A little bird tells me that Père Noël (aka Father Xmas), in the form of Madame, might just be popping a mini camcorder into my Christmas stocking in a few weeks time. I managed to sneak a quick peek at the packaging to read the all-important system requirements. (system meaning my PC) I appear to be OK for space on my hard drive but it looks like I'll need a Pentium 4 2.8 or equivalent central processing unit or CPU as my current one won't be up to the job. What I know about CPUs could be typed, double spaced, in a large font, on the back of a postage stamp so I've just spent the last few hours researching the subject on the internet. This saga is slightly complicated by the fact that my processor isn't a Pentium - it's an AMD. Figuring out the equivalence and whether my motherboard can take a hot new processor is a riveting way of spending an afternoon.. I won't bore you with the details except to say that they are offered on ebay around the world at fairly hefty prices but I managed to find a local chap in Anglet (5 mins away) who has one for sale at a reasonable price.
Quick diversion: the cartoon below shows what you can easily end up doing on the internet if you're not careful..
Saw a car sticker here today that made me smile: "No ABS or airbags - I'll die like a man!"
If you feel in the mood for some escapism, I suggest you look no further than the following clip from "Out of Africa":
Madame spent some of her formative years at Brazzaville in the Congo - her father was in the French Air Force - and we've often thought about going back there. The sticking point is that Brazzaville has, for many years, been on the list of the world's most dangerous towns, along with Pointe Noir on the coast where she used to have holidays. While she has many fond memories of Africa I'm not too keen on the idea of having a one-way conversation with someone who's idly dangling a rusty machete at his side and so we're now thinking of visiting Kenya instead one day.. I'm tempted by Lamu on the coast.
