Ha, well I certainly couldn’t miss a post today, could I. Not after writing a review for 2009 and 2010, anyway. I’ve noticed that most years, I get one big thing and nothing else matters. Freddy in 2008, the house in 2009, and the car in 2010. Taking into account my daughter was born this year, what do you think I’ll be thinking about the most?

Did you enjoy this year?
Yes, a huge amount. I have a small baby again, Freddy continues to get more and more grown-up, and I’m getting more interesting challenges in work.

What did you do in 2011 that you'd never done before?
Had two car accidents... Had a daughter... bought a very flashy phone... went to a strip club... I usually spend a week writing this review, so I can remember the things that happened and add to them. No time, this is being done on the fly!

Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
My resolutions for this year were:

1. Go swimming once a week
   Failed. I think I went swimming twice.
2. Paint for forty-five minutes a week
   Kept it up for quite a while, but failed halfway through the year and never caught up lost time.
3. Save money, overpay at least a month on the mortgage
   Done! And saved enough to pay for a trip to Cuba next year!
4. More pictures on this blog!
   Well, when I posted, I posted pictures. But I didn’t post much.
5. Spend no more than £5 a month on games
   Made it through half the year, but one computer game can knock out 7 months of the budget in one go. £5 is a little too low with the price of things nowadays.
6. More games and games nights.
   Nope. I managed a few games of Warhammer, and dragged myself to Games Workshop and Cut and Thrust to try and get into it, but I just don’t plan ahead enough.
7. Blog on A Year of Frugal Gaming once a month
   This is the one I’m most disappointed about not keeping. It’s not my blog, and feels like I’ve let other people down.

I will make more for this year, but with a great big holiday sitting in February, I need to consider what my resolutions will be, and work out what I want to do. More details to follow.

Did anyone close to you give birth?
As I mentioned many pregnancies last year, they all popped through this year. Old friends, cousins, and of course we had our baby in June.

Did anyone close to you die?
No, but a lot of my friends lost someone very, very close to them.

What countries did you visit?
None. City-wise, I went to London, Southampton and Portsmouth. I feel like I’ve been travelling less and less as I get older – never more than 110 miles from home.

What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?
More of my resolutions complete. I’m also eyeing up some large purchases in the house – we’re going to begin bending it towards what we want, rather than what we bought.

What date from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
I would be very, very bad if I couldn’t remember the 15th June – the day that Izzy was born.

What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Having a daughter. She loves me.

What was your biggest failure?
Failed to keep any resolutions.

Did you suffer illness or injury?
I managed quite well through the year, only a slight hiccup in June (stress before Izzy was born dragged the immune system down) then a nasty attack of tonsillitis kept me right out of the real world for a whole week in December. Otherwise, generally managed to keep myself good.

Did you have to go to the hospital?
Check ups for the new baby, and to actually get her out (though that wasn’t the plan). Also to get Izzy’s tongue-tie cut, twice. And it might have grown back.

What was the best thing you bought?
My new phone. Although it was free on a contract. And I bought the flights to Cuba this year, but won’t actually go until February.

Whose behaviour merited celebration?
The kids, and many many other people.

Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?
Stanislaw Burzynski, for reasons that link will make apparent. Google (or Bing) for more, there’s lots out there. If you’re going to take advantage of cancer sufferers for financial gain, you have to accept that people will call you on it – the correct response is not to threaten legal action.

Most of our government, for more selfish reasons.

Where did most of your money go?
Mostly house stuff. A big chunk on our holiday, and it’ll totally be worth it.

What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Elizabeth! And the fact that she can digest with vomiting!

What song will always remind you of 2011?
Jessie-J, Pricetag. I heard an awesome live version in the car on my way to Portsmouth. Alongside that, I loved Swede Mason’s Masterchef Synaesthesia (Buttery Biscuit Bass). Find it on Youtube.

Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. Happier or sadder?
Happier.
ii. richer or poorer?
About the same.

What do you wish you'd done more of?
More of my resolutions. More games of Warhammer.

