Pendragon Costumes - made my absolutely gorgeous wedding outfit.  Not only was the outfit more than I could have hoped for, their communication was excellent, and the outfit arrived in a timely manner.

Photo Moods Photography – did our official wedding photos.  Kevin and Diahnn were amazing, both friendly and professional, blending in perfectly throughout the wedding.  I especially loved that Dianne dressed to theme

Katie Dawson – an amazing seamstress who custom-made Thorne’s wedding jacket, vest and shirt.  Seriously, this woman has major talent.

AAMI – okay, I know it seems weird to be thanking an insurance company, but we have reason.  After I viciously murdered Papa Smurf, they were so friendly, quick and efficient in sorting everything out without trying to weasel around things (as I have heard many other insurance agencies do).

Last Ride Funerals – as the local motorbike hearse wasn’t available, Kerry came down from Melbourne for Dad’s funeral.  Kerry was friendly, laid-back yet still professional, and absolutely wonderful, and I really appreciate everything you did for us.

There are also lots of individuals who were there for me and my family above and beyond the normal call of friendship, and I want to thank everyone who helped us through last year.  I’m not going to name names, as inevitably I will forget at least one person on the list and I don’t want anyone thinking they’ve been overlooked or taken for granted!

A large proportion of people seem to think that doctors are simply idiots.  That doctors don’t know how diagnose simple and common maladies.  That years of university training and experience working is no match for a quick Google search.  That they know what illness they have from checking the symptoms online, and present to the doctor to request a prescription for what they believe to be the right treatment.  No thought is given to alternative diagnoses, and they are often quite annoyed when the doctor won’t just give them the script but insists on examining them to make their own diagnosis.  It reminds me a bit of the story I read about Prince William when he was doing charity work building houses in South America.  He was apparently convinced he had leukaemia.  What he really had was a run-of-the-mill generic virus.  Another thing is the medical information that intermittently becomes available through the popular media.  People with little to know medical background assume they can grok it the same way people with medical training can.  Take antidepressants, for example.  I know a lot of people who think they’re useless and dangerous, and that doctors who prescribe them are simply puppets of the big pharmas.  These people were ecstatic when a study came out a few years ago which was reported in the media, ANTIDEPRESSANTS DON’T HELP!! I saw people who had been anti-antidepressants gloating on their blogs about this, with one going so far as to say that therefore any doctor who prescribed them was being willfully negligent in order to get some free merchandise from the big pharmas.  What was interesting was to actually READ the paper in question.  It said that antidepressants weren’t effective with mild depression (something that is well known anyway), but the study only covered the first 4-6 weeks of treatment.  You know, the same as the general lag period for antidepressants to become effective.  Which doctors are well aware of.  But these laypeople still believe that this study proves what they already knew, and therefore doctors are ignorant.  They don’t want the facts pointed out to them.  And of course, completely ignoring the fact that not all doctors automatically give antidepressants to people who present claiming to be depressed.

Despite believing doctors are idiots, these same patients still attend with ridiculous expectations.  Everything should be cured (there is nothing that has to be managed).  Every ailment can be fixed with the right pill (no other modifications in the patient’s life need to be done).  And if the pill didn’t work, it’s because the stupid doctor gave them the wrong one.  They expect miracles from modern medicine (how many people still go to the doctor with “the flu” without the primary reason being a medical certificate for work?) but have no respect for the practitioners.

Bulk-billing is another matter of contention.  I have often heard complaints about how few doctors still bulk-bill and how unfair that is.  First, I want to explain how bulk-billing works.  Basically the government decided how much a doctor’s time was worth, then decided doctors should get 75% of this.  That’s what bulk-billing is.  What’s worse, although the amount may have been fair when introduced in the 1980s, remuuneration rates haven’t kept up with the CPI.  And in the greatest irony, studies have found that patients have more respect for advice when they have to pay their own money to see the doctor.  People try to justify the income of doctors by saying “well, I paid $X, they see Y patients per hour, so they are making $Z per year, greedy bastards!”  It doesn’t work like that.  Doctors only receive a percentage of the payment for each consult.  Add in a few no-shows (that’s right, if the patient doesn’t show up the doctor doesn’t get paid), and all the unpaid time spent on administrative tasks, and suddenly it’s not so great, is it?   But nobody wants to think in those terms, so it just comes back to doctors earning lots of money and being greedy.

This is not to say that a doctor’s income isn’t good.  But damn, a doctor works for it.  Do you know how ridiculous some of the malpractice laws are?  If you see a doctor who recommends that you have a test or see a specialist, and you choose not to, and suffer as a result (for example if the doctor is worried about a cancer, and by not undertake the further testing or specialist review and as such the cancer becomes terminal) you can successfully sue the referring doctor for negligence.  No, I am not kidding.  A grown responsible adult can choose not to look after their own health after being given the appropriate referrals, and it’s still the doctor’s fault if they suffer as a result.  That’s just an example of what doctors live with every day.

It’s really a no-win situation for medicos.

