People make me so mad, in so many ways, that I am now dedicating a blog post to detailing just a few of those ways.

On Sunday, at the Big Day Out in Perth, a girl saw police conducting drug searches ahead of her. Rather than be caught with ecstasy, she immediately swallowed all three tabs she had on her. She later died. Firstly, this was FUCKING STUPID of her. It's an illegal and unsafe substance, probably made in somebody's backyard and cut with god knows what. Secondly, it is FUCKING STUPID of the public to now start blaming the police for her death. They were doing their job, upholding the law, ensuring that such dangerous and illegal substances didn't get into the BDO.

Over on Cazzie's blog, I note she is upset at the unsafe and illegal driving and parking practices of parents around her children's school. I must now add that I get pissed off at the same things here in Canberra. Now that I ride my scooter everywhere (as opposed to the public transport I used to rely on in Melbourne), I see FUCKING STUPID driving everywhere I look. Who tailgates a scooter? Do they have any idea the damage I would suffer if they couldn't stop in time and rear-ended me? And why, dear god, why do you toot your horn as soon as the lights go green if somebody hasn't moved? For all you know they may have seen something you didn't - you're a car further back, maybe you missed that truck who's brakes failed. Maybe their car has stalled or broken down; tooting isn't going to help that. And why do you park in no-parking spots, when there is free/cheap parking so close to where you are anyway? Seriously, I could dedicate an entire blog post, with photos, to bad driving and parking in Canberra. But I think I've said enough for now.

A live trail of mandatory ISP-level internet filtering is to start very soon in Australia. I've blogged about this before, but given my general pissed-off-edness today, I'm blogging about it again. See? George Orwell was a prophet: They really are watching us all the time, controlling what we see and how we think! Do I really need to detail once again how ineffective and pointless (not to mention expensive) this experiment is going to be?

People are blaming banks and governments, anybody but themselves, for the debt they find themselves in during this worldwide financial crisis. Surely if you hadn't decided to borrow beyond your means, you wouldn't have this problem? Budget, consider your income and job security, consider the terms of potential loans, work out a worst-case scenario (like the one we're seeing now), before agreeing to borrow hundreds of thousands of dollars for your dreamhome. A home loan is usually paid off over about 25 years, and you can't predict what will happen in that time, so assume the worst. Oh, and while you're paying off your mortgage, don't go and buy a big plasma-screen TV and a Wii and install a pool, ok?

A woman is getting angry at an airline for charging her for two seats because she's overweight. Weight and balance are quite important on an aircraft, so I'm not in the least surprised. Not to mention the comfort of other passengers; is there anything worse than being seated next to somebody who overflows? LOSE SOME WEIGHT, and avoid the problem in future. She's 160kg, that's 352 pounds.

A woman has tried to get out of a speeding fine by claiming that her new shoes were heavy. Do I even need to put words to my disbelief? Speed limits are there for the safety of everybody. Pay attention to them, adhere to them (or even drive slower, if you think that's safer), but if you get caught and fined, just pay the damn fine.

The coach of the basketball team who had a 100-0 victory has refused to apologise for the win, and has been fired. Say WHAT?! His team were obviously far superior to their opponents, whyyyyy is that his fault or something he should apologise for?

Ok, I think that's just enough ranting for the moment. But stay tuned for another episode of, What Pisses Stace Off! Coming soon, to a blog near you!

A post or two ago I mentioned my eczema, and my hopes of curing it without resorting to icky chemicals and hormones like cortisone. Above is a photo taken just after that blog post - whilst it is clearly still red and irritated, it's no longer open or weeping the way it was before.

And here it is this morning - little more than a couple of patches of dried skin, which moisturising should fix up in no time.

So there you have it folks... salt water to kill of infection, a complete lack of scratching (achieved by covering it 24/7 if necessary), and a good moisturiser.

Uncertain as I am, I feel this is an occasion that needs immediate blogging:

I think I just felt Bean move for the first time.