What do you wish you'd done less of?
Watching DVDs. We’ve burned through almost all of DS9 and Voyager this year.

How did you spend Christmas?
In Portsmouth with my parents. Then a week doing almost nothing, and finally a long car drive back to Bristol with the car absolutely filled to the brim with toys.

Where did you ring in 2011?
At home, as is normal now. I went out at midnight to chat with some neighbours, then went back to bed.

What was your favourite TV programme?
I wouldn’t say favourite, but the only new thing we watched this year was the Big Bang Theory.

Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
Nope.

What was the best book you read?
I just finished reading Snuff, I thought that was awesome. I liked PG Wodehouse (Code of the Woosters) but I think that may have been last year.

What was your greatest musical discovery?
Swede Mason, Tim Minchin and Jessie-J. I don’t really follow music so that’s about it.

What did you want and get?
A daughter! I know everyone says that they don’t mind, but I’ve got one of each now.

What did you want and not get?
A daughter on my birthday. She was due the day after, but turned up 4 days late.

How did you earn your keep?
Still programming.

What was your favourite film of this year?
Didn’t see any new films. Next year, I will be watching at least The Hobbit. We must start getting to the cinema again!

What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I was 27 – I was probably ill, and waiting on tenterhooks for my wife to give birth.

What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
I can’t think of anything other than actually completing any of my resolutions.

How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2011?
”OK, those clothes are literally falling apart on you.” I can see 2012 as the year I need to buy a new wardrobe before my fashion concept is “it was good enough for the monkeys...”

What kept you sane?
Dark, quiet rooms when everyone is out. I can really appreciate not doing anything these days.

What political issue stirred you the most?
Mostly the phrase “we’re all in this together”, except that obviously we’re not. For example, Occupy movements and public sector strikes are seen as selfish, and not being all in this together, but the poor are getting poorer and the rich are getting richer. “All in this together” also means not chipping in and helping our European neighbours sort themselves out, when their possible collapse will deeply affect us. I don’t know what the right course of action really is, I just feel like the Prime Minister doesn’t either. All I know is that we’re not all in this together.

Aside from that, my obsession with media-watch blogs has kept me very very interested in the Leveson Inquiry. I really hope we get what we need from it.

Who was the best new person you met?
Does Izzy count?

Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011:
Keep your mouth shut.

Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
”I’m having trouble trying to sleep...” and the rest of it, by Green Day. I think the song is called Brain Stew.

What is the best thing that you were given?
Aside from the baby?

A new job role – away from websites, and more into infrastructure things. Bigger challenges, more room for personal growth.

What is the best thing you have given someone?
I gave Freddy a sister, and my family a holiday (coming soon!)

BIG NEWS!

On Wednesday 15th June, at 15:45, my daughter Elizabeth was born!

She is gorgeous, and looks a lot like her brother when he was new. She weighed 6lb 2oz.

It was a very strange day – our son was a (planned) home birth, and we’d looked into getting a birthing pool. Unfortunately, they are expensive to buy or hire, and we lived in a smaller house then so there wasn’t space for one. Southmead Hospital (the premier maternity ward in the area) had a pool, but it couldn’t be reliably booked – babies don’t normally conform to schedules. Add to that he was due at the end of November, and the associated problems with keeping a large body of water warm in a cheap house at that time of year. We scrapped the idea, had a lovely home birth, and completely forgot about it for Elizabeth.

On the day, we happened to be in hospital for a quick check up and assessment. They finished with ‘we can see you want a homebirth, so we’ll just get your notes ready and you can go.’ By the time they came out with all the discharge paperwork, the contractions had come on thick and fast and we weren’t sure we’d make it home in the morning traffic before the baby decided to arrive, so we asked to stay and deliver in the hospital.

