Here is something to entertain and inform on yet another wet Sunday …
Mike Brown on being small and fickle, cycling and serendipity:
http://www.ignitewellington.co.nz/search/label/Mike Brown
This talk is from the first Ignite Wellington event held back in February.
Unfortunately I was out of town and wasn’t able to attend in person, so I’m pleased to see some of the videos from the interesting list of speakers have been posted.
Hopefully the rest will be online soon?
This is a great idea…
The idea of leaving the car at home and using a bike to get to and from work is pretty appealing, but still not many people do it. These guys appear to have solved most of the associated problems, by providing somewhere safe and secure to keep your bike during the day, some showers (for the sweaty ones amongst us), a locker for your riding gear, a place to grab a bite to eat, and even a service area for any urgent bike repairs (and if they can’t fix your problem they’ll lend you a bike to use to get home).
Unfortunately it’s only in Auckland at this stage. Hopefully their global domination plans include Wellington in the not too distant future!
We went along to the gala night at the Affordable Art Show in Wellington last night.
This is the second year I’ve been, and I think it’s a cool concept: it costs $10 to get in, and all of the art displayed is for sale at prices between $50 and $5000. As one piece is sold it is immediately replaced on the wall by another, so the selection is constantly changing (I’d love to know how many times they turnover the entire wall space over the course of the weekend – I’m guessing it’s a lot!)
I expect most people who go along find something that grabs their interest if not their wallet. We left our bank manager trying to decide if this is the right piece for his (as yet unborn) child’s bedroom wall.
I hope he went for it!
Self Portrait As Muppet
(I don’t remember the name of the artist, and I hope he/she doesn’t mind me posting this photo – if you recognise it please let me know and I’ll update this post)
If you’re looking for something to do on a wet weekend, I recommend it.
UPDATE: The artist is Adrienne Body. Here is a hi-res image of this painting from her site. Love it! :-)
John Lewis posted this great timelapse video looking out over Evans Bay towards Miramar and the airport from a house he’s been sitting (actually if you look closely I think you can see Rod getting home from work about 24 seconds in ;-)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azLBbSiQf2w
Nice.
It’s been a glorious summer in Wellington. Hopefully it’s not done yet.
Two Festival shows in two nights this week.
And two VERY different versions of Life On Mars by David Bowie.
First up on Thursday, The Bad Plus. (the quality is pretty poor on that video, but this will give you a better idea of their funky sound)
Then last night, The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain.
Good fun! :-)
PS I also recommend Cirque Ici (if you can still get a ticket?), although he didn’t play any Bowie.
I spotted this down by Te Papa this morning:
As Jeff says:
“They’ve added a new statue on the Wellington waterfront.
Cool, but weird.”
Sometimes “they” do some really good stuff, don’t you think. :-)
Hadyn Green has some more photos here.
I went along to watch the Wellington Phoenix kick off their A League season at the Westpac Stadium yesterday.
They got a crowd of 14,421 people to show up.
Apparently this is the biggest crowd to ever watch a football game in NZ. The previous record was also at Westpac Stadium when the Kingz (one of the Auckland-based predecessors to the Phoenix) played in Wellington in 2001.
I’m a sucker for the buzz generated by a big crowd, but the atmosphere really was awesome.
The Yellow Fever were in fine voice.
The best chant of the afternoon was easily “Same old ozzies, always cheating!”. :-)
We were all on our feet for the last 10 minutes, when the Phoenix came back from 2-0 down to draw the match 2-2 and then have a couple of close chances to win.
The star of the show was Brazilian substitute Felipe. You can always tell a player is good when they only have one name! I tried to find out more about him, but his player profile on the web is pretty elusive.
As long as they keep playing well, I have a feeling that this crowd record will be broken again soon!
Congratulations to everybody who played a part in bringing the Phoenix to Wellington.
StarNow is a Wellington-based company started in 2004 by three guys who all worked at Trade Me: Cameron, Nigel (who also started FindSomeone) and Jamie.
They had a good idea: to build a website where people who want to be famous can advertise themselves, and where reality television producers can go to find the next sucker star.
And, they’ve done a great job of executing and have grown the site into an excellent business, which they now call a “global talent casting service” covering actors, models, musicians, dancers, entertainers and photographers.
This is how Matt Cooney described their business in Idealog:
“For New Zealand, this might be the perfect business. Almost every cent is earned offshore. Start-up and infrastructure costs are low, there are almost no transport costs, no expensive offshore offices to maintain, no worries about import duties, foreign exchange hedging or oddball tax regimes. No factories, no shelves to stock, no resource consents. Marketing is largely through word-of-mouth and the business scales beautifully. It’s proof that three guys with some brains, a great idea and a couple of hundred bucks for marketing can literally invent a business in a few weeks.”
Disclaimer: that’s a bit of a vanity link, as Matt also interviewed me for the same article.
I got their latest newsletter and had to smile when I read that Cameron, who is now CEO of StarNow, was asked to be a judge in this year’s Miss England pageant.
It’s a tough job … but somebody has to do it, I suppose. :-)
I was sorry to miss the recent Webstock Mini event in Wellington a couple of weeks back.
But, the good news is that the presentations are now all available online:
http://www.webstock.org.nz/recordings.php
If you didn’t get along, make sure you check out the 10×2 sessions.
This is the quote that grabbed my attention:
“The internet didn’t change my life at all.
I can’t remember life without the internet”.
– Josephine Hall
Ouch! That would have stung for some of the older people in the audience.
She is now 18 and talked about using the internet in 1996, while still at school, to research a science project.
I graduated in 1996. It was also around then that I read an excellent book called Growing Up Digital by Don Tapscott, about “N-Gen”, or the net generation. They (we, although I only just qualify!) are the echo of the baby boom, who have grown up surrounded by interactive technology.
From the book:
Technology is only technology to people born before it was invented
– Alan Kay
That’s why we don’t argue anymore about whether the piano is corrupting music with technology
– Seymore Papert
So, if you’re the sort of person who still marvels at the promise of the internet, take a look over your shoulder and see people, like Josephine, who are already taking it for granted and asking what they can actually do with it.
Every now and then Wellington turns on a stunning day, and we all forget about how much the weather bothers us. There have been a couple like that this week.
I took this photo on Wednesday from Frank Kitts park looking out across the harbour, which was like a sheet of glass. In the foreground is the Len Lye Water Whirler (this press release has more details, and more photos showing how it moves). This is one of a growing number of wicked pieces of sculpture and public art around town – mostly the work of the the Wellington Sculpture Trust.
:-)
