Archive for March, 2008

Packing

Published
by
Robyn
on March 30, 2008
in Uncategorized
. 17 Comments

I got a new job. It’s still in the fast-paced world of television, but whereas my old job was the feel-good public service side of telly, the new job is more commercial - a different kind of feel-good. And while it’s about the telly, I’m going back to my roots, as the job is all about the interwebs.

So that’s all new and exciting, but what’s even more new and exciting is that the new job is located deep in the Hutt Valley, meaning I’m going to have to move to Wellington in a few weeks.

Fortunately I like Wellington and its fine citizens, so I’m excited about the move. But my knowledge of the city is nowhere near as great as my knowledge of Auckland (or Hamilton!). I don’t know what kind of reputation different suburbs have, what sorts of areas I should live in.

But that’s a way off. At the moment I’m in the process of packing. I’ve been living at my current flat for over six years now (six years!), the longest I’ve lived in a flat, so it’s been a bit of an archaeological expedition as I’ve gone through all the stuff in my spare room.

At first glance, it looked a bit like the work of some crazy lady who buys things off TradeMe but just biffs the unopened boxes in the room. But even though there was a chaotic mess, I knew where everything was cos, like, it was all organically arranged, man.

But still, I managed to find a few things that I didn’t realise I had:

  • A sticker reading “UTBNB: Up The Bum No Babies”. (I assume you can stick it anywhere you like.)
  • A teach-yourself book on Irish Gaelic.
  • A vast collection of postcards. I knew I had quite a few, but I didn’t realise how many until I gathered them all together.
  • A badge from the ’80s saying “Telecom - I ♥ my customers”. Yeah, they had to get badges made as a reminder.
  • Too many bags. I would not consider myself a bag-loving’ gal, but yet there they were - too many bags. How did this happen?

I suspect I’ve been throwing out more than I’ve been packing. It’s easy to pack obvious things like books, CDs, DVDs, but then I’ll find and old notebook or a folder full of interesting bits of paper and I’ll want to keep it, but wonder, as it’s been in a drawer, untouched for the last six years, do I really need to keep it?

This is why nuns are content and crazy TradeMe ladies aren’t.

Borderline

Published
by
Robyn
on March 26, 2008
in Music
. 1 Comment

Old bar lightsLast Thursday I went along to the Whammy Bar, deep beneath St Kevin’s Arcade, for day one of the Borderline Music Festival. I hadn’t slept well the night before and I was pretty tired, so I tried to keep myself alert by doing a live review via Twitter.

Double Barrel are awesome in a Prime Devastation kind of way.
11:31 PM March 20, 2008 from txt

They were actually called Double Barrelled, and were young and rockin’. But when you’re young, it’s really really hard to pull off playing a song called “Loose Women”. Like that’s ever actually been an issue in their lives. They reminded me of Prime Devastation.

I’m such a senior citizen - it’s only just past midnight and I’m dreaming of bed.
12:12 AM March 21, 2008 from txt

Growl

I don’t know their name but they did punk pop and were a bit Ramonesy and a bit Replacementsy.
12:42 AM March 21, 2008 from txt

This was The Transistors, who sooner or later will have to change their name because a) it’s utterly forgettable and b) there are other bands (plural) with that name. They did punk, pop and punk/pop, and I detected a bit of a Replacements influence in there (which their MySpace page agrees with). They did a cover of the Ramones’ “Judy is a punk”, and it was nothing more than an adequate, workmanlike cover of a Ramones song. Yeah, give me a call in five years and show me what you’re up to then, lads.

This band is rad. They are like if David Lynch directed Live And Let Die.
01:11 AM March 21, 2008 from txt

Fertility FestivalFertility Festival are from Wellington and play this crazy kind of rambling voodoo jazz music. Oh, you know what other adjective needs to be in there? Minimalist. Yeah.

So, they entered the stage via a parade down from K Road. They reminded me of legendary Hamilton five-piece band Dean, who’d play variations on the same chord sequence for as long as was necessary. Fertility Festival also played along with just a basic, repeated pattern, but with rich variety within that repetition. In a way, Fertility Festival are the sort of band I’d always dreamed of seeing in a dark K Road cellar.

I’d like to see them again when I’m not so tired, cos eventually they provoked this reaction:

Ugh. Voodoo band has outstayed its welcome. They need to learn restraint. And go home.
02:37 AM March 21, 2008 from txt

Mountain scene

After a long wait, Mr Storehouse is playing and he is good.
03:06 AM March 21, 2008 from txt

Storehouse

And finally was the main reason for me being there in the first place - Storehouse. They’re a two-piece, with Tom Rodwell on guitar and vocals, Joe Pineapple on bass and percussion, but they were also joined by the mysterious Shadow on harmonica.

