>> The TIMER ON thing is not a thing you can turn off. Once on, it stays on
and there is no way to turn it off. <<

And besides-- 
On a Mac that can perform tens or hundreds of thousands of actions per second 
(is it up to millions on the new ones?), stopping once per minute or even 
once per second (I set mine to 60sec when it isn't needed) to see if there's 
something else you're supposed to be doing-- well, this is not going to take 
a really significant bite out of processing speed. And, come to think of it, 
it _doesn't_ stop, does it? Too lazy to consult the manual now for the exact 
wording, but TIMER events are only invoked if the program _isn't_ in the 
middle of doing something else already. So it's not as if your program is 
saying "Whoops! Can't deal with your mouse click now! Gotta go play that 
sound."