Observations concerning a lazy Sunday afternoon

I tried Dark Age of Camelot yesterday, with the minor hiccup that the free trial version is in fact the US version, not the European version - which means I can't play on the same servers as mr_wombat. Nevertheless, I am a definite convert. It knocks Anarchy Online into a cocked hat, and seems to me to be better than Everquest, by a fair margin. The idiot level also appears to be far lower; people have good sensible in-character names, guild names are not "We R DA l33+ RoX0R", but things like "Horizon" and "Spirits of Tir na mBeo". They've clearly done their research, too - the name generators, at least in Hibernia, where I created a character, generate good pseudo-Celtic names (my character is Bhiodirse), the milieu is clearly Celtic, and one of the NPCs made a definite point of telling me about the Silver Hand of Nuada. I was well pleased.

Today feels extremely lazy. I made stew yesterday, which will feed us for at least today, and possibly some of tomorrow as well, so there's no need to cook. I'm halfway inclined to toddle into town and buy a proper copy of DAoC, but it'd be more sensible to wait until after I come back from the work weekend away, which is Thursday-Sunday next weekend. There is, as ever, some game writing I could do, but none of it is pressing at the moment. We might go for a walk, because it's a nice autumnal day. But for the first time in quite a long time, I have no premade appointments. It's a very good feeling.

Parti-political

olethros and I have discussed subsidies, college grants, and fee payment as done by the Irish government on a few occasions lately. I just saw this on the BBC site - New Zealand did away with subsidies 20 years ago, and the world does not appear to have ended, nor did any farmers starve to death outside the Kiwi houses of governance.