All posts by old posts

Daily Life, Employment

Unemployed man seeks room in Bristol

Leave a comment

Short version:

Unemployed man, 29, seeks room to rent in Bristol up to £275 per month (excluding bills/council tax).
If anyone can help, please contact me on twitter @benpark or email <link now removed due to spam>
Thanks.

And now the longer version:

I haven’t always been unemployed, and don’t intend to be forever. Currently though, I don’t have a job, and so am claiming benefits, while looking for work and also looking at starting my own business.

My credit history is fine, and I haven’t paid a bill late in years.

I’m looking for somewhere ASAP, as I have split up with my girlfriend and need to move from the flat we currently share together. This also means I have no notice period to give, so can move straight away.

About me: I’m 29, I don’t smoke, and don’t drink (well not regularly – the occasional one, maybe at New Year). I’m quite quiet and clean, and generally keep myself to myself really. I like the normal things like watching TV, films and a bit of gaming (though I’m not very good). I’ve got a reasonably eclectic taste in music, which means when you ask me what music I enjoy, I’ll instantly forget every song I own and be lost for words.
When I have more money the only places you’d find me in Cabot Circus are the cinema, crazy golf course (though it isn’t very good), or the Apple store looking at products I still can’t afford.

As far as areas-of-Bristol-to-live-in go, I’m not entirely sure. I like Redland/Westbury Park/Henleaze/Bishopston/St Andrews. Realistically though, I’m not sure I can afford such areas, so am open to most parts of Bristol really. I like areas with some trees/birds, and don’t really mind how close (or not) to the centre I am, as I don’t spend a lot of time there. I currently have a car, so if it has some on-street parking available, great. I’m not expecting guaranteed spaces or anything though.

I guess I’d like to live with people who are non-smoking (or who at least don’t do it in the house), reasonably tidy (but not anally so) and are relatively laid back. I’m past the late-night party stage (if I was ever there), so preferably nobody too noisy. I’m quite a fussy eater and not much of a cook so I might not be that useful if shared meals is your thing, but I can make a reasonable victoria sponge so might be handy for the dessert.

If anyone has got this far, hasn’t run a mile and has a room to rent, please get in touch.

Note: Due to my unemployment, I can only pay up to £275 pcm or thereabouts (excluding bills and council tax). If it is an “all-bills-included” type of arrangement, the tenancy agreement will need to break down how much is rent, how much is council tax, and how much is ‘other’ bills.

If anyone can help, please contact me on twitter @benpark or email <link now removed due to spam>

Employment, Gripes

The life of the unemployed

Leave a comment

If you’ve ever thought that the unemployed were enjoying themselves getting paid to sit on their arses living off other people’s taxes, or as some wanker wrote on Twitter last week “people that dont wanna work and think everything should be handed to them on a plate”, or even if you know that not to be the case, I thought I’d garnish you with some figures from my own personal experiences. I’m currently a little bit angry at the world, and my confidence isn’t as high as it might be. And that’s partly because this week I’ve been rejected for another two jobs that are very much below me.

Continue reading The life of the unemployed →

I Have a Dream

Mice, head-butting and weird stalkers

Leave a comment

So that was my experiences while asleep last night.

First dream, I’d swear I heard scuttling. Not just like one little mouse, but loads and loads. I grabbed my phone, pushed the home button (so it would light up), and filled half the room with the glow it emits. The noise stopped. No idea what that was. Continue reading Mice, head-butting and weird stalkers →

Technology

Driverless cars of the future

Leave a comment

According to an article on Mashable, driverless cars of the future are here! Now!
Well, in 2018 they will be.

I’ll believe it when I see it. They’ve been promising driverless cars for years, and apart from the Lexus that can park itself, that BMW that can memorise a route around an (otherwise-empty) test track, and cars that drive along a set distance from each other in a straight line, it’s never happened.

I’m glad, because I like driving. Some of the people commenting on that story don’t seem to, though… Continue reading Driverless cars of the future →

Daily Life, Employment, Gripes, Technology

I’m coming back to Facebook

Leave a comment

Last year, I quit Facebook. No – not deactivated. A full on account deletion.

I quit it because I wasn’t using it, I didn’t like it, and I was fed up of a lot of aspects of it. I still don’t really see the point of it now, don’t have enough information to share to fill a constantly-expanding photo album, and I almost certainly won’t use it very much this time around either.

I didn’t like their embedded video system, it’s a pain to find people on it, the general search system is shite, it’s slow, it’s cumbersome, and it’s got loads of adverts on it. I didn’t like the way people copied me in on conversations I couldn’t care less about, then watched as every individual replied back to everyone. It was like a return to the shit old ‘reply all’ days of email, before people learnt how to use it properly. Continue reading I’m coming back to Facebook →

Daily Life

I don’t really understand Valentine’s Day

Leave a comment

When I was younger, I’m sure the idea with Valentine’s Day was to send a card and/or flowers and/or chocolate and/or gifts to someone you were sexually attracted to. And to make this unbelievably more annoying for the person you’re sending it to, you must write the card with whichever is not the hand you usually write with, sign it from “?”, and post it from 15 miles away so the postmark is of a different town. I mean you don’t want the person to know you like them do you? How would that make any sense?

This way, the girl who lives round the corner will never suspect you of a crime so heinous as sending her a nice card, and she’ll be confused as to why someone who has handwriting like a doctor’s house pet is writing to them from somewhere they’ve never visited.

If you want to really scare the hell out of them, you can do what I did in my early teenage years, and cycle to their house with an enormous card, leave it outside their house, ring the doorbell and run away. Nothing odd in that, right? The postman *could* have delivered it, right? Not on a Sunday he couldn’t. I can’t remember how I found out her address given that she had only recently moved there, but she certainly didn’t give it to me. Bizarrely this didn’t seem like stalking, to my teenage self. Continue reading I don’t really understand Valentine’s Day →

Daily Life

Bristol’s Hooters Closes

Leave a comment

Ah – it seems that Hooters in Bristol has shut down. Good luck to the employees in finding more work, and to the owner in their future ventures. And I mean that. Whatever you think of the company/brand/ethics/whatever, a lot of people will have lost their jobs and income.

I never quite got around to going. And not just because I’ve been poor and have been struggling to find employment. I thought I’d blog about why I never went. Continue reading Bristol’s Hooters Closes →