Storehouse do blues and gospel. Now, Mr Rodwell is an Englishman, and it takes a bit of talent to be able to be English and sing blues and gospel and slave spirituals and not sound all vaudeville. But he pulls it off cos he’s got an excellent voice and lets the slide guitar sing as much as he does.

It was too late - too early, in fact - by the time I got home. The sky was turning dark blue and I was ready to sleep for hours. Good music.

Oh, No

Published
by
Robyn
on March 19, 2008
in Technology
. 6 Comments

For over a month, the top search term that’s showing up in my website stats has been “No Magazine”, which was the name of a theoretical magazine I made way back in 1994.

But it’s also the name of a new New Zealand magazine edited by Delaney Tabron and Fraser McGregor. I’ve had a flick through it and it looks good, and I was interested by Mikey Havoc’s interview with Tabron and McGregor on bFM last week.

It’s obviously generated a lot of excitement and people are googling it, looking for more information. But here’s the terrible thing: No Magazine doesn’t appear to have a website!

I’m not expecting a full-on webstravaganza like Metro magazine’s website; just a basic website with information about what the magazine is, who’s behind it, what’s in the latest issue, how much it costs and where you can buy it - information that will let me blog about it. And that doesn’t take much effort or expense to set up or maintain.

But yet they haven’t done it and so all these interested, potential readers are instead finding their way to my 14-year-old ezine and probably feeling a bit annoyed.

If a magazine doesn’t have a web presence, does it even exist online?

OMG, it’s a massive bag!

Published
by
Robyn
on March 19, 2008
in Observatory
. 5 Comments

People get a bit excited and/or freaked out when they see someone walking around with a large bag from a shop.

A few months ago I bought a couple of new duvets. They were pretty bulky and the lady at Farmers put them in one big bag each. I got the bus home and it took a bit of manoeuvring to get me and my duvets on to the bus. One man commented, “Been on a bit of a shopping spree, have ya?” which I thought was a bit weird because, uh, I only bought two duvets. Then, later on, a lady spied my bags and said, “Oh, been shopping! Good on you!”

I’m pretty sure it was obvious that my bags contained duvets or some sort of large pillowy objects. I don’t get how that translates into me having been on a massive shopping spree.

OMG, a giant bag!Then on Monday I bought four magazine storage boxes from Whitcoulls and the guy put them into one massive bag. And throughout the day I kept getting comments from people, like “You’ve been shopping!” Yes, indeed I did go to a shop and buy some things.

The funny thing was that the four boxes were worth a mere $20 in total. If I’d bought a book and a DVD from Whitcoulls it would have been worth more, but they would have all gone into a little bag that wouldn’t even have been noticed let alone commented on.

Or I could have bought some extravagant piece of jewellery and stashed it away in my handbag and then no one could have seen the fruit of my shopstravaganza.

What is it about large bags that get people so excited? Well, it seems that the symbol of a woman with large shopping bags has come to represent a shopping spree. Check out the shopping-themed photos this photo agency has.

So it’s funny to think that while I was struggling to get the giant plastic bag filled with two-for-$10 magazine boxes on to the Link bus, my fellow passengers were probably thinking I’d been on a mad shopping spree.

Shamrocks and Shenanigans

Published
by
Robyn
on March 17, 2008
in Events
. 6 Comments

It was St Patrick’s day, so I was on the look out for merriment. But I was most surprised when, on K Road, I spied what appeared to be a man wearing a Santa suit, complete with a long white beard. But he smelt like paint (had he been painting toys?) and he was staggering along the footpath. I looked again.

It turned out to be a guy wearing a baggy red tracksuit. The long white beard was created by him holding up a white T-shirt over his mouth and nose to help hide the bag he was inhaling solvents from (green paint, perhaps?).

Over at the over side of the colour wheel, there were plenty of people dressed in green and staggering down the footpath, participating in various kinds of St Patrick’s Day festivities.

I saw some guys, who sounded American, wearing those green plastic hats, which I associate more with American Irish (the madness of Boston) than Irish Irish.

The Belgian bar down Vulcan Lane seemed to be doing a roaring trade. Well, you know, beer, mashed potatties - who cares what country it’s from?

At work, there were scones with green whipped cream. They seemed to be quite popular, but the green was too much like that green food mould to stir my Irish blood.

Hey, how do Irish celebrate St Patrick’s Day? Not by dying everything they eat green, I’ll bet.

Here’s a cookie for ye.

How one celebrates St Patrick's Day, Part 1