GT4

Don't think I've been posting enough recently? Well I've got some bad news for you. In a double espresso induced buying frenzy I pre-ordered a new slim-line PS2 and a copy of GT4 (actual screenshot above - *drool*) this morning. Predicted delivery date is at the end of Feb so I suggest you catch me before then as I'll have entered 'career mode' shortly afterwards and be unavailable until May at the earliest. It's been nice knowing you all :o)

Entry 1070, Monday, January 17th 2005, Filed In Diary
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December 2004

Ok - I'm doing a little bit of end of year house-keeping to try and tidy up all the links and photos I've gathered over December and done nothing with. The idea is that come the new year when you guys are kind enough to mail stuff in I'll actually get round to posting it straight away. Well that's the idea anyway.

First up are a group of photos gathered over the course of my company's events during December which I only remembered I had lurking on my USB drive when Jules came round the other night.

They're from our quarterly monthly meeting (in which we discuss the progress of the various different parts of the company and then retire to a bar - this time we went to Mar I Terra a great Tapas bar around the corner from the office), from the IM Awards ceremony, which I've already posted about, and our office party at Jongleurs (comedy club and home of the worst food in London).

Right, enjoy the pics, and I'll move on to the links - apologies if I post something you sent in without a credit, but quite predictably I've lost pretty much all of the original e-mails.

Entry 1037, Tuesday, December 28th 2004, Filed In Diary
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Information Management Awards

I mentioned a while back that one of the projects I worked on was up for an award - well we were actually up for two awards. The project actually came second in one, but in the Information Management Awards which we attended en-masse we didn't get anywhere beyond being nominated. Still a good time was had by all as you can see from the pictures. Being a black-tie event we were, of course, all on our best behaviour.

Entry 1027, Monday, December 20th 2004, Filed In Diary
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O' Christmas Tree

Some people say to me "why haven't you posted any links for so long", and I reply "because I'm sooo lazy - the clue is there in the domain name". Anyway despite a week off work I haven't caught up with any of the linking, photo processing or coding I was meant to, but have spent it all chilling out. I'd say sorry but I'm not. I feel much better for it, thank you.

One thing I did manage to do in my week off was erect the lazylaces Christmas Tree, which for the more observant of you may look familiar. Yes - it's exactly the same tree as last year - I spurn real trees for plastic tree goodness. The really observant among you may notice that this year it is situated on the otherside of my living room - it's this kind of detail that really spices up my life.

Meanwhile the photos of me in black tie at my awards ceremony lurk on my hard drive waiting to be commented upon. When I buck up a bit they'll be on-line too. I know some of you (well one of you anyway) waits with baited breath.

Entry 1018, Monday, December 13th 2004, Filed In Diary
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Getting To Know Your Friends

Okay this is one of those circular e-mail things that I'm sure you've all got by now, but because I can't be bothered to forward my replies onto a gazillion firends I'm going to write all my answers here and I'll let you do yours in the comments or e-mail them to me if you're all prissy and private. The idea is you take the questions and post your personal responses to a bunch of people (you can know your friends too). Anyway here they are with my replies:

What time did you get up this morning?
Alarm got me up at 04.55, a couple of snoozes later I got up at 5.30.

Diamonds or pearls?
Diamonds (bit of a girly one this I thought, my jewellery actually consists of a steel watch and that's it).

What was the last film you saw at the cinema?
I really can't remember, it's been far too long since I went to the cinema. The last film I watched was School Of Rock which I highly recommend.

What is your favourite TV show?
At the moment it would be Spooks or West Wing.

What did you have for breakfast?
Black coffee, no sugar. Multiplied by 3.

What is your middle name?
Fascinating fact #1 - I have no middle name.

What is your favourite cuisine?
Pizza. Domino's to be precise. You might not think they are cuisine. I know they deliver. I win.

What food do you dislike?
Brie. Don't ask. It sends shivers down my spine just looking at the stuff.

What is your favourite crisp flavour?
Golden Wonder sausage and tomato. They're damn hard to track down though.

What is your favourite CD?
Big Calm by Morcheeba is an all time favourite. I'm currently listening to Jamie Cullum, Snow Patrol and The White Stripes though.

What kind of car do you drive?
Mini Coop.

In men/women what characteristic do you look for?
Just that I like/get on with them. Most people would agree I don't have a 'type'. Especially at the moment when I'm a sad singleton.

Favourite sandwich?
On a friday/weekend/bad day it would have to be bacon (hot). Any other day of the week Pret chicken caesar.

Favourite item of clothing?
G Star jeans that are 5 years old if they're a day.

If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation where would you go?
Cape Town. When I was in South Africa everyone insisted I had to go there but I never did.

Where would you retire to?
The Somerset countryside just outside Bristol. Great memories.

Favourite time of the day?
Early summer morning in London by the Thames. Sometimes it can take a long time to walk to work.

What was your most memorable birthday?
21st - also the most unmemorable - you know what I'm saying.

Favourite sport to watch?
Sunday village green cricket. As long as there's a village pub.

Who do you least expect to send this back to you?
Any relation of mine.

Person you expect to send it back first?
Daisy - except I think she might have posted something similar a while back.

What fabric detergent do you use?
Tesco Colour.

If you could choose any animal as a pet what would it be?
I'm not to be trusted with pets.

Are you a morning person or a night owl?
A little bit of both, but I definately get more work done in the morning.

Favourite alcoholic beverage?
Laurent Perrier or a Mojito if I'm feeling flash, a London Pride otherwise.

Do you have any pets?
1 fake cat. It's quite realistic.

Any new and exciting news you would like to share with your friends?
A project I did most of the development work for has been nominated for an award.

