accessing Notes on my Mac from iPhone

My iPhone was stolen last night, and I need to get to the Notes that were on the phone.
Apple customer support just told me theres no way to access the Notes on my iMac, even though theyre on the computer in a backup file. They say no way to get to them except buying new iPhone and syncing it up.
Now - this cant be right. In the 1990s I had PalmPilots that syncd everything to my desktop and all was accessible on desktop.
Is it true that a company as technically brilliant as Apple in 2009 has made it so that Notes sync up with iMac but cannot be accessed?
Any ideas anyone? I really need to access those Notes.
Much as I loved my iPhone, its way to expensive at this point in the recession to replace it at the prices AT&T gives to existing customers, so I think Im going to downgrade to cheaper.
iMac Mac OS X (10.4.10)