Running until the 31st of May is The Next Wave Festival. The festival celebrates the “next wave” of young artists displaying their works throughout public spaces in the CBD. By works it could mean art or some kind of dance or anything in between. There is 2020?, a display of industrial waste destined for landfill. Open Embrace invites the viewer to experience the tango from the perspective of the dancer. One more to my taste is Pennies & Pints, a large-scale poster that brings to life the many maps, near misses, and apocalyptic moments of Fitzroy’s history.

Links:

Next Wave Festival

Bah bah bah…bah bah baaah…bah bah baaah…baah (Sounds of clapping). Yes, I realise it looks like a conversation with a sheep. Replace the bahs with sounds of a trumpet, a sax, and drums in the background and you have the Melbourne Jazz Festival. Starting today and ending Sunday is the annual jazz festival that features in venues around the city. If you have never been to Bennett’s Lane, now is a great chance to see this unique jazz venue. Hint: Great for a date (unless she hates jazz).

Links:

Melbourne Jazz Festival (whose logo looks very much like Ebay’s)

Melbourne Festival Jazz Ad (The bah bah baah from before)

The comedy fest is in full swing, yet once again everyone is left with the task of figuring out what to see. As usual, The Age is useless and only ever gives good reviews or no review at all. Here’s my shortlist.

Patton Oswalt-Spence from King of Queens seems to have a vast resume of comedy. Fat weird looking dudes are usually pretty funny. A clip from his standup shows.

Daniel Kitson-Always funny and always odd looking. He seems to get more angry and cynical every year.

Mark Watson’s Earth Summit- A presentation of “An Inconvenient Truth” in a comedic style.

Ross Noble , Jason Byrne, Arj Barker, Stephen K Amos

What the?

Busting Out- The opposite show to Puppetry of the Penis. This show looks strangely interesting.

I Want to be a Mokbel- A comedy act on Melbourne’s underworld and Tony Mokbel. Ok sure, why not.

Faulty Towers-The Dining Experience - Fawlty Towers was probably the best Britcom ever. I’m not too sure about this one but $69 for a three course meal and a show is not too bad.

Happy Yoga with Guru Dudu - Comedic yoga where the audience participates.

Missing in Action this year

Shappi Khorsandi-I’m not really into female comedians but this one had me laughing. Looks like her show is postponed.

Dylan Moran, Danny Bhoy, Adam Hills

Then there’s the hundreds of other shows on this year. Anyone have any recommendations?

Links:

Last Laughs: The Comedy Elite

2008 Melbourne International Comedy Festival

Picture by jsarcadia

The Victorian Police has deployed a new mobile command centre to bring some form of public civility into the city for this long weekend. In the past weeks, we have heard a lot in the news about the increased amount of violence in the city, with the focus on the bars and nightclubs. With large crowds expected for the Momba waterfest as well as other activities, the police are worried about increased violence and misbehaviour.

So, this week, the police has decided on

1. A brand new mobile command centre, fully equipped with computers and CCTV for around 50 officers to be stationed in the city.
2. A nerve centre; that can dispatch officers to trouble areas ASAP.
3. Undercover officers to infiltrate troublesome venues. Now, who wouldn’t want that job?!:)

It’s a pity that the Victorian Police has to resort to such strategies to combat the increased amount of violence in and around the city of Melbourne. But, at least they are doing something about it.

News Link
Herald Sun “Victoria Police step up public order blitz with NY model”

The Age “Police to get ‘New York’ tough on crime“

The Moomba Festival is possibly my favourite major event in this half of the year. Parades, a carnival, a fireshow and massive crowds make their way around the Yarra River for a weekend of colour and sound. And it all begins today.

Here’s the (condensed) line-up:

Waterfest Fireshow
Saturday, 8 March - Monday, 10 March
9.30pm every night

Moomba Parade
Monday, 10 March from 11am to noon
Along Swanston Street from Little Bourke Street to Princess Bridge, ending in the St Kilda Road.

Moomba@Docklands
Sunday, 9 March 2008 from noon to 5pm
Waterfront City and Victoria Harbour

Waterfest Carnival
Friday, 7 March from 4pm to 11pm
Saturday, 8 March from 11am to 11pm
Sunday, 9 March from 11am to 11pm
Monday, 10 March from 11am to 9pm
Birrarung Marr & Alexandra Gardens

Moomba Masters Waterskiing
Friday, 7 March from 8am – 9pm
Saturday, 8 March from 8am to 8:30pm
Sunday, 9 March from 11am to 8:30pm
Monday, 10 March from 7:30am to 8:30pm
Yarra River

Starlight Cinema
Happy Feet (G): Friday, 7 March at 8.30pm
Night at the Museum (PG): Saturday, 8 March at 8.30pm
Yarra Bank, Birrarung Marr

There is a huge list of other stuff going on - it is not even convenient to have everything listed here. Have a look at the That’s Melbourne Moomba Waterfest 2008 site for the calendar of events.