At this time, all the visions that made us want a home birth came back – the beginning of Monty Python’s Meaning Of Life being among them (the machine that goes ‘ping’, etc etc). We’re practical people, and always knew that we might not get what we wanted, so we were prepared to just knuckle down and take it. However, since our notes had ‘home birth’ listed on them, the midwives made a point to check the availability of the birth suite in the hospital. A birth suite is a bit more of a home from home than the ward, with separate kitchen and bathroom facilities, living room type rooms to deliver in, and a more comfortable environment in the middle of the hospital. Like having a home birth, with the machine that goes ‘ping’ on standby down the corridor if it’s needed. After a few phone calls, they worked out it was empty but could be staffed. Result!

As we were being shown the suite, the student midwife showed us the rooms and said ‘and the room at the end has the birthing pool.’ My wife’s ears pricked up. ‘Can we have that?’ she asked.

So a completely unplanned water birth – which was a million miles from what we expected. A hospital delivery with no problems, mother and baby are doing brilliantly (if tired) and daddy and the little man are adjusting well too.

I’m back to work on Wednesday, but I’ve booked off Thursday and Friday for the next few weeks to settle in with everyone, since those are the days that Freddy is home from nursery and I can’t leave mum with both the kids on her own so soon! It’ll be a wonderful short week then!

I’m beginning to neglect this blog as much as the Year of Frugal Gaming that I also write for (check it out, our glorious leader Frugal Dave recently picked up a stylish blogger award! I’m thrilled to be in such company!) and I’ve written a post over there on what I’ve been up to gaming wise.

I’ve been lucky enough to go to TechDays in London again this year – I’m definitely the ‘community’ guy in our team, seeking out user groups, conferences, blogs and podcasts. I’m of the mind that you need to be plugged into all these things to know what’s available. When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail, as the old saying goes, and I want to have as many different types of hammer as possible. It does come at a slightly bad time, however, as my wife is expecting to drop another baby in just over two weeks (and last night was a sleepless one of false alarms, before a 4:15 alarm in order to head to London for TechDays...) and I’m planning on staying in the capital tonight rather than travel all the way back to Bristol, and return to London again tomorrow. If I get ‘that call’ I’ll have to race for the tube station and get back in time!

Anyway, I’ve already been to the Monday event on ‘The Web’ – a discussion of HTML5, CSS3, IE9 and other sequels. I’m very impressed, but also a little melancholy. What I took away from there is that I can now create great looking sites without having an abundance of <div> elements and interlocking images to create a box with rounded corners, I can just do it in CSS. Except, for almost anything, our designers want their design to appear in every browser. This means that we can’t use the new hotness because it won’t show up in IE8 and below, which still have a considerable market share. We’re only now convincing people to let us build sites that degrade ‘gracefully’ in IE6, since it takes a disproportionate amount of time to make a site look like it should in IE6. Now we’ve got the luxury of saying “That’s a bit too hard, I’m just going to make it square.” We can’t use the same excuses for IE8, which is the default browser for Windows 7 – only a couple of years old.

On a personal site, or if we had trendier clients – the kind who care more about seeming new and cutting edge, with things floating all over the page, the sort of thing that grinds to a halt on a slow PC – there would be plenty of scope for this new technology. But as it stands, HTML5 compliance is low enough that we won’t be able to pick it up just yet.

Microsoft did put on a great show though, getting in experts on CSS and HTML from outside their own company (heck, they had a speaker from Opera – probably because Mozilla or Google turned them down!) and giving a little poke at themselves about IE6. Oh, IE6.

I’m keen to get to use HTML5, but the day job isn’t going to be the place to do that. I’m still working on an intranet app that breaks – actual functionality breaks, not just styles – if it’s not used in IE7 (compatibility mode in 8 and 9 are fine), and our external websites need to look the same across browsers. We can’t just pretend that all IE users are on version 9, that’s not realistic and won’t make customers very happy. It doesn’t matter if it degrades gracefully, the design decisions would be so different in most cases (three <div> tags with separate background images for a repeated news item to give it rounded corners, or one <div> and no images to do it all with fancy CSS3?) that it can’t look ‘correct’ without major javascript hacks which probably involve inserting all the HTML that we were going to in the first place, and still work in the newer HTML 5 browsers. The only difference is that it won’t have such pleasant markup for the developers (or the geeks who view source on websites they visit) to read.

