Well, I got through several of those things but couldn't do anything with t-oh God I just thought of something wait a second I'm loading the game up hold on...
Nope, didn't work. Anyway, by "ignoring" I mean I simply kept all of those items with me, stopped bothering with the dispenser, and entered wait commands until I was on the Heart of Gold.
Still no hints, but now that I know the babel fish isn't just a red herring I'll try that some more.
(I'm playing via Windows Frotz, by the way.)