In my younger years I also followed the Five Geek Social Fallacies.  For the most part I’ve managed to get away from them now (I hope!), but these still form the basis of most of the abuses I see.  It’s not so much enacting the fallacy itself, but the fallout.  For example, your friend X introduces you to their friend Y.  The assumption is you and Y will get along like a house on fire (Fallacies #4 and #5), but you can’t stand them.  However they’re now part of “the group” so you are forced to invite them even to your own social events (Fallacy #1).  Resentment grows.  Then comes the passive-aggressive bullshit (after all, you can’t be overtly rude to them or express your dislike, can you?).  And inevitably with the passive-aggressiveness comes game-playing.  How close can the friendship be in a group when nobody is really honest and you can’t trust that the friendliness shown to you is real and not just a front while you are whispered about and backstabbed the instant you leave the room?

Similarly, the “never not be nice” attitude can cause a lot of damage in a friendship.  If two friends A and B do an activity together, and person B decides they don’t want to do it with A any more, they won’t tell them outright.  Instead they try to make the situation as uncomfortable as possible so that A will be the one who “quits”, leaving them in the morally superior position.  Of course, the behaviour is all passive-aggressive, or they will lose that moral superiority from being overtly unkind.  So A leaves, and B gets to stop doing the activity with A and feels smug about it.  I’ve also seen this happen a lot in romantic relationships, where one partner will try to get the other to leave rather than having the gonads to do it themselves.

Another major wrong done in the name of friendship is a combination of  Fallacies #2 and #3.  I even once had a boyfriend say to me “This is who I am, if you want to be with me that’s what you’re getting”.  Which, if you think about it, is really saying “If there is any area in which we have conflict,. don’t expect me to compromise for you at all”.  It’s leaving all the accommadating to the other person.  And this is compounded by the expectation that the comprimising friend should be at the beck and call of the uncomprimising friend.  If person N thinks they shouldn’t have to change or even moderate any aspect of their behaviour, they will expect person O to not only tolerate it, but even to have it thrust on them at any time and to accept this.  For example, if N has one night stands, but after each encounter feels “dirty” and needs to talk it out, but keeps repeating this pattern.  They call O late one night after yet another such encounter with the expectation that O will listen to them and comfort them.  What N often fails totally to take into account (since they expect everybody to comprimise for them and think they should be accepted warts and all) is that maybe O is exhausted from doing this routine over and over, that maybe O already has a full plate emotionally and can’t do the comfort call tonight again, or that O went to bed early due to a headache or an early start the following day.  That isn’t important to N.  And they are devastated when O shuts them out and refuses to have the call there and then.  O is automatically evil and not a REAL friend.  In these situations, N is often so self-absorbed that they can’t even comprehend O’s position, and instead of feeling bad for intruding on O at a bad time will instead roll their eyes and bitch about how O doesn’t really care or how O just doesn’t understand.  There is no insight on N’s part.  And I see this played out again and again and again.  People are so intent on having their own “needs” met they totally neglect the needs of those around them.  You know, the people they proclaim to be a friend to.

Not all of the issues are about being passive-aggressive and underhanded.  Some of the worst things are said and done under the guise of friendship.  Because someone is a friend, people feel they have the right to be a insulting or condescending as they chose, and basicallyl show less respect to their friend than they do to a stranger on the street.  In a more extreme example, I once had a “friend” I was sharing a house with tell me that my boyfriend treated me like a whore.  She just didn’t like it when he stayed overnight.  Funnily enough, I haven’t had contact with that friend for well over a decade, yet I’m still friends with the (now ex) boyfriend in question.  That’s a more extreme and overt case, but it can be as subtle as ongoing jibes or digs at someone, especially in public.  Just because someone feels the need to tell you something “for your own good” doesn ‘t give them the right to be a dick or humiliate you in front of others.

Oh, before anyone feels the need to point it out, yes I know I’m being gloriously passive-aggressive here too.  I am well aware of the irony.  Deal with it.

Take Wil Wheaton, for example.  I follow him on Twitter.  I read his blog.  If he is making an appearance on a tv show, I’ll tend to try to watch it. Every now and again when I’m bored, I’ll google him.  I’m undoubtedly a fan, but does this mean I’m a stalker?

Wil is of course a public figure, so my behaviour could be written off as “fandom” without a second thought.  What about non-celebrities though?  There’s a lovely lady who I follow on Twitter and read her blog, and every now and again I have a peek at her Facebook page.  I have contacted her a couple of times, but we’re certainly not “friends” (I doubt she’s even aware of my ongoing existence).  She isn’t anyone famous or special, and I happened across her blog accidentally.  So am I stalking her?  My contacts with her have been brief and to the point, no attempts at the false intimacy and friendship that the internet is famous for fostering.  No attempts to find out more about her than she publishes in her Twitter and blog.  What do you classify my behaviour toward her as?

