Newstocks

Death on the roads

Tryangle asks whether the latest death on Bermuda's roads will prompt the Premier to finally get serious about improving Bermuda's appalling road safety record.

Of course it won't. A week from now this latest death will have been forgotten, just like all the rest.

From today's Royal Gazette:

"With concerns again raised yesterday over how to tackle the crisis, Police and campaigners pledged that new plans – including recommendations for speed cameras and random sobriety checks – will be announced within weeks."

Translation: expect frak all to change. The Government has been dilly-dallying over speed cameras for years now. In March 2005, then-Public Safety Minister Randy Horton announced that $100k had been set aside for their installation. But that figure (for the 2005/6 financial year) was eventually revised down to $7k, and in the 2006/7 financial year there was no money in the budget for them. In July 2006, Ewart Brown asked Randy Horton to expedite their installation, but again, nothing happened.

So much for Ewart Brown's supposed ability to get things done.

Santa Claus is coming to town

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Christmas morning

"Oh my goodness! What is dat?!"

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Back to Azeroth

After a 10-month break I've renewed my subscription to World of Warcraft.

The release of the expansion Wrath of the Lich King (WOTLK) was the main factor. I don't have the expansion yet, but I've given it to Mandy to give to me for Christmas or my birthday. In the meantime I've started levelling up my priest, Amelie, to level 70 so I can play the expansion content with her rather than my hunter, Ilaridel. Even though Amelie is only level 66 and Ilaridel is already level 70 with a lot more cash and goodies such as an epic flying mount, I want to play Amelie again because as a healer I should find it much easier to find groups for instances.

A while back, I thought I'd be playing Warhammer Online rather than WOTLK. Alas, Warhammer seems to be struggling with low-population servers and formerly exciting ideas like public groups have turned out to not work so well when most of the server population has out-levelled them. Apparently Warhammer's world isn't as much fun to explore as WoW's, and that's an important factor for me too.

Right now I plan to subscribe only long enough to reach level 80 (the new cap) and see most of the sights in Northrend, the new continent. I've no longer any interest in grinding for better equipment, as I did in the Battlegrounds with my hunter when she hit 70, and I can't make the commitments necessary to play on the raiding circuit.

Now I just have to tear myself away from Left 4 Dead, which I'm finding considerably more addictive than I expected!

Christmas concert

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