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Last night I dreamed that Cassia visited us. I don't remember what we talked about, but it was fun.

Possible new flat

Stella would like to buy a flat of our own, rather than continuing to rent; partly as a buffer against future increases in rent and partly so that eventually, we wouldn't have to keep paying at all.

So every now and then, she looks at advertisements on the Internet, and recently, she found one she liked.

So I told her she could have a look at it and if she still wanted it, we could discuss it. So she went there on Friday and liked it, then made another appointment this morning for me to go along, too.

I'm not too keen on moving in the first place, and I'm not really sure what to look for in a flat to buy.

But it looks like a flat to me. Three rooms, like we have now; total floor area 74 m² (800 sq.ft.), like we have now; windows on three sides (including one in the bath room, which Stella occasionally complains about our flat not having). A little garden (well, a strip of what's currently lawn running along the front of the block of flats, which belongs to us up to a "depth" of 4 m/13 ft and which we could turn into a garden if we wanted). A playground right next to the house, which would be good for Amy, I suppose.

Stella said she'd probably turn the bigger room into the bedroom (where she'd put both of our desks) and the smaller room into the living room, since we don't use that as much. Amy would get the smallest room, which is smaller than what she has now, but which Stella says should be enough.

The kitchen comes furnished with rather altmodisch-looking cupboards etc., but which Stella says she rather likes, unlike (she says) most women her age. I don't particularly mind either way.

So now we have to decide whether to buy it or not, and then approach the bank to see whether they'd help us pay for it.

It's mostly up to me.

Tough decision. Meh.

nü

I wonder why the German syllable "nü" /ny/ is officially(?) transcribed into Chinese characters as 尼 ní when Chinese has a perfectly serviceable syllable pronounced /ny/. (They do have 呂 for /ly/ in that table, so it's not as if they don't know about /y/....)

The transcription table for French has the same odd treatment for /ny/ vis-à-vis /ly/.

Let's get a new, high-end PC!

My webmail provider sent me their weekly newsletter again, and one of their offers was for a "high-end PC" for only €299 instead of €599.

Sounds interesting, so I scanned the advertisement even though I'm not currently in the market for a new PC.

I lost interest as soon as I came across the bit where, for a limited time, they'll double the installed memory to 1 GB.

Excuse me? You have got to be kidding me, selling a computer with 512 MB of RAM as "high-end". Let alone if it involves Vista in any way, shape or form. I've got 2 gigs and that seems about right for normal work.

(And the little ad image boasts that the computer is a "Windows Vista compatible PC system". Yeah, right, but getting Vista to load doesn't mean it'll make working with it fun.)

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I think the bottom line wasn't so much trying to pawn off a computer with half a gig of RAM that'll likely be sold with Vista to people, but calling such a travesty a "high-end PC".