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PHIL'S YEAR IN REVIEW (2009)

2009 was a better year than the last couple of years certainly. The year began on a sour note with my last remaining grandparent - my grandmother on my mother's side - passing away in January. But it improved not that much later with a nice holiday to Lakes Entrance.

Football: The big news here was my comeback as a field umpire. It wasn't every week because of the project, but I ended up with the unexpected reward of my sixth grand final as a field umpire. That capped the year fantastically, and the project work was positive due to information collected and some problems that were fixed. I made four trips interstate - one to Sydney, one to Adelaide, one to Moonta and one to Canberra.

Wrestling: The year started on an interesting note as I was pushed back at NAW by the superior Chris Bayliss in commentary, but then James Jackson took a couple of shows off and I did colour commentary instead. Mostly I was backstage doing odd jobs as a part of the production team. IWE started up in March, but that failed unfortunately. Things changed towards the end of the year as the NAW structure changed, leading to a possibly better 2010 for me. I wanted to work for other promotions but other factors got in the way. I'm hoping that will change in 2010.

Internet: The year began very well with a successful garnishing of Paris Tenana's last wage from his former employer Screen Australia. He went quiet, until he raised his head again in late October with a blog called "Party with Gluyas". He impersonated me, which was against Google's Terms of Service and they deleted it accordingly. That incident led me to writing to the New South Wales Attorney General in an attempt to try and find a resolution to the issue at hand. The response wasn't quite what I wanted, but it did give me another avenue to pursue in 2010.

John Best Junior tried to get the forum on him deleted, but I managed to save it and shift it to the website with a Blogspot blog linking to it. Blog numbers did change as I added a counter account to Best using my name as well as to counter Tenana's effort, and a reply blog to Billy Cresp's new blog in a similar fashion to Best's - and I added a second You Tube account specifically for Autism Activism. I never publicised Facebook as it was intended as family only, but I left that as it was useless. I joined DeviantArt in order to address an Aspie related situation and I stayed a member as it looked like a good outlet for my music when I get around to it.

Throughout the year (starting in April) I prosecuted a case against Google for allowing harmful hate speech on their Blogger/Blogspot domain. After a couple of stop-starts the complaint spilled into 2010 and I filed a claim with VCAT in mid December.

The website kept on growing, and will continue to do so as I try to complete the football scores and wrestling report archives.

Aspergers: This was the most frustrating aspect of 2009. Challenges to vaccine integrity by new Aspie Enemy Diane Davis had me trying to get access to safety tests, but the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) couldn't play ball due to commercial confidentialty. I ended up writing to the Health Minister about that issue, but the email was lost and the response was therefore delayed. That issue also without a doubt contributed to my being banned from the Autism Speaks Social Network.

Thankfully Ross Lumbus and Joe Skipsey finally shut up, although Skipsey tried again to get my attention in late April. I didn't respond to him. I've moved on and I will not be baited by him again. He's not worth the effort. The membership agreed and he has been quiet since.

After some other issues came up, I was forced to seek help from the Disability Services Unit. I had tried this before but they had refused to assist due to their coverage only included those with an intellectual disability (or "inherently unintelligent" as the intake worker put it at the time). But I had heard that it had changed since the implementation of the Autism State Plan, so November was the time to try it out. I needed a report from my psych and that has now also spilled into 2010.

I also contacted Autism Victoria about Autism Speaks and their video, and also about Google as a back up in case the legal action failed for some reason.

Politics: I went on a publicity rampage in April in order to get people to email the committee to support the enquiry before their May 13 meeting. Despite my efforts though the committee put a homelessness enquiry first. That meant that I shifted to starting a petition. However I was distracted by other issues. Other than that it has been quiet on the political front.

It's been a good year all up.