What did you want to be when you were little?
A train driver if I remember rightly. You wouldn't believe how much I hate trains now I commute every day though.

What are you meant to be doing today?
Working about 11 hours on 3 different projects. I have a week off starting on Friday though.

Entry 1015, Wednesday, December 1st 2004, Filed In Diary
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#1000

Phew! Well here it is, after over 2 years of lazylaces postings we finally arrive at post 1000.

The mini hiatus over the last couple of weeks has been down to me using every inch of my free time to get the site redesign finished in time for this post. I felt the site deserved a new set of clothes to mark the event, but I've added a style switcher in the right hand column for those of you that prefer the old blue colours. I still love them myself, but I was getting tired of looking at the same old thing all the time and fancied a change. The code redesign behind it means it will be easier for me to add extra alternative styles in the future as well.

There are a few other tweaks and changes, although lots of these are still on a 'to do' list that just seems to get longer no matter how many items I cross off. The photologs are slowly being changed over to use my own code, meaning I can ditch the clunky frames they used before, and the 'popular' links on the right are now generated dynamically from the number of recent comments, rather than being generated by hand when I can be bothered to check my referrals.

Up-coming changes include a font-size selector, improved site navigation, a site-map, content warnings for things like games that need shockwave, and an overhaul of the 'about' and 'links' pages. As always my free time is minimal so I don't when I am going to do all these things but I do have a week off work at the being of December so maybe this will get cleared up then.

I was going to make this a cheesy retrospective post with all my 'best bits' from the last two years, but the site redesign has spared you that, I'm still pleased to note though that some of my favourite posts go all the way the begining of the site, and post #1 is still one of my favourite things I've found online.

That's all for now. Thanks for everyone's support over the last 1000 posts, all the friends I've made on-line, all the folks who have e-mailed ideas, contacted me on AIM, or made one of the 4000+ comments. Here's to the next 1000.

Graeme aka Lazylaces

Entry 1000, Saturday, November 20th 2004, Filed In Diary
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Great Bottom Flash

You know you are close to cracking with stress at work when you find yourself laughing uncontrollably when you discover you live near a place called Great Bottom Flash whilst looking up directions for visiting friends. The fact that it is a 'water feature' seems to just push you over the edge.

Tomorrow I welcome Matthew (my best-friend since we we're 12) and Helen to lazylaces towers. Sunday I go back to work. SUNDAY? All because Monday sees a major stress bunny presenting his intranet application to a room full of City financial types. Eeeeek!

Entry 949, Friday, September 17th 2004, Filed In Diary
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X40

Today I'm making my first posts from my new X40 - I can't tell you how amazingly awsomely geeky this baby is. Well I can, but I've got other stuff to post right now, so more on this puppy soon - maybe at the weekend when I have more time. For now bare with me while I get distracted by what I'm typing on, and as I get used to the little red nipple mouse control. Suffice to say for now by the power of wi-fi these posts come to you from the comfort of my 3-seater sofa...*joy*

Entry 929, Tuesday, August 31st 2004, Filed In Diary
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Nathan & Claire

Yesterday I headed off to St Mary's Church, near Newbury, for my cousin's wedding. These are some pictures of the day, mainly of my cousin, Nathan, and his new wife, Claire, but my other Cousins, my Uncles, my Grandmother and, of course, my Mum & Dad make guest appearances. Curiously the rain storms ripping accross the country stopped for the day, and the sun popped out, making for rather a nice day.

Entry 915, Sunday, August 22nd 2004, Filed In Diary
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Summer Cold

Typical - I've only been back in the country for a week and I get a bizarre summer cold thing that ruins my weekend and keeps me off work for a couple of days. I've been feeling rotten so I haven't gotten round to posting anything - the only thing I've been good for is eating paracetamol and drinking orange juice. Anyway I've dragged myself out of bed now and I'm feeling pretty much better - back to work for me in the morning, but first some light posting...

Entry 904, Tuesday, August 3rd 2004, Filed In Diary
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3 Pools

While I was at Lake Naverone I hiked up to an area called the 3 pools (where coincidently there are 3 pools) in the Drakensburg Natural Park. The weather there was strange - I hiked for about 5 hours in the beating sun and was boiling, but in the shade it was freezing to the extent that there was frost in some places and one of the pools was partially iced over.

Hiking on your own in this area is a little disturbing - there are literally no other people and if you take a tumble, like I did, you start worrying about when/if anyone would find you. At one point I came accross a troop of baboons, which are pretty large, and I realised I wasn't sure if they were the kind of creature that would come after me or run away. As it turns out they ran away but they were having quite a big fight amongst each other.

That's all my holiday pics for now. The key ones I'm missing are from the wedding itself, when by rotten coincidence my camera battery had run down, but I'll be getting copies from other people that were there and posting them at a later date. So back to the usual nonsense for now...

Entry 899, Sunday, July 25th 2004, Filed In Diary
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Lake Naverone

After Grant and Angela's wedding I hired a car and went back up to the Drakensburg on my own while they went off on their honeymoon. I did have plans to go on safari but they fell through, however things worked out well in the end as I ended up at Lake Naverone - a very chilled out place, ideal if you've been stressed out at work for several months.

The setting is simply stunning and for a city-bod like myself the silence is amazing - all you could hear was the odd bird call. Also I was never aware just how many stars there are in the sky - it was like visiting an observatory every night - there's virtually zero light pollution. The nearest town was a small place called Underburg where I stocked up on provisions. It was about 25km away on a pot-holed winding road that was imense fun to drive along - you feel like you are taking part in a rally (well if you drive like I do you do).