http://www.eventfinder.co.nz/2010/jan/wellington/josh-wink-us

I had a great night on New years eve 1996 when he played in Perth. Unfortunately we wont be in town so will miss it.

From Claire Pascoe at Greater Wellington Region Council. I have signed up, you should too. The link she provides is broke, you should use http://www.gw.govt.nz/activea2b/ and http://www.gw.govt.nz/tools/

Hi all,

We're running a project at Greater Wellington called Active a2b which encourages employees in Wellington workplaces to walk and cycle to work. (www.gw.govt.nz/active )

We have set up a Bike Buddy scheme which matches new riders with experienced cyclists to try and get more people riding into work. We've had a fantastic response, with over 20 bike buddies and 20 bike mentors already signed up. We need more mentors though, so if you're happy to have someone tag along on your commute send me an email to active@gw.govt.nz and I'll add you to my map.

I rode in with a buddy last Friday and it was great. She hadn't ridden to work in 12 years, driving instead, but we got there in 13 minutes and I feel positive that it has prompted her to give it a go more often.

Thanks!

Claire Pascoe

Wellington has a long way to go...

http://www.streetfilms.org/ciclovia/

From

Interesting article about the chief financial officer of Giant Manufacturing, the world’s biggest bicycle maker, aka “the godmother of bicycles”.

"By and large, the world thinks of bikes as an exercise in machismo on wheels, from muddy mountain bikers to lycra-clad road cyclists or commuters taking their chances with the lorries and taxis that seem to claim ownership of the roads. Ms Tu has other ideas"

The bike in the image is a Giant Suede, ideal for riding on the next frocks on bikes ride. While I would not be caught dead one one I'm greatly in favour of the diversification of bikes so that theres a model for everone.

Saw Avatar the other night, unfortunately not in 3d. Its a visually stunning tale of noble savages vs the standard US marines in space. One of my favorite authours Greg Egan has a good review of it here, I agree with his thesis that the story was uninspiring but technically its incredibly good and a glimpse of things to come.

It dismays me how SF movies/tv and video games can't seem to feature a plot that does not include a strait forward projection of the US military in a futuristic setting. I think the phenomenon is very much tied to the budget and the number of people involved in the production, as soon as there are more than a handful of people involved and there is someone other than the person making the film/game financing it, origionality takes a nosedive.

I think this is the reason that most screen SF leaves me cold whereas I still love reading good SF, writing a novel is a soiltary activity and you can do it without a budget.

Day two, hot but good fun.

Today we did:

Hot-x-buns, dragon tail, te ara puna, frontal lobotomy, huckelberry hound, little red riding huck/corners, bunny jugs 1 & 2, dragon tail, end of be rude not to, lion trail, soak hole, grinder, mad if you don't.

Out of the tracks we haven't done before we thought soak hole was shit and a bit of a make work track, Dragons tail and te ara puna were pretty good and we enjoyed the corridor yesterday. The hucks and hot-x were great again.

Callum if you look at the photo Mike is in the air so it fits the criteria, it's from near the end of Hot-x bun. We had a bit of a fail because we wanted todo Tuhoto Ariki and No Brains via Split enz but it was just too much of a mission and doing three big hill climbs followed by a long jungle track was too much.

Off to do Whirinaki tomorrow.

Good day riding Rotorua day 1. Took Campbell along.

Did:

A-Trail, The Tickler, Sidewinder, Lentil link, frontal lobotomy, Bily T, Split Enz, pondy, rollercoaster, chop suey, Spring roll, sweet-n-sour, b rude not to, mad if you dont, Tahi, Creek track, piglett, pig track, the corridor, turkish delight, the grinder, the dipper, tahi.

Can't say any more because Mike wants to go riding, back to Wakarewarewa today and out to Whirinaki Tomorrow.