Now, this may seem odd to any of you who haven't been pregnant, but it is actually kind of hard to tell. As a first-timer myself, I can't be sure it wasn't gas, indigestion, hunger, or any of another hundred things that can happen in the stomach region.

But this time, I think, it was Bean!

I want to go home.

I don't mean leaving work and going back to the apartment Aidan and I currently occupy.

I mean Melbourne.

It was only a week or two ago that I was detailing to myself and Aidan how inconvenient it would be to change cities mid-pregnancy; but further thought shows that it really wouldn't be so bad. A fairly simple matter of asking my doctor to transfer my medical records to a new doctor of my choice, with the added bonus of buying all the baby furniture in Melbourne instead of having to move it... where's the problem? Surely pre-natal classes (if I get around to joining one here anyway...) can be quit and joined and changed, if necessary? And moving without a baby has to be easier than moving with one? Surely it's better to go to the expense of hiring removalists now, while we still have some savings and two jobs, rather than later when all money will be paranoically set aside for Bean and I'll have left the workforce?

Does anyone have any thoughts, tips, advice, or experience, that they could share regarding babies and moving???

This is me and my tummy last night - at sixteen weeks and five days pregnant. When I touch it, the bump feels firm and healthy. Sorry about the spots on the mirror!

Stace's tips on managing eczema:

Firstly, soak it in salt water to get rid of any infection which may have inflamed it. This will allow the skin to heal over it much easier.

Secondly, leave it alone!! I've just had my two patches (on the back of my hand) covered by band-aids for the last two days, and the improvement is phenomenal. I'd post a photo, but seriously, have you ever tried to take a good, clear photo of the back of your own hand??

So anyway, the lack of scratching and accidental knocking has allowed it to heal up nicely. It's still a little itchy, although much less so with the killing off of the infection with the salt water. I'm hoping for a full recovery without resorting to the use of any nasty chemically hormoney creams. We shall see :)

Thanks goes to Andrew for this tip on what to do when you're locked out of your own office and can't access most of your work...

In ASCII binary , "Stace Irving" is... 01010011 01110100 01100001 01100011 01100101 00100000 01001001 01110010 01110110 01101001 01101110 01100111

Your personal power animal is the Sumatran Orangutan

Your 'Numerology' number is 1. If it wasn't bulls**t, it would mean that you are ambitious, independent, and self-sufficient. Although you are generally happy, loving, dynamic and charismatic, you can sometimes be egotistical, selfish and melodramatic.

According to the US Census Bureau°, fewer than 0.001% of US residents have the first name 'Stace' and 0.0058% have the surname 'Irving'. The US has around 300 million residents, so we guesstimate there is only 1 American who goes by the name Stace Irving.

Fifteen weeks and three days

I'm looking a bit pregnant now, the tummy's starting to "pop" fairly noticeably - and it's not because I eat too much! I still haven't really started gaining weight (I've actually lost about 4 kgs since before falling pregnant), but I'm eating quite well and I'm confident that I'll be putting on the healthy baby weight pretty soon. I'm supposed to be seeing the midwife for the first time next week, but the clinic is unbelievably busy and booked out, so I couldn't get an appointment for another two weeks or so. No big deal, I guess, but there's something comforting about being looked at by a professional and being told everything is going well! I'll just have to wait.

Apparently Bean is hiccupping quite a bit right about now, and I should start to feel it move in the next few weeks. It's about 11 cm long, and all the joints and limbs are fully formed.

I can't wait until we know whether it's a boy or a girl - then we can start buying and preparing properly, and also call it a proper name instead of Bean!!!

(This is at about 13 weeks)

Wow. I feel like I'm back in a call centre. There is a reason I stopped working in customer service, and today those reasons have come back to haunt me!

