This is Jenny.

Jenny just moved in with my parents on saturday. She's an 8 week old Golden Retriever puppy that got born on December 10th and her favourite pastime currently is sleeping… lots of sleeping.

When she's not dreaming of running and playing she spends her waking hours chewing on anything she can get her fangs on (most of which she is not supposed to gnaw on, but she's learning that), rummaging through the garden and playing with her two-legged mates.

She is very energetic and managed to keep me and my parents on our toes for the last days very well (and I'm still quite alert even though I'm now back at home with no dog in sight), but she's also a major cutie. I'm looking forward to the years to come

Yep! I definitely do have an appointment!

Some of you might already have noticed thanks to my dent and tweet last night: I wrote a small Firefox extension for posting to soup.io called FireSoup that closely mirrors the bookmarklet behaviour (and even uses soup's bookmarklet page) but does circumvent the issues with posting pages that have JavaScript disabled (e.g. by the means of NoScript). I was quite fed up with having to (temporarily) allow a myriad of pages to execute JavaScript just to post a quote or a picture to my soup from it via the bookmarklet, and so I took apart said bookmarklet and successfully wrapped it into an extension. If you happen to have had the same issues in the past, you might want to take a look.

PS: I'm all in favour for exchanging the icon of the extension for a less ugly soup dish but I lack the necessary skills to do so. If you want to help, I'm all game

Kaddi tagged me with her New Year's meme “Fustilinus 09”, and who am I to ignore sticks hitting my head¹⁾? So I set down to answer her questions, but before I present the results, a quick look at the rules of this game'o'tag:

1. Link to the website from which you got tagged.
2. The name of the meme (“Fustilinus”) must be included in your post.
3. List these rules.
4. Tag two or three of your favourite blogs.

Well, the first three rules I already got covered, and for the last one I'll tag ZiB, chi and my mom. And here are my answers:

Can you think of something that really sucked?

The ignorance of our government concerning censorship.

And what rocked?

Having found a job which I actually enjoy thoroughly, despite the stress. And meeting up with chi and Andi in February and November. AND my best friend getting married²⁾. And of course my parent's decision to finally get themselves a dog

How about your health – all fine or on the down slope?

Fine I'd say. Some more colds than I normally catch, but all in all still better than earned

Did you get yourself vaccinated against the (new) flu?

Against the seasonal flu: Yes. Against the swine flu: no, never, over my dead body.

Did you make any big changes to yourself or around your place?

I started on my new job in January, and I got some new posters for our flat.

Are you happy about it?

Yep

Biggest acquisition of the year?

Probably my HTC Hero.

Newest electronic gadget?

The HTC Hero

Store in which you left the biggest amount of money (for non-food stuff)?

That would most likely be Amazon.

Would you have noticed the economic crisis if nobody had talked about it?

Yes, thanks to work.

Did you go on vacation? If so, where to?

I went to Vierhouten in the Netherlands for Hacking at Random (but didn't make many pictures). And I spent some days in Rome for the first time.

Best movie?

Star Trek! Got the BluRay for christmas as well

Best TV-show(s)?

Battlestar Galactica (2009 saw me watching Season 4 and the series finale)

Best book?

I'm still making my way through the Malazan series, so I haven't read as many books as I used to. I think I so far enjoyed Reaper's Gale better than my current book brick Toll the Hounds. In between of my Malazan fix I read (or am reading) a couple of non-fiction books, “Code Complete”, “jQuery in Action”, “Unlocking Android” and “The Passionate Programmer”. No idea which one of them was or is the best, but “The Passionate Programmer” so far was definitely the most universally helpful one.

Most loved game?

I think it's still Little Big Planet.

Best song?

Uhm… well… I have no bloody idea.

Worst catchy tune?

I think I have to go with Kaddi here and say “Pokerface” by Lady Gaga (the fact that the song came up in my head AGAIN just because I read Kaddi's blogpost should suffice to legitimate this claim ). The last few days I've had some horrible issues with “Bad Horse Chorus” from the Dr. Horrible Soundtrack though

Top 3 of your favourite feeds?

• LifeHacker
• Geek and Poke
• Fefe

Best public event?

Hm… I guess the HAR, as that would also be the only one I attended this year I think.

Best private gathering?

That would most certainly be the wedding of my best friend ZiB

Things you did for the first time?

A lot… at the moment I can't think of anything else though than my first car break-down on a german Autobahn including all that security vest and breakdown triangle stuff plus a towing by the ADAC³⁾.

Did you craft something?

Actually I did. I crotcheted some lemmings, a mole plushy and some other stuff.

Where did you spend christmas?

At my parent's.

Do you have your own christmas tree at home?

Yes, although it's an artificial one.

Did you manage to get together all the christmas presents in time for the 24th of December?

Yes, got a bit close though this year.

Best present for you?

Lame as that might sound, but that would probably the fact that my parents are getting themselves a puppy and visiting said puppy, its siblings and its parents for the first time shortly after christmas.

Most fun in giving a present?

An old fashioned mechanical alarm clock for my parents (to keep the puppy company in its first weeks and because those old fashioned things are simply awesome). The gift kept ticking until two days before christmas (as I had tried the clock to make sure it worked) and it felt like giving away a time bomb

What did you do on New Year's Eve?

Relax at home and watched Gran Torino with Phil.

Does this planning for New Year's stress you so much as well?

No, I simply just don't do any planning, that helps.

Do you have any New Year's Resolutions?

No, don't believe in those

Is there anything you want to do for the first time in the coming year?

Write my first Android application I guess.

All in all: Was it an awesome year, a mediocre one or rather a stoopid one?

I wouldn't call it awesome (too much stress for that ), but it was definitely one of the better ones

Update: Ahhh, I forgot to answer one question. Fixed it!

A while ago, I stumbled across this cute crotcheting pattern suitable for creating lemmings by June Gilbank. I haven't touched crotchet hooks since third grade, so I just saved it in my mental “how cute is that!” folder, prolly to never be tried myself.

Funnily enough, last weekend an unexplainable urge to craft something arose in me and I remembered the pattern, so I used a small break at work on monday to head to the next store to get myself the necessary supplies. It took a while for me to remember on how to do the stitches and stuff, and a very stressy week prevented me from doing much experiments before wednesday, but on thursday evening this little fellow got finished:

Next thing I'll do is create one or two blockers for him so he a) doesn't fall off the table and b) has some friends

On a little side note: I didn't find eyes for the little guy, so I first tried with the tiniest buttons I could find at the store, but those made him somehow look creepy. So I thought a bit about an alternative and came up with a simple self made knot-based solution made out of black wool. IMHO he really looks adorable now