This problem isn’t going to go away – Vista shipped with IE7, so that’s going to be supported for a fair while yet. IE6 shipped with XP, and since XP is still supported until about 2014 at last count. That means that IE6 is still officially supported by Microsoft until 2014. Vista won’t roll off until 2019 (at a guess), and Windows 7 (which contains IE8) will probably be into 2022 or so. For another five years (being optimistic), we have to assume that non-technical people (the majority of those that visit our company‘s sites) will be using the browser they installed with their operating system and never upgrading, and the majority of market share will be held by non-HTML5 compliant browsers. Hopefully, Microsoft will make more websites like www.theie6countdown.com, which tells us when we can officially ditch IE6 country by country. It won’t be long, and we can assume that anyone hitting our sites from IE6 will be Chinese and therefore unlikely to buy our products!

I’ve just had one of my regular el-cheapo holidays to visit family. They even bought a new bed for us to sleep on while we were there, since Fred is now in a ‘big boys’ bed.

Most of the week was spent relaxing – we drove past a beach, potty trained the little guy (mostly successful, though still in nappies when we go out or for bed) and visited many friends in the pub. I managed to get started on a new book (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith) and an old book (Monstrous Regiment, by Terry Pratchett). I barely thought about work at all.

We even squeezed in a game of Necromunda against my very first opponent and his Redemptionist gang. I took out my Delaques, and realised that the roster is over ten years old. Impressive. Jen took some Eschers. He set up a three-player scenario, where we had to get to the top of a tower before anyone else to win a prize. He and Jen got into early fighting, shooting each other off of walkways and so on. I snuck in through the other side, managing (somehow) to avoid all attacks, until my leader was caught by an executioner one-shot flamer. He caught fire, and luckily ran straight across the walkway and past two guards (one wielding a rather nasty-looking double-handed chainsaw) towards the Redemptionist base. The following turn, a Redemptionist brother reached the top of the tower, while my Delaque Juve was a level below and held up by an Escher heavy... The Redemptionists only had to wait one turn at the top to be the winners. Luckily, my leader doused the flames and ran into the Redemptionist base (undefended, they were all off picking on Eschers) and what had been a forgone conclusion shifted very suddenly – and again, as my Juve finished off the Escher. He was now at least five floors above anyone else, and only one below the top. That’s the first game of Necromunda I’ve won against that opponent – as most of his gangs have an incredibly high rating, I’m always the ‘underdog’. This scenario limited all players to four models at a time, so there was some opportunity to fight fairly there.

With the underdog bonus, and hitting the button, plus a few lucky shots on the way, that Juve managed to pick up 37 experience points (from 0!) and got instant promotion. Awesome.

Unusually for such a long stay away, I didn’t get any painting done. I almost packed some models as I left, but couldn’t get them fixed and protected for the journey in time. I decided to take it easy instead.

I did get a lead on my family tree – my aunt has done a lot of research already, with the things I had been making assumptions about previously. I think she’s gone even further back than I could, and told me that the family had originally come from France (to settle on the Isle of Wight). She’ll dig out what she can find, and I can see how it fits what I’ve discovered. Although it’s not a resolution, I’m still going to be following the family tree this year. I’ll just pick it up as and when I can.

Speaking of family trees, one of the benefits of going away was meeting the two new additions – my cousins have had babies! There are a few more expected this year, which is always fun. We’re expecting to be the last, in June. I think that the new babies are my first cousins once removed, and Freddy’s second cousins. Here’s a diagram, showing the new babies in relation to Freddy. It is restricted down to just my mum’s family, and only as far back as her parents (my grandfather, Freddy’s great-grandfather, is also the new babies great grandfather). These diagrams don’t make things in exactly the easiest format to read, but that’s something I can play around with later.