One poor guy, who I will call Mr X, has followed incorrect procedure and sent something directly to us instead of going through a third party (which he needs to do because said third party has information we require). The item has gone missing at some point, either in the post or in our internal mail processing/delivery systems. He urgently needs it back so that he can follow correct procedure and then get a response from us before March, so that immigration don't kick him out of Australia. I started out feeling sorry for him, but he's been calling four times a day for the last week or so, and today I had to get firm: "We have told you all we currently know. I fully appreciate the urgency of your situation, but you in turn have to appreciate I can do no further right now. We are looking into it, and calling us every few hours is not going to speed up the process. You are not telling me anything I don't already know." And so on and so on.

And then there's the woman Sylvia has been talking to all day. The woman has failed the test once already, and is currently so afraid of failing again and disappointing her family that she is in tears. Sylvia is playing "mum" and telling her to think positively, to practice and revise and learn... this has been going on for hours now.

And that's about my day so far - apart from lots of paperwork, letters, spreadsheets, and lunch!

The Great Holiday Blog

Work kicked me out of the office at 1pm on Wednesday 24th. I was not complaining, no siree. I was being picked up out the front by my wonderful husband, ready to embark immediately on our six-day trip. It's not often we have more than a day or two off work at the same time, and so we took full advantage of it by making the 9-hour drive home.

We began in the usual way of leaving Canberra - heading north in order to eventually go south. There is no easy drive out of Canberra to the south, so you go up to Yass and turn around, adding almost two hours to the trip (depending on how carefully you observe the speed limits).

We hoped our first coffee stop might be in Holbrook, the "submarine town". Yes, there is a submarine in town. There is some wonderful historical story behind this that I don't know; as far as I'm concerned it's just plain weird in a town that's 400km inland. However, it does make for an interesting drive through the town. Which is what we did, because no coffee shops were open that late on Christmas Eve.

Instead, we kept going. I actually can't recall where we stopped, if anywhere. We contemplated stopping in at the Ettamogah Pub, but decided against it and kept going. Eventually we ended up in Euroa, where my parents reside. There we spent the night, and the first half of the next day, pleasantly relaxing and inhaling cat hair. As much as I love Tiffy, I am somewhat allergic to her! My dad has taken to calling me (affectionately) "Fatty", in reference to my increasingly visible pregnancy - although the first time he said that, I thought he was referring to the cat.

We left after lunch on Christmas day and, skirting the city, headed on down to Rye where Aidan's parents live. It was getting a little chilly (the myth of the sweltering hot Australian Christmas has not really held true for several years now), but we still managed to barbeque our sausages out on the verandah before coming inside to eat. We also found time to drive to a nearby town where liveth a friend of Aidan's from school, who has a one-year-old daughter we'd never met. We finally met little Danielle! She's a cutey, although rather shy.

On Boxing Day was the traditional lunch at Craig and Kim's - Craig is Aidan's cousin, and from there the relationship of each family member to me gets more and more convuluted. I just call the lot of them my cousins, and leave it at that. Santa came for the kiddies (Aidan's dad, dressed up), and for some of the bigger kiddies too.

Now, a little explanation may be required for the next day to make sense. In Australia we have this wonderful sport called cricket. Cricket is a game which, in it's longest form, can be played over five days. Yes, five days for one game. It's called a "test match". Every year, on Boxing Day, the Boxing Day Test begins at the MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground). Whilst I'm not a huge cricket fan, I do like to keep an eye on scores and suchlike for the Boxing Day Test each year. But I've never been before! So this year, Craig and Aidan and our good friend Andrew went along to Day Two of the Test. Kim packed us lunch (although I think she thought she was packing for nineteen people instead of four), and the four of us enjoyed an excellent day of cricket. We arrived just in time to see the last Australian wicket fall, and by the time we left the South Africans had lost seven wickets and made less than 200 runs. It was looking good for us! I don't know what happened the next day, but somehow we lost. Oh well.

The next three nights were spent in the city proper. We had a hotel room on Flinders Street, and we wandered and explored and reminisced and wished to move back home. We caught up with friends, we bought some maternity wear and baby clothes, and decided we'd be home within twelve months if possible.

