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:

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…

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?!

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.

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!

Sources admit there was a “balls up”.

Full story here.

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 😀

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):

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

…

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.