Wow, 2011. When did that happen? Probably sometime around the end of December, it’s usually that time of year.

With Christmas all wrapped up (ahaha), I can turn to the new year, and think about my resolutions. I was pleased with the progress last year even though I did slow down a bit in the summer. The clear lesson was to have a plan – a definite method of attack, and some measure of progress.

I’m picking some of the ‘traditional’ resolutions that I hear about every year – get fit, save money, etc. But I intend to keep at it for longer than a month, and with some hard work, longer than six months too! I’ve had a few weeks trying out what I think I can do, and I’m ready to announce these plans in full.

This year, I aim to improve myself a bit. I’ve kept myself healthy this year, but I could do better. My first resolution then: to go swimming every week. I’ve identified a local swimming pool, and we can take Freddy at the weekend. He likes swimming, and splashing, and will enjoy it. It will require some assistance (it’s the wife’s turn to drive at the weekends), but if I aim to go every week, even if I fail one week there should be enough to have raised my general fitness by the end of the year. I might keep a record of how many lengths I do, and see if it rises appreciably over the year.

I failed my resolution to paint all my Dark Elves last year. That was because there was no plan. The new plan is to do at least forty-five minutes of painting a week. I can probably get that in pieces on weekday evenings, or catch up at the weekend while Freddy has a nap. Why forty-five minutes? Because I can stick something on the DVD player (a Babylon 5 commentary, an iPlayer episode of something) and have the background noise I need when painting. Since this is a target like the ‘filing’ one last year, I can do the same as I did then and catch up if I fail one week. This should (hopefully) get the Dark Elves finished, and maybe even some of the scenery.

Last year, a number of big expenses got in the way of saving – we needed to replace the cooker, buy a car and get it insured. This all added up to quite a nasty sum, and on examination, I ended with no more in savings than I started the year with. I’ve not got a specific plan in place on how to save money, other than not to spend it, but my goals are to put away an as-yet-undetermined amount each month. My ultimate aim is to have at least increased my savings slightly, and overpaid an extra month on the mortgage. I calculated the other day that at the start of this year, there’s only around 343 months left to pay on it. If I manage to knock that down slightly – then terrific!

An easy one now – I’ve realised that I very, very rarely put pictures on here. Some of them were even only Flickr/Google Image searches, and I didn’t even do that one as often as I could/should have. I can put pictures of Fred on when I talk about him, or of models when I talk about them (the only one I have actually done!).

Finally, a triple-whammy resolution – do more of the Frugal Gaming thing. Play more, spend less, and blog about games. I will try to play a major game once a month, unless I hold a games night – of which I will attempt to organise more. I only managed a couple last year, which just wasn’t as many as I wanted. I’ll also be imposing a £5 monthly limit on games – computer games, wargames, etc. It should be reasonably easy to keep this one in control, there’s only a few things I’m interested in and I recently joined an RPG group which aims to meet weekly – and RPGs are notoriously cheap! As the final part of this one, I’ll be aiming to blog on A Year of Frugal Gaming at least once a month too. I feel I let them down a bit last year, so I’ll be trying harder to waste people’s blog-reading time with games reviews, games night tips, and any frugal gaming tips I can find.

In summary then:

1. Go swimming once a week
2. Paint for forty-five minutes a week
3. Save money, overpay at least a month on the mortgage
4. More pictures on this blog!
5. Spend no more than £5 a month on games
6. More games and games nights.
7. Blog on A Year of Frugal Gaming once a month

This seems to me to be a good range of things, easy goals and milestones along the way to hit, and I should be able to get a feel for whether or not I’m getting anywhere with them.

Rather than repeating myself every time, I’ll just post a straight link – I’ve written a new ‘article’ (rather, apology and statement of intent) to A Year of Frugal Gaming.

Enjoy!

I was involved in my first car accident as a driver last week. It was a bit of a shock, and I’m glad to say that no-one was hurt and the car wasn’t too badly damaged. I was in traffic, sat waiting behind a car that wanted to change into a very busy lane. The car behind me didn’t want to wait, and tried to move around on the other side... as another car came up behind it and smashed it’s front as it came out. It was pushed into my car, at the back.

