Pecha Kucha Dontcha Know
The first Wellington Pecha Kucha night is being held this Thursday, 5th July at Hope Bros.
It is a format for creative talks restricting each speaker to 400 seconds, comprising 20 slides shown for 20 seconds each. Some more info at the esteemable Wikipedia .
Audience spaces are limited – by all accounts the Auckland event was a blast – and tickets cost 7 clams.
Lolmembers
This might quite possibly be illegal, but then again, they asked for it.
More “satire, ridicule and denigration” after the jump…
Where do you go when the birds start sneezing?
Just up the road, right next to Rimutaka Prison, Trentham Military Base and the police dog training venue, into the decommissioned General Motors assembly plant. The GM factory has been upgraded to become a new destination … the Bird Flu Pandemic Centre, we think. Or something more sinister?
Right up your Hutt Valley
The winter carnival is on in sunny Petone next weekend (7th July). There will be circus acts, trapeze, and extremely chilling dip in the ole briny during the day.
The best bit of all is in the evening, when there is a huge fireworks display off the pier. The middle of winter lends itself to a very civilised start time of 7.30pm.
Wrap up warm and bring a thermos of whatever you like to warm you from the inside.
Come early, enjoy dinner at one of the local eateries and avoid the traffic, which can get a little sticky approaching kick off.
More sensible and detailed information can be found here.
Wellingtonista Twitter
Being the hep cool web cats that we are, the Wellingtonista has recently set ourselves up a Twitter account so that we can send out updates about what you should do with yourselves. If you’re already a twitter user, head on over to our account and sign up to receive the word from the streets, generally at a one-or-two updates per day rate. If you haven’t used Twitter before, we’ve got a little specific how-to after the jump.
Free tickets to Downstage (limited time, conditions apply)
The lovely people at Downstage have offered Wellingtonista-readers the chance to see the new NZ play Finding Murdoch free next Monday or Tuesday.
Reviewer John Smythe at theatreview.org.nz said of the show:
My partner loved it and rugby is not her bag. But then it’s written by a woman about a woman’s desire to achieve and understand, and it’s directed by a woman, so I shouldn’t be surprised. Which isn’t to say rugby orientated blokes won’t like it too. Heading for the car (after the Monday 6.30 show) I bumped into Keith Quinn – of sportscasting fame – and asked him if he’d just been to Finding Murdoch. “Saw it on opening night,†he said. “It’s terrific. You should go.â€Â
There’s more about the show here, and we have 20 double-passes to give away to either Monday or Tuesday of next week. Simply email theatre@downstage.co.nz with the word “Wellingtonista†in the subject line, and the name of the All Black the play is about in the body of the email, and the magic of time-stamping will do the rest. First 20 are in.
“V” 48 Hours National Final – Live at The Establishment
Friends, supporters and other interested parties are invited to assemble at The Establishment on the corner of Blair St and Courtenay Place on Sunday evening to watch a bit of telly, specifically the C4 broadcast of the “V†48 Hours National Final.
Three Wellington films are in contention for the big prize (and the even bigger prize for Best Cinematography): Wellington winner Maori Detective and the Boogie Fever (Team Good Times) and Peter Jackson-selected wildcards Shooting Star (Will She Wait) and WhoreCop 3: Night Justice (The Three Dicks).
Viewers around the country will be voting by text as soon as the show finishes – come along and add your support. The broadcast starts at 8.30 but the entire Wellington Final 12 (plus Taika Waititi’s ineligible but hilarious Arab Samurai) will be screened again from 7.30 to warm you up.
Cinephilia: Opening This Week
School holidays start on Monday and Hollywood is doing its bit to turn your kids’ brains to mush with Transformers, an enormo-budget extravaganza about cars that turn in to robots (or the other way around). Produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and directed by Michael Bay, Transformers should give the boys plenty of bang for your buck (while the girls get to swoon over current heart-throb Shia LaBeouf). Playing all over town including Readings Courtenay Central; Sky City Queensgate; Embassy; Regent-on-Manners.
Sensible-shoe wearing girls may well get more out of the latest incarnation of teen detective Nancy Drew, this time starring Julia Roberts’ niece Emma. A slightly smaller release this one, at Readings Courtenay Central and Sky City Queensgate only.
After the jump: Heartbreak Hotel, Starter for Ten, Francesca and Nunziata and The Iron Giant.
Early warning: The Wellingtonista Quiz League
I’ve been rather quiet on the Wellingtonista front (well, for me anyway) because I’ve been busy finishing up my contract and looking for a new job (anyone who knows of a new home for a person with tremendous writing, editing and communication skills who knows the internets like the back of her hand should get in touch), but when I come back from a tropical holiday, the Wellingtonista will be very very excited to announce the start of the Wellingtonista Quiz League.
This will be held a different inner-city pub each week on Tuesday night for four weeks, and point totals is what you’re after. So start assembling your team of four now, and look out for more details in the second week of July.
You will want to enter this, no one who participated in the Bowling League regretted it, and I’m sure they would happily furnish you with testmonials about the awesomeness that is participating in a Wellingtonista event!
When Typos Attack
The Wellington News Feed (an aggregated collection of local RSS feeds kindly supplied by our friends over at wellington.gen.nz, which we display in the right hand sidebar on the Wellingtonista homepage), is not only a rich source of grass-roots info about what’s going on in this lovely city of ours, it also offers the occasional good ol’ fashioned laugh.
From the indecipherable news events conveyed by the local shortwave enthusiasts, to the breathless match reports of Karori Slapperz AFC (“Wellington’s finest social football [team]”), there’s always something popping up that makes you think, ‘you’re in ma feed, mirthin’ up ma blogz‘. Or something.
Anyway, today’s laugh came from an inadvertant typo (at least, we hope it’s a typo): “pubic forum tonight“. The mind boggles…