Australian Minister for Health and Ageing, The Hon Tony Abbott, expressed concern this week at the rising Medicare costs being attributed to an alarming rise in bulk billed psychiatric consults. Mr Abbott offered no explanation for the sudden spike despite The Peeled Apple presenting his office with our extensive research revealing the shocking truth.
It's no coincidence that these rising costs occur each year around the third week of May...the same time as the E3 expo in Los Angeles. The Peeled Apple has conclusive evidence that the vast number of patients attending psychiatrists are dribbling gadget freaks. It seems the excitement of a trade show such as E3 becomes the grain of rice that tips the scales for many of these people and the urge to buy becomes more than they can cope with. We asked Professor Wayne McKinnon from Brisbane's Bjelke-Petersen Institute for Mental Impairment to provide his professional opinion on this sad phenomenon.
"None of these people can be cured. None of them. They can only control there obsession in much the same way as a sex addict learns to conduct him or herself in a manner conducive with the mores of society. They are a difficult demograph to treat. Group therapy sessions often turn into Project Gotham demolition derbys on XBOX Live, the sex obsessed sessions are much more fun. To me anyway. From a professional viewpoint."
Despite Professor McKinnon's pessimism, The Peeled Apple has learned of a Swedish treatment program where the gadget obsessed of Gothenborg and Malmo are being given, not drugs but an iPod Hi-Fi. And so far results have been very positive. It seems that shortly after receiving the monstrous device many express feelings of shame and are incredulous that they once desired such objects.
I would like to sign up for the Swedish treatment program. Where do I Pick up my iPod Hi-Fi?
Posted by: Del | Wednesday, May 17, 2006 at 03:53 AM
I'd also like a shiny black glossy screened MacBook please
Posted by: Del | Wednesday, May 17, 2006 at 07:12 AM
Del, I think you'll have to start your own program for the MacBook.
And find funding. Somehow...
Posted by: iBode | Wednesday, May 17, 2006 at 12:07 PM
It's only those that don't become luddites after getting the ipod Hi-fi that get a MacBook. So far no MacBooks have been handed out. Basically you have to declare love for the iPod Hi-Fi. In Sweden, the land of sauna love, no-one has been capable of declaring this.
Posted by: Iain | Wednesday, May 17, 2006 at 01:27 PM
Is "sauna love" love *with* saunas, or love *in* saunas? That would be an important distinction, I think.
"shortly after receiving the monstrous device many express feelings of shame and are incredulous that they once desired such objects..."
...funny one of my first girlfriends felt this way exactly...
Posted by: 2000guitars | Wednesday, May 17, 2006 at 04:31 PM
Cow Fodder.
MARK
Posted by: Psyko | Thursday, May 18, 2006 at 05:46 PM