“President Trump, sir, you think you’ve got tiny hands? Check this guy out. This is your personal sheriff doll, Mr President, for you to play with in bed. He shoots Muslims on sight.”

This was on the web yesterday. At first glance, I thought the guy on the right was an admiral in the US Navy, but even an Admiral of the Fleet doesn’t have that many rings on his sleeve. It turns out that this is a gathering of sheriffs, i.e. police. Look at the guy’s uniform! Epaulettes with gold stars, star badge, those six gold rings on his sleeves, gold buttons and that big USA flag badge. Hoo ah. I’d love to see his hat. And he’s only a policeman. These Americans are ridiculous. Even ordinary low ranking soldiers have three rows of medal ribbons on their chests.

However, take a look at our Australian Border Force guys these days. Black uniforms, military style, with gold and silver fittings and badges. Black uniforms were all the rage in Nazi Germany, remember. The government is turning our former Customs and Immigration guys into a quasi-military “force”, with that psychopath Dutton at the head.

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The title above refers to my toaster. (Exciting subject, eh?) It’s a fancy Breville 4-slice machine, and I mean “machine”, because the lift and lower is motor driven. Lovely. I bought it in April last year, partly to impress my new visitor, I must admit.

But yesterday it refused to lift and finish, with the toast down there in the slots getting overcooked. It was just making clicking sounds. I had to hurriedly switch it off at the wall. Oh well, it’s still under warranty, but I’ll have to take it into Myer in the city where I bought it.

However, I tried it this morning after it’s been off for 24 hours and it’s come good. That’s good, but it’s also bad, because it means an intermittent fault which may be hard to demonstrate. We’ll see how it goes. It cost $135, not negligible.

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Another completely sleepless night last night, as is regular now. I was recommended to take melatonin tablets, as there’s no hangover effect, a big problem with the Phenergan I’ve been using. It didn’t work on my first attempt last night. I felt very sleepy and was nearly dropping off, but never succeeded. I felt very rested, but never got to sleep.

At least I got to hear a great talk on Big Ideas, RN, between 3 and 4am, on physics, particles, our universe and the possibilities of multi-universes, and what might happen if any of the many physics constants were even slightly different to the value we know. They pointed out that there are quite a few numbers in physics which are hugely important, such as the speed of light and the mass of the electron, but we have no idea why the numbers are what they are. Why is the speed of light 2.99792458 x 10e11 m/s? Why not 3.0000 exactly? Why not 5.00001? We have no idea.

[Actually, it could be 3.0000… exactly if the definition of the metre was changed. We define the metre as the reciprocal of the velocity, how about that? We could choose some other definition, as we used to until 1983. I think I dispute the basis of the question. Similarly, we talk all the time in terms of years, which is simply the time taken for one rotation of our Earth around our star. But to some other life form, our year might be exceedingly long, or short, by many orders of magnitude perhaps. We tend to think other worlds or galaxies must measure time in units like ours. Why should they?]

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So it’s back to the winter weather. What a strange summer. I’m not complaining, not at all. No need for air conditioning. I’m even having to use a bit of hot water for my showers on some mornings! No need for sprinklers either.

I’ve just been out to the garage at 5.30am to lift an IKEA box off the floor in case any rainwater gets in under the roller doors. If even a little bit of water gets into particle board, it swells and distorts and is ruined. I was lying there sleepless, thinking about things I have to do, and the IKEA Billy bookcase flat packs came to mind.

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I was talking to a mate about broadband internet speeds, i.e. lack of, and thought I’d check, just now. My speed is 1Mb/s or less. Not good.

However, I checked iiNet’s plans and found that they know about Opticomm, which pre-cabled this estate with fibre when it was developed in 2004, and I can get FTTH, fibre to the home! Hoo-bloody-ray. At last. And I can even have the 100Mb/s top speed, with a 500GB allowance per month (I presently have 20GB) for about the same price as I’m paying now for ADSL 1Mb/s. I think I’ll sign up asap.

I never got around to doing anything about buying that new phone that I mentioned last week. Another model caught my eye and seems better, and distracted me. Must do it.

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I had a very nice comment yesterday from a lady I don’t know, about my blog post on kookaburras at the Trigg house in 2012! She also has kookas coming to her back verandah and found my post about mine. Crumbs, the internet is forever.