On the way home on Tuesday, I couldn't help but think of our dear Canadian friends, and what they would make of some of the names of towns we passed during the drive. Us Aussies think nothing of Baddaginnie, Barnawartha, Tarcutta, and Jugiong. If you don't believe me, Google them! But the thought of Donn and Chris getting drunk and trying to pronounce them made the long trip go much quicker! Not to mention trying to recall each town's odd little fact or historical significance - they've all got a story, and if I knew them all well I'd love to tell them. I'm sure your Google searches will yield some results. I wish I'd had Google in the car, because nine hours is a long time and we were tired when we got here!

And finally, although the tale of the journey has concluded, there is other wonderful news. I had my second ultrasound today, the first time I've been able to see Bean actually looking person-shaped! Aidan was able to drive me there and come in and see everything, and we got quite emotional watching our little baby squirm around. It's a stubborn little thing, it wouldn't move for the ultrasound technician - it kept it's legs curled up so she couldn't measure them, and wouldn't roll over when she wanted it to. In that respect, it takes after both it's parents!! It's so good to know it's really in there and alive and well - although I've started to "show" a little of late, it's still hard to comprehend and believe that I'm actually growing a baby! I'm into the second trimester now, and all is still going well.

I will leave you with that, as I'm sure that's more reading than any person really wants to do on or around New Year. Go and get drunk, everybody! And have a great new year, my love to you all!

"A study out of the University of New Hampshire shows at least 42 percent of children between the ages of 10 and 17 have accidentally come across some pornographic images while surfing the Internet over the past year.

Of those, a full 66 percent admit they didn't go looking for the graphic graphics and would have preferred not to see them at all."

Source: http://www.citynews.ca/news/news_7580.aspx

That's less than 30% of children who claim to have seen pornographic images without wanting to. (And lets not forget, people lie in surveys and studies, especially if they think they'll get in trouble for saying they went looking for porn!) It is in response to this under-30% of children aged 10-17 that the Australian government will soon be trialling mandatory internet filtering (aka censorship) which will effect all net-enabled citizens. As of 2006, 66% of Australian dwellings had access to the internet. I'm sure it's more than that now. So more than 66% of Australian households will suffer significantly slower internet speeds, and will have safe, legal sites blocked to them by the currently existing inefficient filtering software.

Now, don't get me wrong. A child stumbling across porn accidentally is, I'm sure, a traumatic and disturbing experience for them. It is something to be avoided if possible. However, I do not see it as the job of the government to do that - it is the job of a parent or guardian to educate their children, and wherever possible to oversee and supervise their internet use. It's actually quite difficult to find porn accidentally online. The main way is by doing something else illegal, such as downloading cracks and key generators for programs. Frankly, if a kid is mature enough to be doing that, I would imagine they're also mature enough to either ignore, or cope with, the very softcore porn they're confronted with at the time.

In the interests of research, Aidan and I just typed "porn" into Google. With their "Moderate SafeSearch" on, the results were disappointing - there was nothing, I repeat, absolutely nothing, upsetting. Nothing even remotely pornographic, really. We got more provocative images from searching for "Britney Spears", and that's considered harmless pop culture. After turning their SafeSearch off, it was a different story - but no kid would do that unless they were deliberately going looking for porn (or things they thought they shouldn't be seeing).

So, for the sake of logic, realism, and saving Australian internet from slow speeds and inappropriate blocking, do me a favour and sign this petition:

Eleven weeks and two days.

I've had some dizzy spells and light-headedness in the last few days, so I took a day off work and saw a doctor yesterday. She assured me that it's unlikely to be related to the pregnancy. In fact, she seems to think it's probably a recurrence of my good old labrynthitis. It's been a long time since I've had a decent relapse, so I suppose it's not unexpected that it would come now - when I've had a cold, and my body as a whole is under some stress.

