Apologies for the brief unannounced interlude, but after a quick trip out to Arizona, taking in Phoenix, The Grand Canyon, and Sedona, we're now back with more games, and no more cacti.

Happy holidays everyone. We're hitting the road for a couple of days to see family and friends, and then we're doing it all again as hosts, so all in all Lazylaces will be taking a break until at least Sunday or Monday. If you are doing the same - enjoy, if you're not, or if you don't already have more than enough to do, and you're pining for more games, try finding some yuletide repeats using the Lazylaces Random Game Selecta, or try perusing one of the other fine sites listed under 'more games' to the right of your screen.

G :)

Eagle eyed visitors might spot a couple of tiny tweaks to the site today, with the buttons at the base of the page receiving a refresh (what do you mean you never scroll down that far?), and the site stylesheet for picture links getting a teeny tweak so they behave a little less weirdly in Internet Explorer. That is all. Oh, and if you find any good games, as opposed to the kind that have been found today, please feel free to drop me a line using the submit a link page.

Thank you very much, please come again.
G :)

To the few people that occasionally visit the "about" page on the site, actually to be more accurate, to the smaller sub set of you that have visited it and actually noticed that it's immensely out of date (ho ho - no I did not move back to the UK), you'll be pleased to know that I've finally updated it. Now you know what it's all about again.

It's a Friday (woohoo!) after a busy week (boo!), and quite frankly I need to step away from the computer for a while... so this is going to brief... Liekster dropped me a note (inbetween Tim subbing every game ever; too much to wade thru today I'm afraid old chap) to see if I had seen Gambit yet. My answer being 'no'... From what I can see it's 50% cute games, 50% social experiment. Could be good, could be bad, why not pop over and take a look for yourself? And in the meantime why not also try the, slightly more random, social experiment contained within the Lazylaces Random Game Selecta and see if a few good clicks can find you some classic p'n'c action? And if you find nothing there to cheer you up, remember that there's always lego and/or sweatpants... [thanks to Liekster, Tim & Steve].

After weeks, months even, of an, as yet still, unfruitful house hunt - viewing properties, filling out & submitting multiple financial forms (Self-employed? Tricky), missing out on our dream home, filling out & submitting yet more financial forms (Non-Citizen? Very tricky), moving loan company & finally getting approval on a home loan, filling out & submitting even more financial forms, and even now still viewing properties regularly (and filling out more forms), it's time for a break, and we're off on our summer holiday.

In the meantime if you are looking for new games try the folks listed to right under 'more games', or brace yourself for a historical tour, and use the new Random Game Selecta to tinker around in the LL archives.

That should keep you occupied until the 29th, when we'll be back from OC. And remember - wear sunscreen.

No updates today as I'm super busy trying to shake off a nasty virus (that's the computer kind, not the sneezy kind). Where do these things come from? I'm up to date with Windows, AV software, firewall and Anti Spyware and I'm ultra careful, and yet still I get infected. I wasn't even doing anything when it struck. Anyway...

Currently both Windows Defender and Norton Internet Security insist that my PC is fine, yet every time I use google all the results are hijacked to direct to other sites, and every time I try to visit Microsoft or Symantec (Norton) to get any kind of useful security update I'm either blocked or redirected elsewhere again. Arrrrgh. I don't even what to know what would happen if I used a site that needed security details/credit card details etc and I can't even think about using my remote connection to my office (so work today consists of searching security bulletin boards and rebooting a PC a gazillion times, which is even less fun than usual since 9 times out of 10 it won't even boot up properly as it's clearly too busy committing evil acts upon it's own operating system and files). Hmmmmm.... *deep breath*. Anyway, so that's what I'm doing today.

UPDATE: So the latest update is that my PC seems to be fixed. Thanks to everyone who posted suggestions in the comments, or emailed with help (especially James). I was going to write up a full story of my experiences hoping that they could help someone else out there with the same problems, but to be honest with you I'm exhausted by the whole thing now and really don't even want to think about viruses, trojans and rootkits. I spent 2.5 long days going thru this. Having a break from the computer after sitting at it constantly for hours and hours on end is kind of appealing. But just a quick summary...

I had problems with Trojan.blusod (kind of annoying) and with Rootkit.Win32.Agent.cku (ultra annoying and pretty scary), despite generally "being careful" and keeping my operating system, firewall and security software up to date (which is the no #1 recommendation to not even having these sorts of issues in the first place).

Once infected very useful tools to sort out the problem (which I'll contine to use) were Malwarebytes' anti-malware and Spybot.

I did however also need a lot of help, and a tool called SDFix, to get completely 'clean'. I suggest a visit to bleepingcomputer.com for this if you find yourself in a similar situation (and I'd probably shy away from running SDFix, as excellent as it is, without the sort of help they can offer).

If you just want some games you've waited far too long already, and you almost certainly want to skip this bit. If you are interested in where I've been though, read on...

First of all I could tell you the story of how I have been busy walking from Maine To Georgia along the Appalachian Trail (see the pic above Jen & I got for this very purpose), but those of you that know me well (or that can read the subtle clue in the name lazylaces) might not believe that.

Or I could tell you that my disappearance was all part of a huge point'n'click adventure I set up on the site and that I'm really disappointed that no one 'got it' and managed to track me down. Although I'm sure that at least one of you pixel hunted every last piece of the site and you know that I would just be making it up (although thanks to very one who tracked me on FB - I'm only 5 friends short of 100 now!).

Of course the truth, as usual, is far more dull. Maybe I will do that game thing one day though. Anyway... Firstly I got very busy, very quickly, with work. Then I was house sitting, and was still busy at work (but there was a pool, which made things a little easier). Then I had to travel back to the UK on business. Then I was jet-lagged. Then I went on holiday (to Luray, VA and Skyline Drive - where the pic above is really from). And somewhere in there I also experienced the tail end of Hurricane Hanna (a really not very exciting tropical storm when it came thru here - as an Englishman I have seen lots of rain before, which is what it boiled down to) and went to see Burning Spear live. And now, somehow, I'm still busy with work. Ho hum. Juggling every thing that needs to be done, and actually having some free time in between, can be a daunting task, but I'm going to try to get back on some sort of track now.

Anyway. Back to a couple of posts now for those of you itching for games that have managed to read this far.

PS. For those of you that ask all the time about my wedding pics, Jen says hi, and says she will be making me actually get them on-line this week...

New stuff later today once I've finished work. For now I'm going to dodge out of the way of the stampede to post "first".

There's something distinctly weird and nerve racking about taking a driving test after you've already been driving for over 10 years, but that's exactly what I did yesterday as I passed my Maryland State Driving test, to add a Maryland driving license to my UK driving license. So I can now officially drive on both sides of the road. Just not at the same time...