Luckily, Jen and Freddy weren’t in the car (I was on my way to pick Fred up from nursery) and my passenger (Jen’s Dad) was fine, and took control for me. I was a bit too shocked at first to know what to do.

I certainly wasn’t expecting that to happen sitting still, and obviously the insurance companies have agreed that it’s not my fault. One of the other parties is offering to have us repaired free of charge (with a free courtesy car) at one of their approved repairers, without touching our no-claims bonus or paying the excess or any of that. The car’s booked in to be seen this week, and probably repaired the week after. Having seen the damage in the light now, it’s not too bad and should fix up nicely (fingers crossed!)

I wasn’t actually looking behind me just before the crash to see if one car pulled out inadvisably, or the other car was driving too fast, or any of that. But it’s nothing I could have done anything about it - except possibly try to go around the car blocking my lane myself, in which case I’d have been hit, my car would have been a write-off (the front of the car was mashed completely, spread across the road), and I might not be quite so happy to get back into the driving seat!

I’ve been experimenting with IE9 beta in work recently, and been finding it annoying when I go to show someone what I’ve been working on and need to refresh a page a couple of times after running it from Visual Studio 2010 before it ‘takes’, and will display the page and work properly. I’m getting a little tired of saying ‘it’s only a beta...’ and sort of harms my decision to install it in the first place. Sure, hitting refresh a few times isn’t really cutting into my productivity any but it’s one of those small frustrations... something about controlling one’s environment, and smoothing our day’s problems out. That sort of thing.

I was browsing around trying to find help on a problem I’ve been working on at home (another learning project), and came across a blog that had a great explanation, a working sample, and the answer that I wanted – although the explanation didn’t point me to the answer that I wanted, when I went back and re-read it I realised it was right there and could have solved my problem an evening sooner. D’oh.

One of my habits when reading blogs is that if I find the post useful, or at least well-written and informative, I will go to the front page and see what they’ve posted recently. Dan Wahlin’s blog front page is an archive page, so you get to see a lot of interesting titles all at once. One of those titles was Getting the IE9 Beta to Play Well with Visual Studio 2010 and it described exactly the problem that I’m having in work with the beta, and also a suggestion to get around it. Since I found this in the middle of the Christmas bank holiday season, I had to wait a few days to try it out and see if it works... I’m not really keen on installing IE9 at home just to see a few days earlier! It seems to have worked so far, it's a lot nicer than hitting refresh over and over till it sticks. So anyway, if you see a helpful or interesting blog post – look up recent posts in that blog. There might be something useful there too.

As promised last year, I’m going to try and post a review of the past year on the first day of the new year. This is how 2010 shapes up for me (see 2009 here).

Did you enjoy this year?
I did, quite a lot! Freddy stayed out of hospital almost the entire year, only visited a tiny bit for a double-check – and it turned out to be exactly what the GP had suggested.

What did you do in 2010 that you'd never done before?
Played RuneQuest, drove a car without an instructor in it (ooh!), drove on a motorway, made new year’s resolutions, went on a medieval re-enactment weekend.

Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I kept some. I proved (to myself, at least) that the secret is to have a plan of action – not just a goal. Goals don’t meet themselves. So my resolutions then (described in full here):

1. Filing
   Done! This had a weekly target to meet, and I made myself ‘catch-up’ if I got behind any week. This is by far the most successful of my resolutions.
2. Dark Elves
   I set vague targets that I never really tried to meet. Hence, I had to re-evaluate what I could realistically do, and toned down from ‘paint everything’ to ‘paint the Corsairs’, which itself isn’t complete (but is very very close!)
3. Driving Licence
   In the eleventh hour, I completed this one! I passed at the beginning of December, after failing twice this year (and once last year). Finally, a driver.
4. German
   I always planned to do this once I’d cleared a couple of other things off my list. I never cleared enough space in my week to do it.
5. Star Trek Cards
   Done! Selling things just means you have to do something, and get organised to do it. I very much enjoy the television I bought with the proceeds, too!
6. Family Tree
   There’s still a little more to find out (I need to confirm my records dive, after all) from grandparents, but I feel good about the progress on this one. Even though it can never really be called ‘finished’.
7. Wargame Tools
   Scrapped. Abandoned. Lost my motivation, and quit.

