Wednesday, July 04, 2007

A Flat Game

That Morthos Stare writes:

Posted on behalf of Mr. H. O. Ransome (of 'All-Embracing But Underwhelming')

Flat-hunting.

It's crap.

I'm currently in the market for moving and, like many a PhD student, I am also a pauper who can't really afford to live in Auckland. The rental market here is dire, and for more than one reason. Aside from the price (ideally, you are told, you should pay less than a third of your income on rent; an average flat near the University takes up close to half of my income (and, yes, once you move further out the rents do come down but the price of transport goes up) you also have to deal with the fact that the Palangi who decided to settle in Auckland kept persisting in the idea that Aotearoa was a tropical paradise; our houses are not built for the cold and damp that make up our otherwise pleasant climate.

(It is, at least, better than that of Old Blighty...)

A further problem for the impoverished flat-hunter is the fear that Auckland's housing market won't crap-out spectacularly for a little longer, which means that whilst it looks bad now it's going to be worse in a few months time. There is little point saving and scrimping because I'll never have enough capital behind me to properly fund this little venture. Indeed, if I get a flat now I have about six months of safely locked-down rent...

Thus I am in a quandary; keep looking knowing that it will cause despair or just give up and stay in, the horror of it all, the North Shore. Hmm, even typing that makes me feel queasy...

So what, Mr. Ransome, you might well be saying. Trite truisms and pessism might well make a MySpace post but this is Brain Stab. We expect content (not that we ever get it, however...).

Well, tough titties, I say. Complaining it is. Anyway, Josh is either about to orgasm over the 'Transformers' Movie or cast aspersions upon it. Frankly, he can't be trust; he liked 'Return of the Sith.'

9 comments:

Rich said...

Is there *any* major city in the world where rents are affordable for PhD students (unless you happen to be sponsored by Microsoft or something)?

Almost all UK houses have central heating, BTW, and anything built in the last years has had to have double glazing and adequate insulation.

Matthew R. X. Dentith said...

Having lived in London I know. It's strange that out here we've never caught on to central heating and insulation; well, newer houses feature these things but we're not good on insulating older places.

Josh said...

Yeah, I was going to post something about Transformers, but Jeremy Slater already summed everything up for me.

Josh said...

Oh, and as a representative of the PC feminazi po-mosexualist agenda: "palagi" -- no "n".

Matthew R. X. Dentith said...

Actually, it can be spelt either way; the pronunciation features the 'n' and that version of it in written form is increasingly common, Mr. Sanctity of Language.

Apathy Jack said...

I've never seen it written that way.

I'm just sayin'...

Anonymous said...

Josh, as a total transformers fanboy, I agree with almost everything he said as well, except for a couple of things..

A. Bumblebee was not a VW in the movie because VW didn't let them, they didn't want their car glorifying war in a movie.

B. The makers quite obviously did care about this. There were a lot of little details in the movie. Such as Prime's signature move, the upper cut, and a quote from the original movie, "one shall stand, one shall fall". I could go on but you get the idea. All that was missing was the song, "You got the touch".

Definitely the most fun movie I've ever seen.

Morthos: the North Shore is a GREAT place to live. No one ever bothers you because they can't stand making the trip. No unwanted guests for me, no sir.

Matthew R. X. Dentith said...

Actually, just in from the FHG, it is Palagi in Samoan and Palangi in Tongan. Or so I am reliably informed.

Anonymous said...

So you're telling me that a car company created by Hitler doesn't want to be associated with war? Hmmm... bit late for that!