NORTH SYDNEY: Joe Hockey confused with a gorilla using an abacus. “Don’t be so hard on him.” Payton L. Inkletter pleads, “Oxygen starvation at birth.”

Be all that as it may, meanwhile:

In other news…

18^th February 2009:

Wednesday: Warm but bearable, with the real heat forecast to come in a couple of days. I got ready to take Missus InkleIhavetogetvegetablesandfruit and Pa pree Inkletter to Benara Fresh Markets, and just close to leaving time – and leaving time is critical in our fambly, as any given time is set in concrete in certain minds – the local pair of Mormon missionaries rocked up, as they have a habit of doing when we’ve got deadlines.

Now Missus Inkles seems to have unlimited time for them, so she entertained them for 15 minutes, then I said hello to Elders Tilden and Cooper (a Maori fellow could you believe, and I tried to ask him if ‘whangachongahana’ had been chopped off the ‘Cooper’) for 5 minutes, before we left to pick up Pa pree, who no doubt had begun to give birth to kittens. I stopped briefly in Malaga at Cartridge World to buy an exchange Cyan cartridge for our Canon iP4200 printer. (Only yesterday in the shower I decided not to get another set of originals for later exchange with the refill people, because that second set would cost me, at Big Dub, the cheaper place, almost $130 – at Kmart(wesawyoucoming) add another $20 – getting close to the $180 I paid for the printer 3 years ago, whereas at Cartridge World I can exchange for $12 a pop, or about $60 the set of five. The last two blacks I exchanged are working fine, and the quality appears to me to be at least identical. The disadvantage of not having a second set is that as I run out with a cartridge, the printer refuses to work – at least I don’t know how to make it work – until every cartridge has ink in it, meaning I have to get my white arse over to Malaga to buy another one. I can walk it in thirty when I’m not near death, and I need the exercise, so the distance is not a problem, just the delay might be, especially if it’s after hours, or a Sunday. But shite, I was close to deciding to buy a second set of five originals for near 130 bucks, when it finally hit me, I’d be better off after 3 years buying a new improved printer for not much more. When will the printer folk wake up to the grossly overpriced consumables they hawk? When will they realize they are partly responsible for zillions of perfectly good printers clogging landfill? If Canon would spruik through retail outlets my cartridges for $12 a pop, I’d buy the originals with little complaint, although it would make life harder for the nice folk at Cartridge World.)

The only excitement at Beechboro was when I forgot to present the small bag of lemons from atop a box of pears in my trolley – I always hand the checkout person the card I’m given with the price and description of the box quantities of produce, rather than lift the boxes out – the gal noticed them, and asked “And the lemons?”, at which I pleaded, genuinely, that I didn’t mean to forget them. My eyesight is becoming a bit of a worry, but they were yellow atop yellowish pears. I think she believed me; hope so. As I type, the font here in Word is set at 18 on my now big screen – thanks to Reeve Chocson thinking of me when his previous work upgraded their monitors – and this has done wonders for my eyestrain.

We stopped in at our local Dewsons’, with the little people going their way, while I went mine, specifically to score another four 12 pack cartons of Harvey Fresh UHT mullock, which, unbelievably, is still on sale there for a buck a litre. Oh, and a pack of white Black & Gold sugar, which we have stocked up on in recent months also, and which has been at a better rate than the bulk 25 Kg bags we have bought it in for years. What is the price? Two kilos, two bucks.

My mum phoned, and among other things we discussed cousin Vee’s encouraging progress at The Mount Hospital after his cancer operation last Friday. While Mum spoke to me Maximus Coccioli was asleep at her feet, all fifty plus kilograms of him, big puppy that he is. I didn’t get outside, for Missus Inklecaringolddear fed us earlier, so that she could take off before half seven to gallivant around the neighbourhood: specifically, she went to a party plan type affair at Esther’s around the corner and then around the next corner, in case you ever want to go there too. She took Pa pree home at the same time, and I had to hit the sack before 8 (dulled with white comforters), more’s the pity, because when I have the freedom of being home alone (too!) I would prefer to be awake to enjoy the emancipation it affords me. She woke me, as I asked her to, when she got back, at ten. She reckoned she enjoyed it all very much. These folk, the Graineys, are long term friends from before Baby Inkletter’s kindergarten days when we had not long been here, and Janny saw Esther’s youngest daughter there, who went to school in high school with our girl. Ylvia now has two children of her own; it makes you feel old.