I read somewhere that in the next three weeks the Bean will nearly double in size. It's the biggest, quickest growth spurt it will experience! Its fingers and toes are no longer webbed, and nearly all its organs are formed and starting to function. It has fingernails!!! (Juno, anybody?) It really is starting to turn into a person already. It would have started moving, wriggling around in there, a week or two ago, although of course it's too small for me to feel it yet. I am actually starting to show a little, my waistline is getting noticeably larger... well, I notice it, and Aidan does, but probably if you didn't know to look for it you might not realise. (Maybe I've just been eating too much, that is also possible!)

Also, Aidan's parents are visiting us at the moment. With my day off work yesterday, despite my head-spins, I was able to spend most of the day with them and Aidan, which was rather nice. They both appear to be thrilled that they're going to be grandparents.

So, what with one thing and another, I'm beginning to think that somebody has blessed/cursed me recently with an "interesting life"!!

SNIPPETS FROM SPACESHIP ORION: Vegemite Sandwich -- Great White North Style

SNIPPETS FROM SPACESHIP ORION: Vegemite Sandwich -- Great White North Style

Need I say more? :)

I am currently performing the duties of three different jobs at work. I tend to think of these jobs in terms of how many people would be required to do a day's work in a day, and thus my workload is broken up as follows:

EOR's, which requires about a person and a half, or sometimes two people. Which works out well, because Kerry does the bulk of that work, and I'm her extra half.

Examiner certifications, which is about half a person's work.

Processing payments, which varies between half and a full person.

So on any given day, I am required to be at least one and a half people, or up to two and a half people. You may well wonder how I have time to blog from work, as I am currently doing... the answer is, I don't actually have time. But I've worked damn hard and I deserve a few minutes to goof off, right? :)

I've found my newest hero. Ron Williams, of Toowoomba in Queensland, is violently opposing religion in state schools, and I think it's about time somebody did what he is doing. Anything related to religion should be either removed from non-religious schools, or made very clear to the children that it is myth, untrue, just like Santa and the Tooth Fairy. Ron Williams, should you ever come across this blog entry - I admire you, and I hope that your actions will mean that by the time my fetus is going to school, some worthwhile changes will have been made!

Ok, it's ranting time.

Everybody in Australia has, or has a friend who has, a horror story about the telco Telstra. This includes me. I have, no doubt, blogged at least once before about my problems with their broadband arm, Bigpond.

Telstra Bigpond is the biggest ISP in Australia. Whilst they do not have a monopoly, far from it in fact, they would certainly be the first considered ISP in most people's minds when first getting online. They are well-marketed, and their set-up process is easy for any beginner to follow.

Assuming you have no problems with your bundling or billing, and assuming you change nothing such as address or phone number mid-contract, their actual service is fine. I've never experienced a dropout, or significantly slowed speeds, while using the internet with Bigpond.

But the moment you come across a problem, the moment they make just one mistake, it escalates. Their customer service and complaints resolution process is unweildy and ineffective. Their right hand does not know what the left is doing. It is the problem of large companies that they have too many departments, none of whom communicate internaly, and all of which have long wait times to speak to an actual person.

This is what happened to me:

Late last year (ie, over 12 months ago), I received a phonecall from Bigpond offering me a great deal on my broadband and phone, bundled. I liked it, I accepted it. However, a couple of months later (although the service was active) I had not received a bill. They called me to advise that my account was in arrears, and advised me how much I had to pay immediately. The amount was far more than I had expected, given the deal I had agreed to over the phone, but I paid it anyway. I queried why I had not received any bills, and was told that my billing address was incorrect in the system.

Now, read this bit carefully, it's confusing, but very important: The billing address they had in the system was their own back-of-house operations area. My bill was actually supposed to be sent there, to be cancelled and re-issued to me with the correct charges and reflecting the bundling I was supposed to be getting.

Upon realising that this was not happening, and that I simply wasn't being billed, I pressed to get the bundling applied, so that internet and phone were charged as one amount on one bill. When speaking to them about this, it was determined that I had been being charged far too much, and was given a huge credit - actually I'm almost sure the credit was more than I had ever paid them in the first place, meaning that technically I still owed them money. However they apparently overlooked this, so I did too.

