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Shaping Adelaide

The Welling­ton City Coun­cil is seek­ing pub­lic input on how to guide the future growth and change of the Ade­laide Rd area. This is a vital­ly impor­tant part of town (espe­cial­ly now that the Welling­ton­ista seems to be turn­ing into the New­town­ista), and I invite you all to have a look at the detailed draft frame­work and imag­ine for your­self what this cur­rent­ly some­what neglect­ed dis­trict could become.

But first, let’s clear up a few of the mis­con­cep­tions which could have been gleaned from the brief arti­cles in the press:

Free the software, free yourself!

Soft­ware Free­dom Day (SFD) is a world­wide cel­e­bra­tion of Free and Open Source Soft­ware (FOSS) to be held this year on Sat­ur­day 20th Sep­tem­ber, 2008.

Our goal in this cel­e­bra­tion is to edu­cate the world­wide pub­lic about the ben­e­fits of using high qual­i­ty FOSS in edu­ca­tion, in gov­ern­ment, at home, and in busi­ness — in short, every­where!

So what’s hap­pen­ing in Welling­ton? Well, there’s a hack­fest, a bar camp and free cof­fee all day long. Check out the soft­ware free­dom day site for more infor­ma­tion…

The Seekers

A wee heads-up about a very inter­est­ing (and FREE) film screen­ing this Sat­ur­day at 7pm at the Film Archive.

Shot in 1954 by a UK team, The Seek­ers is a very colo­nial take on first con­tact between Maori and Pake­ha in a bizarre NZ ‘Wild West’ style fea­ture film.

Both riv­et­ing and shock­ing view­ing (there’s eroti­cised danc­ing and plas­ticine moko for a start) it’s also one of the few films made in NZ the late fifties/early six­ties. A com­bi­na­tion of the intro­duc­tion of tele­vi­sion and a lack of gov­ern­ment sup­port for inde­pen­dent film mak­ing at the time means we have only the occa­sion­al inter­na­tion­al project like The Seek­ers to show for near­ly 15 years of New Zealand’s fea­ture film his­to­ry.

Wit­ness peo­ple falling live into boil­ing mud, gey­sers explod­ing around sailors etc etc — all used for max­i­mum impact to rep­re­sent our great ‘Land of Fury.’

And did I men­tion it’s FREE?!

A Personal Appeal from Richard Meros

Kia Ora Tatou, I’m Richard Meros and I have a Dream.

Our proud nation has laboured too long under a bare­ly dis­cernible pen­du­lum wob­ble from Labour to Nation­al, Nation­al to Labour, so on ad nau­se­um. Yet we yearn for, and deserve, some­thing greater. Through metic­u­lous research I have drawn an inescapable con­clu­sion: that only my per­son­al engage­ment with the elec­toral process — and with our noble Prime Min­is­ter — can her­ald the glo­ri­ous future of our South Pacif­ic Utopia.

My acclaimed pam­phlet of roman­tic polit­i­cal phi­los­o­phy, On the Con­di­tions and Pos­si­bil­i­ties of Helen Clark Tak­ing Me as Her Young Lover, pro­voked howls of acclaim when pub­lished in 2007, and I have com­mit­ted to share the “pow­er­point” ver­sion of my book the length and breadth of New Zealand before Elec­tion Night 2008. Why? Because I care.

This life-chang­ing lec­ture has toured across Aotearoa; enlight­en­ment comes now to Welling­ton.

Oh, sweet Mystery Bar!

Apolo­gies for the inco­her­ence, but this fly­’s report can­not help being ren­dered in a burst of overex­cit­ed sen­tence frag­ments with gra­tu­itous excla­ma­tion marks.

Trop­i­cal cock­tails! Shim­mery dress­es! Ger­man cov­ers of The Mon­kees! Omni­sex­u­al pan-iron­ic hip­sters! Six-foot-four drag queens wear­ing yel­low bal­loons! Wild­ly aban­doned rock­’n’roll dance moves!

Apologies to all readers from Highbury

Sources admit there was a “balls up”.

Full sto­ry here.

Books, books, books, books…

and more books

welling­ton’s biggest book­sale starts tomor­row. There are over 60,000 books being stacked as we speak for the Down­town Com­mu­ni­ty Min­istry Book­fair tomor­row.

It’s all being held at TSB area, entry is free, But the books, jig­saw puz­zles, mag­a­zines, records, CDs and DVDs are not. how­ev­er the prices are just the right size for any­one want­i­ng to stock up on read­ing for the sum­mer

as a mad keen col­lec­tor, my favorite stop is the chil­dren’s book area. How­ev­er i will also be spend­ing qual­i­ty time in the Sci­ence Fic­tion (usaully all sells out by about 2pm Sat­ur­day) DVD and vinyl sec­tions. I also plan to pick up a truck load of mag­a­zines, hope­ful­ly a years sup­ply of the new york­er.

Doors open at 9am on Sat­ur­day (clos­ing at 5pm) and at 10am on Sun­day (clos­ing at 4pm).

Plus the best part every bit of mon­ey you pay for all those books, jig­saw puz­zles, mag­a­zines, records, CDs and DVDs goes toward help­ing welling­ton’s most in need peo­ple.

it’s shop­ping and help­ing save the world all at the same time 😀

Lest We Forget

MarineVille always do the cutest e‑mailouts, so I’m leav­ing this in their words (and punc­tu­a­tion!)…

Yes! This Sep­tem­ber 11 Marineville and Hol­i­day with Friends reclaim the day from such hor­ri­ble tragedies as … the birth of Moby! He may think he’s a smar­ty­pants but he’s not as clever as these post art school hip­ster pop/rockers!!! Come see for your­self!!!
MarineVille / Hol­i­day with Friends
Bar Bode­ga
Thurs­day Sept 11
$5, 9pm

PS: After the gig has end­ed we will be observ­ing approx­i­mate­ly 8 hours silence in mem­o­ry of these Sept 11 events (after the jump):

Electro Oh How We Love You

Some of us have missed out on Peach­es tick­ets AND found our­selves too skint for Bill Bai­ley at the St James tonight.

Le Sigh.

Le Big Sigh.

For­tu­nate­ly solace can be found at Mighty Mighty tonight in the arms of some sweet, sweet elec­tro. NZ based pro­duc­ers, DJs and live per­for­mance will be on hand to pound away that pain. The main act is billed as Cure­Mo­tel but in this girl’s com­plete­ly biased opin­ion Stress Cadet alone will be worth the five bucks on the door. Hav­ing seen their work as part of Auck­land based bands Soft Shoe and the leg­endary Meat­bix (tak­ing a break, maybe they are all shagged out?), Josh Lynne and Dami­an Golfinopou­los are sure gonna bring the pun­tas­tic with plen­ty of visu­al and aur­al frights and delights.

Short Cir­cuit: Cure­Mo­tel and Stress Cadet
Venue: Mighty Mighty
Doors open: 9:30pm
Cost: $5

…

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.