Wellington City Libraries

Te Matapihi Ki Te Ao Nui

Search options

Teen Blog

Reading, Wellington, and whatever else – teenblog@wcl.govt.nz

Month: June 2008

What lovely altocumulus castelanus

Wellington is famous for its umbrella-unfriendly gusts of wind. It’s something to be proud of, in much the same way that Rotorua smells of hydrogen sulphide, or Auckland sits amidst a gazillion volcanoes. The next time you’re looking at the sky, watching the clouds race past at galeforce speeds, keep watch for rare clouds. Yes! Rare clouds! Who knew?

Bagging the All Blacks is so 2007!

So maybe your 2007 rugby demons are beginning to be exorcised?  With recent results everyone should be feeling better about our national game. The Super 14 title is back in New Zealand and the U-20s have won the World Cup. The NZ Maori team are undefeated in the Pacific Nations Cup so far and the All Blacks have won three in a row and looked better each game.   Even if the prospect of the Tri-Nations is a bit daunting it still feels good to thrash two different English teams in the same weekend.

Keep up with all our teams and world rugby in general through the All Blacks website.

Media That Matters

Media That Matters is a ‘film festival for youth’, and is happening this Friday, the 27th of June at 6pm in the NZ Film Archive (84 Taranaki Street). It is free entry; there will be films (obviously), prizes, giveaways and guest speakers.

More info here.

Evangelion shin-geki jo ban

The Neon Genesis Evangelion series is considered one of the greatest anime of all time, although the television series (available here) did end somewhat confusingly and isn’t too accessible for the casual viewer. In 2006 it was revealed that four Neon Genesis Evangalion films were to be made; the first three are a ‘reboot‘ of the original series, with new scenes, characters, and effects added, and the final film will present a new ending to the story.

The first of these films – Evangelion : 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone – is part of the imminent Wellington Film Festival,  and tickets will (probably) go quite quickly.

Another cool anime at the festivals is Vexille, which is from the people behind the recent Appleseed film.

The High Life

When I was a child my dad made me a treehouse. It was very basic; a sheet of plywood cut to fit between a fork in the trunk of the tree. It was a great place from where to pelt my brother with oranges, but not a place to stay when it rained. Unlike some of these treehouses, which “range from functional to fanciful, sustainable to strange and affordable to incredibly expensive.” I guess we can’t all start living in Wellington’s town belt – maybe now would be a good time to plant a native, so in several decades you could retire to the treetops?

New CDs: we have them

More new CDs have arrived. You may be pleased to learn that YA CDs are free to reserve and issue on a YA library card.

» Oracular Spectactular – MGMT. Very popular and a favourite with the critics. This album comes with ‘enhanced content’, excitingly.
» Awesome Feeling II – Various. This is a compilation from Real Groove magazine, capturing the  ‘Sound of Young New Zealand 2008’.
» The Best of Radiohead – Radiohead. There are 29 songs on this double-CD, and all of them are awesome. It doesn’t have any songs from after 2005, however.
» TCG – The Cheetah Girls. Initially created by Disney for a couple of films.
» Finding Beauty in Negative Spaces – Seether. A South-African post-grunge band. ‘All negative space with very little beauty,’ according to one critic.
» The Release Party – Dilated Peoples. This is actually a DVD, documenting an independent hip hop group over a 10-year period. It comes with a bonus CD. Great for fans of Dilated Peoples.
» Workers Leaving the Factory – The Actualities. If you like Arcade Fire and Coldplay you will like this (second) album, Sam tells me. The Actualities are a Wellington band.

Zon

Zon is “an unique interactive massively multiplayer online role playing game for learning Mandarin Chinese.” It’s browser-based, so you don’t need to download anything (maybe Flash). You can design your avatar (mine is the height of style), become a citizen of Zon and eventually begin your own business and add content to the world. Which is very cool, especially as you learn about Chinese language and culture while playing!

Seen Seekers?

Recently a film called The Seeker : The Dark is Rising was released. It is based on The Dark is Rising, the first second book in a series written by Susan Cooper in the 1960s and 1970s. We have two reviews of the DVD; one is by someone who had read the books before seeing the film, and the other is by someone who has never read the books.

Read More

Wiki-tastic

Wikipedia is an amazing resource, and although anyone can edit it, many of the entries are fairly reliable (though probably shouldn’t be used as the final word on a topic). I enjoy reading articles on Wikipedia that introduce new and interesting things to me; peoples, places, and events that I hadn’t heard of before.

Everyone like a good mystery, and here are some of the weirder & spookier articles/lists:

  • List of Cryptids – Cryptids are creatures whose existence is a mystery, either because they’re recently exinct, or fictitious, or just unknown. The Caspian Tiger, the yeti, and creepy Mothman are examples.
  • The Bloop – in 1997, underwater monitors detected an immense ‘bloop’ sound that originated near South America. The sound was similar to the sound a living creature would make … a HUGE living creature.
  • Uncontacted People – Incredibly there are still groups of people in the world who have very little or even no contact with the rest of the planet. Most are in the South American rainforests, but there are also some off the coast of India.
  • List of Mysterious People – They are people. They are mysterious.
  • List of Ghost Towns – Sometimes towns and cities are abandoned (usually when something bad happens), leaving what’s left to deteriorate and be spooky. Disappointingly, there aren’t any listed in New Zealand.
  • Hatepe Eruption – One of the largest volcanic eruptions in recent times (well, 1900 years ago) was in New Zealand, when Lake Taupo erupted. The sky turned red in Rome! Chillingly, Lake Taupo is dormant and not extinct. The mystery is when it will erupt next. Hopefully not when I’m visiting, I tell you what.

New Audio-visual stuff

A stack of new CDs has arrived. Here is the list. Hours of listening pleasure awaits!

 

  • Step Up 2: The Streets – Various. This is a soundtrack to a film about dancing in the rain, judging from the cover.
  • Set in Stone – Brian McFadden. Ex-Westlife member and bingo caller, this is his second solo album.
  • Juno – Various. This is another soundtrack, but with much better music.
  • Riot – Paramore. This band from Tennessee is big in alternative music circles.
  • Bittersweet World – Ashlee Simpson. Not so big in alternative music circles.
  • Blackout – Britney Spears.
  • Beautiful Machine – Shihad. Did you know that Shihad formed 20 years ago? I’ve seen Jon Toogood shopping at the supermarket, interestingly.
  • Hard Candy – Madonna. I can’t quite picture Madonna pushing around a shopping trolley.
  • Rockferry – Duffy. She has the highest-selling album in the UK this year.
  • Clubbers’ Guide ’08 – Various.
  • Konk – The Kooks.
  • Keep Me On Your Side – Goodnight Nurse. The album cover is cool! It moves!