More information about the history of the Moomba Waterfest can be found in the City of Melbourne - Moomba Waterfest page.
If you are the type who turns to Wikipedia for all of Life’s Questions, you can find the Moomba article here.

Well, it’s that time of year again where Melbourne is overwhelmed with festivals. As Squirt mentioned earlier, the Motor Show starts this Friday. Here are some other cool things happening around the city.

Melbourne Food & Wine Festival
We are already know Melbourne has the best food so come try some of it in various events around the city. There are also classes in cooking, wine tasting and the famous World’s Longest Lunch this Friday.
Until March 8th
link

Today Show
The show is looking for a permanent relocation to Melbourne but for the next few days, the show will broadcast from tomorrow Friday on the banks of the Yarra river near Southbank. The Today Show will be covering the MIFF, so expect to see plenty of models walking around.
link

Melbourne International Fashion Festival
Most of the top shelf shows are invitation only but there are plenty of shows with tickets available to the public. Hopefully, we will see the phasing out of large yellow sunglasses on men.
link
Bonus: The ad for the festival has some funky music and effects.
Until March 9

Thai Culture & Food Festival
Thai boxing, Thai models, and more importantly plenty of Thai Food.

link

Sunday March 2, Federation Square

Never a boring moment here.

Picture by chadn

Technorati Tags: Melbourne, Australia, Today Show, MIFF, Federation Square

I just got back from Dan Deacon’s show at the Evelyn. There were some technical difficulties, but his showmanship kept people from getting antsy.

And after that, he put on a damn fine show.

If you’re going to the St. Jereome’s Laneway Festival tomorrow (and tickets have been sold out for… oh, months), make sure you check him out. Just goes to show that we’re not all so bad in Los Estados Unidos.

If you were there, what’d you think? For the rest of you, what shows have you been to that rocked? Feel free to pay out the ones that sucked, too.

ps - Dan’s playing a Tuesday show as well, but I’m not telling you where (because I’m selfish and don’t want you buying my ticket). You’ll have to ask around…

Before the brouhaha that occurred involving the legal injunction against airing Underbelly in Victoria, I was only slightly interested in watching the series. But with all the hype and the absolutely ridiculous decision to ban of the show, I couldn’t resist and downloaded it from channel #BT. Surely people know the difference between fact and fiction, television and real life? Hasn’t there been loads of coverage including news stories, books, and even impersonations on comedy shows of Tony Mokbel?

In any case, download the ep here (via Bittorent).

The Age: Online Viewers defy Underbelly ban

Technorati Tags: Melbourne, Australia, Underbelly

This Sunday (20/1), Melbourne celebrates its sister city relationship with Tianjin, but I think it’s just a good day to go fly a kite.

You can make kites and lanterns, there’ll be a number of fun things for kids (read: facepainting), martial arts demonstrations and appearances by the Chinese Lion at 1pm and 3pm.

Though it seems like you can build them there, this event is also BYOK (Bring Your Own Kite)

When: Sunday, 20 January 2008
Time: noon to 4pm
Where: Royal Park, Native Garden, Gatehouse Street (Melway reference: 2B A3)
And Link

It’s that time again. Don’t know who to vote for? I don’t blame you as both candidates have run a campaign of one-ups and mistruths. The pillar of modern campaigns is the advertisement debunking the other candidate.

Youtube: Liberal Scare Tactics

Ok, now to get down to business.

Who to vote for?

howshouldvote.com.au
From the people behind GetUp!, this online quiz will match your answers to the candidates in your electorate. Those answers will then be SMSed to you. Too easy.

OzPolitics Quiz
This was posted a few months ago but wasn’t too well received by readers. Take it with a grain of salt.

How to vote?

If you can successfully read this website then I have faith that you will be able to figure out how to write numbers in boxes. But if you can’t:

How to vote practise tool

Where to vote?

Voting Centre Search

Thanks to Digg, Lifehacker.

Technorati Tags: Melbourne, Australia, Politics, Election