Remember that time that I went to Capitol for a Serisen wine dinner that cost $85 and was fricking amazing? Well it turns out that there’s something similar happening every month at Cellar-Vate, but for only $35! Holy crap! So, in order to investigate this phenomenon for you, my dear reader, my fearless dining companion Karen and I subjected ourselves to six courses of food matched with Clearview wines last night. Oh the humanity.

It’s such a hardship to sit down to dine with new people just waiting to become your friends, Rachel from Cellarvate who took the time to explain her menu selections, and two people from the winery to chat to. Food was served on communal plates, and while it wasn’t huge amounts of anything, even Karen and I, who do like our food a lot, left satisfied. You need to go to Cellar Vate on Molesworth and ask them to put you on their mailing list so you can come along to the next diner. The menu after the jump.

For the last few weeks there’s been an air of rockin’ excitement passing around Capital City… and lots of flights being booked down here from that place up north that houses the Aucklandista. Reminiscing on social networking sites has reached a frenzied peak and the rumours have been proved true – the Hasselhoff Experiment are reforming for a once-only show this weekend in Wellington.
More after the jump….

Everyone loves a good apostrophe catastrophe. I was delighted to find this one at a chemist near the train station:

ORLY?

I was thinking maybe it’s a product name, like “Dr Fight’s Cold & Flu Remedy”, but realistically it seems like just another sad case of a horribly misplaced apostrophe.

duz no1 prfrd ne mor?

In an effort to encourage people to leave their cars at home, Greater Wellington has announced that from July 1 this year, bikes can ride on trains for free.

At the moment, travelling by rail with your bike will cost you another adult fare.

Sounds like a good idea to us. There is a caveat however, if the train is full, your bike cannot ride at all.

Stuff coverage here.

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.

Did you know? Craiglist, the hugely successful free online classified, personal ad and listing service has a Wellington site. As an experiment, a few weeks ago I put up an ad for volunteers for the ‘V’ 48 Hour Film Competition and got a couple of responses (two more than I was expecting).

There are sections on employment, services, personals, community and housing. All listings are free and you can monitor any section via RSS.

Sadly, the signal to noise ratio is not great as most of the entries are a bit spammy but that should change as Wellingtonians start to use it.

Yes, I know it’s an old concept, but I couldn’t resist. Also, this isn’t so much a bar as a café, though it does sell wine. And it feels more like being in a friend’s living room, if you had a friend with lots of sexy mid-Twentieth-Century furniture and nice views.

Rather a nice place to sit in the sunshine (presuming you can do so without freezing your antennae off) at the weekend and watch the world go by. But where is it?

White Fungus is an experimental arts magazine based in Wellington, Aotearoa, New Zealand. Produced by a collective of artists, writers and designers, White Fungus is an ongoing experiment in community media art.

The new issue of White Fungus comes out this week. This issue is the strongest yet for experimental music with an in-depth article on the Dead C, an interview by Andrew Clifford with Justice Yeldham (who stunned and shocked audiences throughout NZ last year thanks to alt.music), an interview by Daniel Beban with Annea Lockwood, plus articles on John Wiese, Greg Malcolm and Manuel Göttsching. This issue also features a new 7-page colour comic, Noah, by Tim Bollinger, new art by Richard Killeen, Hye Rim Lee, Yao Jui Chung and Tao Wells plus much more….

And the launch party… my god, the launch party… (more after the jump)