Click on image to read cap's inscription
This humanoid has to use an android for its daily dose of the internet as the laptop developed serious start up and stay up problems. Using the android's on-screen keyboard gives one a good excuse for not being a ten-finger typist; indeed, there is barely enough room for one finger and then only if it is as pointy as a knitting needle. If Charles Darwin's theory of evolution is to be believed, future generations may only have two thumbs to play computer games and just one index finger shaped like a stylus to operate an android.
The lay-out of the on-screen keyboard is a revelation in itself: the colon and semicolon are relegated to a separate numeric keypad and thus are no longer part of mainstream grammar. Instead, a ready-made smiley, that 'metacommunicative pictorial representation of a facial expression', is very much centre stage. But, I am ☺ to report, the question mark is still there, perhaps in deference to that infectious Australian habit, now so prevalent with young people, of turning every statement into a question.
As I seem to be spending all my money on repairing the ride-on mower, I won't be buying a new laptop for a while. Unless I can pass the hat around! ☺ Which is not very likely after my recent experience with donations for Horst Berger: I had assumed that if several dozen people donated the equivalent of a caffe latte (or two), I could be sending Horst enough money to rebuild his cyclone-devastated 'fale Tonga' as well as letting him know that there are plenty of people who care about his isolated island existence.
With the exception of a notable few who donated the equivalent of a whole month's worth of caffe latte, most people responded with deafening silence. Perhaps they reasoned that "he had chosen that life style; nobody made him do it", and protested my likening them to the protagonist in Charles Dickens' Christmas Carol. Well, if the cap fits, wear it!
Anyway, so far I have sent two lots of $500 to Horst. Meantime, there have been two more donations from friends who were out of reach in their remote location or had been on holidays - see below - which will allow me to send a third, and last, remittance to Horst. It may be some time before I receive his response which I will post on this blog.
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in cyclone-devastated Tonga:
1) Peter Goerman AUS$450
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