Flight of the Conchords: Jenni

Nearly forgot! Flight of the Conchords Wednesday!

“What a hilarious misunderstanding!”

Carnage on the corner

Fancy a little accident spotting while you enjoy a nice pizza? Word on the street is that the best seat in town is at Scopa.

Michael Gregg comments:

Someone will be injured on the Ghuznee/Cuba Corner soon. Spend ten minutes in Scopa and watch the intersection to see for yourself.

Pedestrians crossing Ghuznee Street are struggling with the new two-way traffic flowing through Ghuznee. There is no reminder to look both ways and regulars are falling back into old habits, glancing and running. Even worse, the new traffic lights bring traffic out of Cuba at the same time as the pedestrian signals engage, meaning the intersection brings impatient drivers and bustling, rushing walkers together. As the weather deteriorates, I’m worried that someone might get hit.

The solution:

  1. Remove the chains and allow pedestrians to cross diagonally and on both sides of Cuba Street halting all vehicle traffic for this period. This will quickly clear the backlog of walkers by allowing more room to cross, plus take them off the street when the cars get their right of way.
  2. Install clear signage at eye height and on the curb.
  3. Mark the Ghuznee east intersection clearly with a no-left turn arrow.
  4. Mark the Cuba intersection with left and right lanes to direct turning traffic.
  5. Put two way arrows on the Ghuznee roadway (like we do for tourists on SH1) for both entry/exits into this intersection

How are you enjoying the two way traffic on Ghuznee?

I love it, but then my favourite memories are of cars going the wrong way down Molesworth St. Such a blissful spectator sport.

3rd Annual NZ Comics Weekend

For the third year in a row, the New Zealand Comics Weekend is up and running from at Graphic Comic Shop (106 Cuba Street), and the Southern Cross Garden Bar (39 Abel Smith Street, Wellington.)

This annual festival of independent comics runs alongside the Armageddon Pulp Culture Expo in order to showcase and highlight the underground talents in New Zealand Comics.

More info here at Feeling Great.

A Mighty Mighty Mighty Weekend

Not only is The Mighty Mighty one of our favourite bars, what with its endearingly gauché fit out and entertainingly gauché barstaff and wot-not, but this weekend they host two very exciting (and very different!) gigs.

Mëstar are touring their recent album Shut The Squizwot Factories Down and on Friday night (the 20th) they play at Mighty Mighty with Hot Swiss Mistress:

(Sorry for the stink photo of the gig poster but it was the best I could do with my phone-camera on the way to work this morning.)

And then, on Saturday night (the 21st), at the starting time of 9pm is the avant-punk theatrics of Mr. Sterile Assembly, with Xenu and Thee Strapons:

Alt.country at the Bathhouse

American alt.country legends Richard Buckner and Edith Frost are playing together at the San Francisco Bathhouse on Wednesday night.

There are three kinds of American folk artist: those who sit, contented, on a back porch contemplating America’s landscape and ways; those for whom its landscape and ways are something to stand against or move boldly through; and those whose America is a shadowy, impressionistic place that moves inside of them. This [latter] is the area that the sombre-voiced Richard Buckner has been exploring since 1984 –(Sylvie Simmons; The Guardian, 2004)

Beautiful Mash

We all know that in Wellington, everyone and their dogs are already busy making films of some description already, but for any aspiring film-makers not currently up to their eyeballs in digital video, here’s your chance. LOOP Recordings want you to make a video for Adi Dick’s song “Beautiful View”.

Adi Dick video promotion

They’re providing you with nearly a Gigabyte of green-screen footage of the singer, then handing it over to you to mash it up with your own footage or animation to create your interpretation of the song. You have until the 20th of May.

What up, weekend?

Wanting to stalk us this weekend, and/or find something for yourself to do? Here are our suggestions:

Martha on the Front Page of the DomPost

Hard on the heels of one of their worst front pages ever, the DomPost goes some way to redeeming itself by putting one the of Wellingtonista above the fold in today’s issue…

Nice work Martha. Way to fly the flag undies.

Our online library

Your Wellington Central library (or ‘sanctuary’ as it’s know here at the Towers) was been quietly expanding its online offerings and today has added a handy wee email notification service … or is it just another way for ‘big brother’ to keep tabs on ya?!?

To quote from their blog (RSS):

We have introduced a new service for hearing about reserves and any overdue items on your card – you can now get these messages by email. If you want to switch to this option, all you need to do is complete the online form or ask at your local library. And of course if you find you prefer paper or phone notices you can switch back again at any time.

Still the 12th nicest city in the world

Not much movement at the top of the Mercer Human Resource Consulting “Most Livable Cities” rankings this year, with, like last year, Wellington coming in 12th, trailing our northern neighbours Auckland, who come in at a very credible 5th. In fact, there’s really no movement at all in the top 20, with Zurich and Geneva still 1st and 2nd respectively, Vancouver 3rd, Vienna 4th, before a bunch of German cities slot in below Auckland. The rankings are …

based on 39 key quality-of-life issues. They include political stability, currency-exchange regulations, political and media censorship, school quality, housing, the environment and public safety.

More of the table here.