Despite this, bills still failed to arrive or be charged correctly. I finally went to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman, who gave me the phone number for Telstra's own High Level Complaints. Upon calling this number, I finally reached somebody who appeared to have some control or authority to do what I was asking - which was what they had offered me in the first place. So, about six or seven months into my twelve month contract, things seemed to be fixed up for the first time.

BUT. Yes, there is a but. We went quite a while again without receiving bills. Now, as I'm sure you'll understand, being pregnant and having quite a bit going on right now, I really didn't think of calling them to ask for the bills. It didn't quite register how long it had been between bills. So, when our internet service was cut off yesterday, I had to call them to find out that it was for non-payment of three months worth of bills. Bills which, once again, had been sent to that back-of-house operations area, and not re-issued to me at all.

There wasn't much I could do about it; it had happened, and that was that. I paid the outstanding amount (which actually seemed about right) and called Bigpond back with the receipt number, just as they had asked, expecting to be re-connected almost immediately. However, upon calling them with the number, I was advised it may take up to 48 hours for the service to be re-activated. Possibly sooner, but probably not before Thursday morning. (This was Tuesday afternoon.)

And so, the last thing I asked Bigpond about yesterday was "When does my contract expire?"
I was told, to my very great relief, "You are no longer on a contract, ma'am."
"Does this mean I can cancel at any time with no cancellation fee?"
"Yes, ma'am", says Ryan on the phone.
"Fantastic," says I, "I'll be doing that in the next couple of days!"
He asked why. I told him if he had access to the notes on my file, and a few spare hours, he could certainly figure it out for himself.

Well well well, what a surprise. Australia's biggest outdoor advertising agency has refused to display ads for the Australian Atheist Foundation. Christian organisations get to advertise, why can't the Atheists? Is this not making sense to anybody else? Naturally I'd like to hear the other side of the story: this article is all from the point of view of the Atheists. But the advertising agency has so far been unavailable for comment regarding the refusal. Interesting, ja?

Well, I had my first ultrasound this afternoon! A little earlier than originally scheduled, due to some slight bleeding. But all is fine! I saw the Bean! The Bean is currently an indistinct blob, with a tiny flashing white bit indicating a heartbeat, or so the ultrasound tech said. It was just a flashing white thing to me. She estimated its age at 6 weeks and 6 days, and my due date is 11th July 2009. "No abnormality was demonstrated", which I think in doctor-speak means things are fine.

Ok, Jewel has tagged me, and I must put here "15 things I'm not afraid to admit". It could be difficult to come up with 15 things you don't already know, but here goes...

1. I love Meat Loaf. The musician, not the meal. I saw him in concert a few years ago, it was awesome.

2. I have attempted to lick my own elbow.

3. I don't like Dan Brown, for literary reasons.

4. I'm enough of a geek to love text-based online games. No fancy-schmancy visuals for me!

5. I'd much rather read a book than go to a nightclub.

6. I had a crush on David Tennant ten years before anybody else. By the time he was Dr Who, I was over him.

7. I neglect my fingernails terribly. What's a nail file?!

8. I don't care to have matching furniture or a tidy house. I LIVE here, for goodness sake, it's not a show home.

9. I'm clumsy. But I have a medical excuse. Labyrinthitis. Never heard of it?? You're lucky.

10. I don't get the hype about Guitar Hero. It looks lame, and I'm not even slightly tempted to try it.

11. I still wish I could go to Hogwarts. I would totally be in Gryffindor.

12. My idealism constantly battles with my cynicism. Sadly, cynicism usually wins.

13. I have three thick dark hairs growing near my belly button. No matter how many times I pull them out, they always seem to grow back!

14. I hate shoes. Shoe-removal is the first thing I do when I get home.

15. I hate the colour orange.