I stopped at that scaffolded mess they call a modern art gallery and was drawn into an excellent performance by a french acrobat and entertainer. A fair crowd gathered round and we were captivated by his ability and litheness, and squeals of laughter escaped the crowd at every opportunity.

At one point he dropped a ball that he was using along with about another 5 in a trick. He was standing on a platform and thus the ball bounced a fair way across the courtyard before shuddering to a stop. The acrobat simply extended his hand in the air and waited for a passer by to pick up the ball, which was then thrown without much success in the awaiting acrobat's direction. 

This time it hit the side of his platform and bounced even further across the courtyard, and what followed was an ensemble of pedestrians attempting in vain to collect the ball which had taken on itself a life of its own in tandem with its ally, the cobblestones. The crowd couldn't contain itself and rib-cracking laughter ensued.

All in all it was a great experience but I've suddenly realized that I'm posting on the MacTake, not tWTB and therefore have to tie this somehow into the shiny world of Cupertino.

I visited a few Apple retail outlets in Paris, and what I believed to be an Apple Store. Once again, just like every other Apple Store I've visited the experience was spotless and without fault - if a little French.

I got to try out those new iMac keyboards for the first time but was surprised to note that as I touched-typed in the MacTake's address, it appeared on screen as:

mqtqke.xtreqmk.vim. 

Was the keyboard malfunctioning? Or worse: had I lost my touch-typing skillz? I looked down at the keyboard and it glared back up at me with evil AZERTY eyes.

I also noticed that it cost €29 for a new pair of iPod earphones. Now whilst I am extremely glad that Apple have finally begun selling the standard earphones separately as well as including them with the iPod, I don't much like the price. That's £19.60GBP, $39.50USD, and $48.47A. Of course prices will differ dramatically between countries but thats just a straight conversion from the Euro.

It seems iPods are incredibly popular in Paris though, every man and his dog (not really) is sporting white earphones and are in the habit of digging out their iPods from the depths of their jackets or handbags (women, generally) and flicking the backlight on and off to make sure their tunes are lined up properly...

More on my Flickr.