I managed to successfully record three hours of Aunty on the infernal DVD recorder of last diary entry’s philippic of mine, and after watching Lateline and Letterman, I watched my recording of The 7.30 Report. That old farmer in Victoria, Lou Ackerman, has my sympathy regarding his complaints about bureaucratic and academically lovely restrictions upon reducing litter build up along the roads. Academia is, sadly, so often so out of touch with the real world in a million ways. The last story caught my attention also, the proposed model for paying royalties to artists, or their estates, upon the resale of their works; I think the idea is good, and I don’t have a lot of faith in, or rather, I need more convincing of, the purity of motive of Lesley Alway, Managing Director of Sotheby's Australia who opposes the scheme. Her company wouldn’t benefit from the current situation, would it now?

Lateline’s Leigh Sales interviewed Mary Kissel, the editor or the Wall Street Journal Asia section, and I had a few smiles as Ms Kissel gave her opinions of what not to read into Secretary of State Clinton’s non-inclusion of Australia in her first overseas trip. She had some sobering ideas about Australia’s economic stimulus package. Oh, and how cute is Mary’s mouth slightly twisting to her left when she talks… Another feature, the job cuts by GM America and their request for billions of dollars more is sobering also. It is no surprise to me that they are in dire straits, as many car companies, for still making prehistoric problem creators rather than suitable problem solving technology. I think the internal combustion commuter vehicles still being sold would have to be the greatest depreciator we can buy the moment we leave a showroom, all things considered. We drive away in a vastly overpriced lemon.

Dave Letterman had a very nice chemistry with Bonnie Hunt, who is very easy to like, but I wish he’d drop that Lyle the Intern idiot sketch who is foul mouthed and mock offensive toward him. Back to a positive note, I so enjoyed the different and talented M. Ward, of whom I had not previously heard. His music was unusual and very good.

I tackled some writing on the pooter, then embarked on a walk on this not so windy night, about half two. I got more ideas for The Dawkins Deduction, which I tapped into my dedicated Word document on my return.

I prepared more notes for publishing to ‘Healing Matters’, about the ‘Religious option’, mainly being a copy of my old notes from some years back which I used to email to relatives and friends upon request. I plan to rewrite this section, but as that may take me a while to get to, I don’t want to hold the web page up for that long, so my old notes will suffice (I will simply be expanding the concepts when I rewrite them, and adding more explanations, essentially). I checked the current links to Dr Johanna Budwig’s dietary advice for her cancer cure, and put these latest links into the information I’m preparing for uploading. So the state of play at the moment is that I have got the diet additive info ready, the links, the account of Mum’s experience, the ‘Psychological option’, rewritten early last week, and now the old notes for the religious option, so it is close to being ready for uploading.

I noticed an order form on the kitchen bench top from Missus InkleI’mabunny’s soiree at Esther’s last night, and it was for almost fifty bucks, goods arriving and dough due in mid March. Pretty little smelly candles and such useless trinkets. She managed not to bother me with this detail before she retired to the boudoir for her beauty sleep.

Today I broke down and revealed to the alabaster dragon that I have been using a secretly stashed tube of Vicco toothpaste for over two months; she took it well, at least outwardly. Using exclusively the electric toothbrush means that I consume the tiniest of amounts daily, and what’s more, I alternate it with a herbal Colgate number that has fluoride in it, thinking that my teeth might need a bit of that poison to keep the enamel hard. Maybe my food will begin to have bamboo sheath fur added, if it hasn’t already…

+paytontedwithlove+