Then there’s people who put thing online they want to keep private.  Sometimes when they start receiving unwanted attention, they alter the privacy settings on the post or page, but Google cache keeps it available to the general public.  Sometimes it’s because they are so Internet-naive that they actually believe they know who exactly knows about and reads their blog, that because they don’t advertise its address that it’s safely hidden away from those who know them (despite being only a couple of mouse clicks from their web page that they give out the address for and freely identify as theirs).  Sometimes I find these things through again, being bored and searching for names of people I know (yeah, it’s something I actually do a fair bit).  Sometimes I find them after a game of follow-the-link (starting off at a known point, and just clicking subsequent links that come up).  Sometimes I’m directed there by someone else.  In most cases the person who put the information online would be somewhere between rather annoyed and utterly mortified to know I’d been reading that information, either because I’m a complete stranger or because they do actually know me.  So in those cases, is it stalking?  It’s information they’ve put out there for the world to see anyway.  I haven’t hacked anything to gain access to it.  I haven’t used the information to manipulate them.  I haven’t made (any or additional, depending on the person) contact with them due to finding this information.  But is it stalking?

I know when I’ve googled my own name (I told you I do it a lot!) there are posts from me as a bitter angsty teenager made to newsgroups in 1994.  I wouldn’t know how to get them off there if I wanted to.  There are people who have left slightly strange comments on my blog (which I haven’t necessarily made public) pointing interesting accusations at me whilst hypocritically hiding behind a false return email address (hi, Peter!!).  I’m sure there are people reading my blog and Twitter who I would rather didn’t.  But you know what?  That’s all part of publishing information on the Internet.  You put it up there, it’s there for the world to see and it’s there for ever.  I don’t consider reading such information as stalkerish if it’s publically viewable.  If someone starts emailing me or leaving blog comments that I don’t appreciate, chances are they’ll be permanently blocked and then the person forgotten very quickly.

I’m sure at least one person reading this is going to be rolling their eyes, thinking I’m full of shit because I don’t even know what it’s like to be stalked.  I do.  But that was intrusive and scary, behaviour designed to intimidate and control.  What I’m talking about doesn’t involve direct contact, but can involve others learning more about you than you’re comfortable with.

Senator Conroy may in fact be suffering from mental illness.

Hear me out on this.

Delusional disorder, as defined by the DSM IV, involved holding onto plausible delusions without the typical impact on mood or functioning.  These delusions can include morbid jealousy and assuming one’s mate is unfaithful, that someone (often famous or of higher status) is in love with you, that you are unwell or have some defect despite medical examinations and tests coming back negative. Or, in this case, that most of Australia want Conroy’s internet filtering to occur.

People with delusional disorder generally have no insight into their condition, and often present as articulate and well-groomed.  Onset is most common in the 40-55 year age range.  Check and check, Senator Conroy.

I guess the most compelling argument against Conroy’s behaviour being attributed to a mental illness is that he has taken steps to protect himself.  His website front page deliberately hides information about the filter.  He blatantly lied about people and companies supporting the filtering bill.  A man who truly believed he was doing right and had so much support wouldn’t go to such lengths to cover up and deceive.  These actions suggest a man who knows how little the filter is wanted or accepted, and is trying to fool people into thinking otherwise in the hope they will fall into line.

Still undecided?  Why not contact Conroy’s offices and ask him yourself?

Today marks exactly four weeks until the wedding.  So much to do, so little time.  Things are falling into place, albeit slowly and with more complexity than we’d originally hoped.  And RSVPs have already started coming in, so I guess it’s too late to back out now.

T and I have been going over the guest list for the wedding.  I know there will be people who expect an invitation, but won’t receive one.  There are two main reasons this will happen.

The first is that we are trying to keep numbers somewhat limited, so it might be that we don’t see our friendship as being close enough.

The other reason is that you are good friends with one of us, but have shown obvious disrespect for the other and/or our relationship.  If this is the case, inviting you to our wedding simply isn’t appropriate.  It’s not a slur on the friendship you have with the individual in question.

Just thought I should put that out there.

Christmas this year was awesome, with T and I putting up our hands to do the traditional family lunch this year.  As same as last time we did this, the oven broke (luckily this time two weeks before Christmas rather than two days before).  Oven was replaced with a shiny new electric oven that actually goes to the temperature you set it up and thus disaster was averted.  The cooking went scarily smoothly, and we nommed until we could nom no more.

One of the most fun parts of our Christmas lunch is between main course and dessert.  We make our own crackers, which we have recently termed Insanity Crackers due to the insane amount of stuff we put in them, and these were used to give a pause between meal courses.  And following the pulling of crackers is The Great Trade – everyone pokes through what everyone else got, and starts trading.  It becomes very bloodthirsty at this stage

The least traditional present I got this year was from T – all the components for an automated irrigation system.  Well, I liked it!

Not much else to blog about, really.  Those who know me know I passed my exams, and have only a few months of service left until I am fully qualified in my field.  And I have to admit I’m looking forward to the end of 2009 – not my favorite year to date, but delivering a hell of a lot of promise for 2010.

Have a great new year, folks!

Nothing more to say, except a big hello to the person who likes reading my blog through an anonymiser.  Hi there, Paranoid Person!!!  *wave*