WERRIWA: Gough Whitlam thanks Payton L. Inkletter for the mischievous tip of the slouch hat toward the former Prime Minister in his Arcanum story.

Be all that as it may, meanwhile:

In other news…

30^th January 2009:

Friday: I awoke at eight a.m., after but three hours sleep, unable to sleep again, so up it was, and into computer jobs, including emailing some friends who will pray for my cousin Vee. I am very glad I’ve got this spiritual resource. I also sent more information to Vee’s email address on dietary information which I dug out of the recesses of this computer from back in 2002 that Mum used.

I did much watering and micro-fertilizing on this warm humid day, front and back, and then cleaned up before Umple Dais (Daffyd) picked me up at four o’clock and drove me to Ultratune to save me hoofing it on this warm humid day. The bad news was that as every Suzuki Swift of our vintage has its automatic transmission computerized controller packing up, there are no wrecker parts available, and if and when they are, it’ll be about 600 bucks, while a new one, from Japan and up to a month away, is a thousand bucks. May the car manufacturers who price these things this way, and plan the obsolescence, live in interesting times. A little circuit board with some software wired into it. Not unlike the thousand bucks at full price (had we not been kindly given a big discount) for our Miele oven’s circuit board which packed up last year – six inches square of circuit board with some software in it. A quarter of the price of the whole oven.

Simon L., the wonderful manager, showed me how to override things manually for as long as we have to or choose to, bless his cotton socks, and will wait for our next move, be it search for second hand parts or take our chances. I then plunged into a late orgy of shopping on my own at the nearby major shopping centre, scoring a pair of cargo pants at Ed Harry’s, thicker than I want but no matter, for twenty bucks, and a couple of fittings from Tandy, one of which I searched for all over as well as online over two years ago to no avail: an audio 3.5mm stereo plug to socket elbow. The fellow at Tandy reckoned they’ve always been available, but I reckon I searched and questioned high and low without success back then, being amazed that it wasn’t available. I can use it with my iRiver T10 mp3 player, which if it has a niggly fault, it would have to be the fact that the earphone jack sticks out at a bad angle, and this elbow will alleviate this problem (which it did on my first test on my late walk). The other fitting I didn’t expect to find either: an audio adaptor 3.5mm mono socket to RCA plug, if that makes sense. (I was overjoyed when back home I got my diminutive iRiver T10 to play an mp3 through our (by comparison only) huge Sony Trinitron courtesy of this plug. Now I won’t have to frig around burning to CD or DVD any of my recordings in order to be able to check the finished result in the comfort of the lounge, so I am one happy chappy about this.

I checked the astronomical price of the original ink tanks for my Canon iPixma 4200 printer at both Kmart and BigW, and the identical tanks cost over $4 more each at Kmart, a state of affairs I find, while not universal, is the norm between the two competitors across their everyday prices for a huge range of items. So at Kmart they are five cents shy of 29 bucks each, while at BigW they are under 25 bucks each.

I next got petrol over at Shell on Alexander Drive, using of all things a Kmart voucher from a receipt I picked up in the car park – thanks Kmart for that! Petrol has jumped almost twenty cents since last week when I last got juice, strewth! Next I called out our local Dewsons’, hoping to score another few slabs of the great over one month long special on Harvey Fresh UHT milk, but ’twas all gone, and it had reverted back to $1.95 a litre from 99 cents a litre. So coffee, gingeebee (ginger beer), and sugar it was only.

Worn out, I returned to Janny, the Swift’s auto transmission having worked fine, for it is only an intermittent problem, but was shortly sent packing around to Pa pree with vittles for him and his package which arrived today (Janny felt it would be more secure delivered to our place): his plastic shakuhachi seven hole flute for 240 bucks thank you very much. He was chuffed and most surprised it had already come, and put it together and pumped out some pleasant sounds in front of me. He decided with me to take our chances for a while yet with the transmission on the Swift, given the ridiculous cost to fix the software only.

I cancelled yesterday with Bob, for today was to be his swimming day. He is funny, because most every week he’ll comment that the car sounds dicky, and this week he was right.

Back home I broke bread in front of My Beloved and The 7.30 Report, eventually crawling into bed for a 3 hour nap about nine o’clock. Missus Inkles woke me just after midnight, as I requested, and she hit the sack, her leg pain not as bad today as she had feared, but bad enough. I watched David Letterman, and must say Renée Zellweger would have been much more enjoyable had she appeared in a comfortable old track suit and been just relaxed and normal, rather than a Barbie doll on display. From the moment she walked on artificially swinging like a clown, to the way she sat, holding her right hand of her hip, it reminded me of one of the reasons why I’m glad I’m not a woman. That poor girl seemed to think she had to portray some feminine ideal, but she was unrelaxed in her effort, and it was exhausting to watch. Give me her in round the house clothes any day, and a normal state of interaction. Uugghhh! Yes she’s gorgeous, but she doesn’t need to try, she just naturally is. She should let the natural relaxed persona shine through, and stick it up the expectations’ jacksie!

I wrote some of this blog, then went for a very late walk, aided and abetted by white comforters to control headache, arriving back drenched in sweat, as we are entering dinky di Perth February sauna weather. My bamboo – that which gets the food and water – is stoked, going gangbusters, with new major culms appearing every week now. On my return I continued writing, and jotted the odd note down for my critique, The Dawkins Deduction.

+paytontedwithlove+