Some goddamn bar reviews, already

Ok, first a couple of things I have to get off my chest. Bar Bodega is a stinkhole, and so never let me grace its boards with my presence; at least not for some time. That'll show them for cancelling The Puddle at the last moment, after the band had arrived in Wellington. Oh, and its proprietor Fraser MacInnes has shown (once again) (as if it was really necessary) that he is hands-down the biggest cock in the NZ band/bar scene.

The other thing, although with a degree of vitriol many magnitudes less than the previous paragraph, is that I am somewhat aggrieved that Tom didn't let me win his Mystery Bar #7. The new Morrocco bar is in the location of the old Workingmen's Club lounge-room; where they used to have band gigs and so on. I guess my crime was not being specific enough. Pedantic bastard.

Right.

Bar reviews (An occasional feature, partially in response to Jo Hubris' 'Drinking Wellington on the cheap', on Wellingtonista).

BLEND / Wakefield Street
Thursday 13th October 8.30 - 9pm.
Name: Could be worse. Brings to mind cocktails, which is a good thing, except at a bar (such as this) where I wouldn't trust the bar-staff to mix me a glass of water.
Drinks: Ok I guess - I didn't try anything challenging. They had Kronenberg 1664 on tap, which is a mark in their favour.
UPDATE: Ok, ok, so it was Oranjeboum, not 1664 - I was getting confused with Boulot**. So that's not a mark in their favour anymore (especially not since it'll be bound to have been brewed in Auckland) but it's not exactly a mark agin' them, either. The top-shelf didn't appear to be particularly stunning, though.
Service: In addition to being barely old enough to legally drink, the bar-staff appeared to be on pills. Not that that in itself is a bad thing; just that this time it was.
Clientele: Drunk undergraduates and drunk backpackers; sleazy guys who (tonight) (god only knows what they'll be feeling in the morning) can't believe their luck.
Decor: (see it here) Weird mixture of exposed brick, stained wood and uber-modern visuals. Big marks off for the (unfortunately increasingly-common) video screen. Nice high benches and big puffy push-around seats, but marks off again for the odd semi-VIP area. Lighting was reminiscent of that irritating colour-drained filter-effect you get in contemporary noir and vampire movies.
Ambience: Well.. they show music videos on a giant plasma screen behind the bar. The bar-staff take it in turns to select tracks on a computer, 'mixing' with all the skill of people fighting over the stereo at an 18-yr-old's party. The accompanying sound is a serious disincentive to thinking, let alone talking*. Overall the experience is a bit like getting trapped at the back of a bus with a large group of school-kids.
Slurry, slutty greetings: 2
Familiar faces: 1
Solicitations for group sex: 1
Estimated possibility of being drugged and date-raped: 75%
Website: Apparently not.
Franchise: NAFAIK.
Cost (approximate): No idea; ask The_Sifter, he bought the round.
Comments: Don't even bother. It's attached to a backpacker hostel, fer fuck's sake. In addition, the state of the "ladies" in the room - after several hours of free "bubbles" - led me to wonder if the bar-staff crumble E's into the flutes before serving. I was going to post a picture, but instead I think I'll just link to CollegeWildParties.com (warning: NOT work-safe). I'd rather go drinking at The Lazy Shag, and that's now a car-park. Perhaps we were there at the wrong time, but I really don't understand how Kate can do it week in, week out.

*That reminds me... Black-Eyed Peas are really quite fucking awful, aren't they. I mean, they're actually just shit. It's not just me, is it?
** Sifter you bastard, before you go correcting me, this font demonstrably does not support extended ASCII characters, so I cannot reproduce correctly Boulot's name.

UPDATE: Added some more categories. I'm taking this seriously, you know. Also corrected the location to Wakefield Street; where did Tory Street come from, I wonders.