So ones to take on to next year – Dark Elves, Learn German, Research Family Tree. I’ll try to make a more definite plan on those later, so I can make more meaningful progress this year.

Did anyone close to you give birth?
Not this year, although a lot of people got pregnant – four of my cousins, and we’re expecting again!

Did anyone close to you die?
I think I am a lucky charm – everyone’s still with me!

What countries did you visit?
None. The furthest afield I went this year was London, twice. Portsmouth a couple of times. Nowhere more exciting than that.

What would you like to have in 2011 that you lacked in 2010?
I’m not sure of anything I lacked in 2010 in particular... maybe the time to go out and see people a bit more? A foreign holiday – I’ve not been more than a hundred miles from home in over two years now!

What date from 2010 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
December 2nd, passed my driving test. December 1st, saw our new baby on the scan for the first time.

What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Passing the driving test. Learning to paint ‘wet blending’ style.

What was your biggest failure?
Failed to keep some of my resolutions. Failed two driving tests. Not sure which is bigger, I think I’ve had an OK year, failure-wise.

Did you suffer illness or injury?
Only a small bit of illness, and in general a very healthy year.

Did you have to go to the hospital?
Only once, to get Freddy checked. It turned out to be exactly what the GP thought it would be.

What was the best thing you bought?
The new television – 42 inch LCD Full HD oh yeah! Second place would be the car – quite lucky, that one.

Whose behaviour merited celebration?
Freddy, for being absolutely wonderful.

Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?
The Pope.

Where did most of your money go?
Ignoring mortgage payments, it’d be on the car and the car insurance. Less said about that the better.

What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Everything Freddy does – running around pretending to be a dinosaur, learning his animals, he’s fantastic. Also, about getting ahead with my family tree stuff, that felt pretty rewarding.

What song will always remind you of 2010?
Probably something by Katy Perry. She has a really annoying ‘uwuh-uh’o’ sort of sound, it doesn’t sound very nice at all. But sticks in the head. Hopefully, it’ll end up being Candyman (thanks to Chris Evans for playing it every Friday morning on BBC Radio 2, it’s a nice song!)

Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. Happier or sadder?
About the same. I was pretty happy last year, and I’m doing well keeping it that way!
ii. richer or poorer?
Almost definitely richer. More monthly expenses (I got grown up, and did life insurance, pensions, and of course the car now) but at least I’ve saved up a bit since buying the house!

What do you wish you'd done more of?
Gaming. Not enough games this year by far.

What do you wish you'd done less of?
I don’t really know. I’ve done a lot more grown-up things than I have in the past, but I don’t know about doing less of them... for the most part, it’s all done and won’t need doing again for a long time!

How did you spend Christmas?
At home, doing almost nothing. We had a few visitors, Freddy opened everyone’s presents, and had a really great time. As I write this, I’m awaiting a second Christmas with my family visiting me (2nd January), because the snow prevented them coming up the weekend we’d originally planned.

Where did you ring in 2010?
We had an uneventful night, went to bed then realised ‘Hey – it’s midnight!’. Then I heard people outside so I ran out and joined about half-a-dozen neighbours banging saucepans.

What was your favourite TV programme?
We’ve been indoctrinated into The Big Bang Theory and Firefly, both due to major nagging. Both were really good shows! We also finally got onto Deep Space Nine on DVD, I can’t wait to get a bit further with that one.

Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
I’ve got a nasty feeling that as I’ve learned more about the Pope, I hate him more. Which is a bit disconcerting.

