aka D Dog from ‘Bass Frontiers’), Samurai Store will specialise in Drum and Bass, Dubstep, and Breaks vinyl, CDs, and a rage of related merchandise. The store will also be stocking other forms of electronic music and selling event tickets.

Wellington has not had a specialist store like this for many years, and with the knowledge and combined business experience going into the creation of this vinyl buyers paradise, Samurai Store will be an exciting addition to the capital city’s music retail entities.

Samurai Store [from 6 Nov 2008]
151 Willis Street [near that weird place where Turner’s Steakhouse was]
Wellington 6011
Phone: 04-3842145  Fax: 04-3843646
email: info@samuraistore.co.nz
 

Anti-racism rally and picnic

Remember a few years ago when a bunch of punks dressed up as fairies chased the National Front guys around the Railway Station beating them up?  LOLarama.  Anyhow…

Anti-racism activists will be holding a rally and picnic at the Wellington Cenotaph at 10am on Saturday October 25. The rally and picnic is in opposition to plans to hold a "Flag Day" rally by the "Nationalist Alliance", a coalition comprising the National Front, New Right and National Democrats. 

More about these asshats after the jump….

The Safety Dance

The Fly was out buzzing around recently, and was horrified to hear someone at a supposedly upmarket bar (for its type) politely ask a gentleman to remove his hat. Why might this be? he asked. Apparently it was a "security issue".

No hats, mate!

Are the watering holes of Wellington desparately afraid of tommy guns in trilbys? Semtex in sombreros? Flick-knives in fedoras? Apparently not, because the gentleman in question was later approached by the apologetic bar manager and provided with a glass of wine on the house, because the rule was devised to deter chavs rather than chaps: a rash of baseball caps at apeish rather than rakish angles had prompted a revision of the dress code.

Fair enough, one might say, but numerous punters were happily served while wearing the aforementioned ersatz sporting headgear, and one rum cove was even spotted wearing something more appropriate for a llama herder than a man-about-town. While one can sympathise with the management looking askance at our companion’s attire (and really, a Gatsby cap and club collar is so nouveau riche), surely if they mean to enforce sartorial standards it would be better not to hide behind "security" concerns and just be open about it.

WBL Round Four Results:

Holy crap! The last game of the season is tonight, and things are looking tight tight tight!

Last week the Purple Cobras took the Bowlingtonista 471 to 349, picking up an extra point for their highest score, while Tom from the Bowlingtonista got the league point for the best flair, bowling without spilling a drop of his martini held in the other hand. The Furry Ferals took Xero 372 to 314, which means they’re tied for first place with the Cobras, although the Cobras have a by-week this week, which means in theory that unless the Ferals don’t show up they can’t win the league, but I’m going to throw things WIDE OPEN and announce that tonight there’ll be league points for fastest bowl, slowest bowl AND best flair, and I know the Cobras have booked their own league, so we’ll see how things go. Meanwhile Bowlingtonista will be playing Xero for last place, and the Mighty Boost will be trying to move up to first or second instead of third. All bets are off, except on us having a good time. 

Bowlingtonista: 7 

Furry Ferals: 22

Mighty Boost: 16

Purple Cobras: 22

Xero: 6

 

Greens launch Wellington Transport Plan

The Greens have just launched their new Wellington Transport Plan, complete with Green MP Sue Kedgley as their Wellington Transport Spokesperson.

Wellington has a pretty kick-arse public transport system as it is, with a well used network of buses, trolley buses, trains and the good ol’ cable car. So what plans do the Greens have for the future?

In short, their plans involve: better walking, more cycling, cheaper buses, light rail, expanded trains, trolley bus love, and useful bus stops. And then there are other ideas, like encouraging people to work from home and shop online, and rethinking those mammoth planned roadworks.

Personally, I’m excited by the idea of turning the Melling train line into light rail that will extend into a loop through Lower Hutt. That’s right, you’ll be able to get the train to Queensgate without a massive walk. Wow, just like a proper grown-up city!

It will be interesting to see what plans, if any, the other parties have for Wellington’s transport.

Double Meat Palace

Double Meat Is Double SweetTemperance Bar might not be doing quite as well as it hoped, because they’re offering 2-for-1 mains on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays in their ads in the Capital Times. You can "Choose any menu item of our menu and receive another of the same or lesser value for free." Y’hear that? Any menu item of their menu!

Meanwhile The Establishment clearly feels threatened because they’ve been running an ad right next to it stating that they offer 2-for-1s every day but they don’t have any sign of their special on their annoying music-playing site (Seriously, who still does that? Is it still 1999? Is Flash still cool?). If their 24 hour liquor license wasn’t enough of a threat to society, they also offer a 1.2kg steak – which if you can finish within 40 minutes, you dine for free. Yeesh.

If that’s not yet enough meat for you in the meat-market-district, Four Kings offers "All you can eat ribs" for $19.95 on Monday nights. 

Yikes. I think it’s time we did a review of Prannah and maybe Higher Taste. 

Halloween: Wrestling and zombies and dress-ups, oh my!

Next Friday is, of course, Halloween. And if you’re not trick-or-treating, you’ll need some in-town entertainment. Oh boy do we have ideas for you!

Zombies!

(Awesome zombie pin-up picture stolen from My Zombie Pin-up)

First up, there’s the Halloween Howl II wrestling at Wellington High School. You already know how much we love the wrestling. Hollie, Queen of the Divas, will be there. We’ll be there, dressed up like zombies again. Wouldn’t you like to come with us?

That’ll be over and done with in time for the Zombie Meet-Up at the Paramount around 10pm. They’ll be screening poo-yourself-scary [REC] at 10.30pm with proceeds going to NZBlood, and then doing a Zombie March down Courtenay Place at 11.45pm.

There’s no word yet on how to tell the difference between the zombies and your average Courtenay Place munter, but just in case you need to here’s a helpful video from the good folks at CommonCraft.

People’s Empire

Newtown may or may not be a bit shit, but their right-on coffee company People’s Coffee (sorry, I couldn’t resist adding the apostrophe) certainly know their shit. Their presence in central Wellington is expanding, and two recently-opened cafés proudly stock the People’s brand: Meow and Mon Ami.

Meow, seen from its TV

Meow has taken over the space of the former (and much lamented) Roti, next to Quoil in Willis St. The decor’s only had a mild makeover, but the retro kitschy kiwiana theme is pretty consistent, with the usual Tretchikoffesque prints, orange lampshades and ’70s TV augmented by some nice chunky crockery. I haven’t eaten there yet, but the brunch menu included some interesting variations on the standards, such as pinenut & saffron scrambled eggs, cashew & cranberry rosti with haloumi and rocket, and all sorts of things with "wild" bacon.

In Bond St, a French café called Mon Ami has also recently opened. It’s interesting that while many French places in downtown Wellington emphasise the stylish urban theme (e.g. Simply Paris, Le Metropolitain), Mon Ami is full of outdoorsy magazines, and their website goes on about "tramping, sailing, kayaking, biking, paraglyding". The decor manages to look both rustic and sterile at the same time, but even if that’s not your thing, dishes such as rabbit terrine and roquefort & sultana loaf (at reasonable lunchtime prices) should be enough to tempt you in.