What was the best book you read?
I re-read a lot of old favourites. I finally got a box of books back from my parent’s loft, I’m looking forward to getting through some of those. I didn’t read many new books, and the only one I remember liking was Brave New World. But that was a good one!

What was your greatest musical discovery?
This year, I discovered... nothing. Not a specific band, anyway. My musical discovery will probably be the chance tuning in to Jack FM, a local station that ‘plays what we want’. It also has some hilarious one-liners between songs – “If we agreed with you, we’d both be wrong. That’s why we play what we want.” and “On Jack FM, we mostly play what we want. Sometimes, we play what we feel like instead.” A lot of the old stuff, like Blondie, Supertramp, Pulp, Oasis, Blur, The Lightning Seeds, and a whole load I don’t even know the names of. A whole mix, right back to the 70’s.

What did you want and get?
A driving licence, and we’re expecting a new baby!

What did you want and not get?
More of my new year’s resolutions complete.

How did you earn your keep?
Still programming. Still loving it. I funded a new television by selling off my old Star Trek cards. End of an era.

What was your favourite film of this year?
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. That’s definitely my cup of tea! I missed a lot of films that I wanted to see, but maybe I’ll catch them on DVD next year. Iron Man 2 was also pretty good, but Scott Pilgrim just got me right there, you know?

What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I was twenty-six, and I can’t remember a thing about it. Honestly. I think I bought the telly? I seem to have had a two-month blogging blackout over the summer. I have a feeling I failed a driving test around then.

What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Doing something memorable with the birthday! I think my year has been pretty good. Maybe passing the driving test earlier would have been good? We’d probably have missed the awesome deal we got with the car though.

How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2010?
‘They still fit, I’ll still wear them.’ I might need to get something new soon though.

What kept you sane?
Freddy – he’s adorable.

What political issue stirred you the most?
The Pope’s state visit to this island. Enough to get me involved in my very first protest. That was a bit surreal.

Who was the best new person you met?
Mostly, I’ve only met people through work or through Freddy’s nursery. I think I might need to get out more.

Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2010:
Toddlers will repeat anything you say to them.

Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
I can’t remember the words, but I remember a Weetabix commercial which featured a driving examiner’s lament, to the tune of “I Will Survive.” That’s probably apt, in the circumstances!

*** BONUS QUESTIONS (thanks Lone Cow!) ***

What is the best thing that you were given?
I was given a revised salary in a ‘department restructure’ at the beginning of the year. After last year’s pay review, half the team left and the other half were looking for work – made for a powerful bargaining position. Yeah, I’m a greedy bastard at heart.

What is the best thing you have given someone?
I gave Freddy this toy kitchen, which he absolutely adores. I gave Jen a car. I shared my baby with the world!

Thanks everyone! That’s it till next year!

I’ve just had to put CAPTCHA on the blog comments here, because of too much spam. The spam filters are fine, but there was just too much spam being added.

Part of the problem was that BlogEngine.NET’s SQL provider deletes a post (!) before re-adding it, with every comment, all over again. So to add a new comment, every other comment on that post is deleted and re-added. To delete a comment, the same thing happens. With over 20,000 spam comments (and about 15 genuine ones), deleting comments was going to be a problem (and slow as hell!)

I was only really bothered by this when my hosting company informed me I was over quota – about 2.5GB over my 1GB limit. I traced this to the database, and after (manually) clearing out the spam comments, couldn’t fathom why it was still too high. The database itself was only about 6MB (as a backup file).

It turns out all that database activity was being logged, and the log file was over 3GB. So I can’t just allow rampant spamming, even though the filters were really pretty clever.

At some point, I intend to re-write the SQL provider for this blog that will help me keep that sort of thing to a minimum – I was gobsmacked when I realised that if I edit a post (for example, to correct a mis-spelled word, add a tag, etc) every comment was deleted and re-added. Even to add a comment, every comment is deleted and re-added. Surely, that’s not necessary... but I have other projects to get out of the way first. Maybe a resolution for next year?