...but at least it's sunny here too! (For the moment, anyway )

No doubt you've already checked out our E3 coverage and the staff blog from the event but if you'd like to keep up with the UK chaps, Guy and Luke will also be posting in the London Calling team blog as well as their personal ones. And for those uber-new-media types out there, Guy has also set up a Twitter feed.

Enjoy! It may be a smaller E3 than previously, but there's always plenty to check out (not least our live show, which for me promises to be one of the highlights).

Outside of my GameSpot life, I'm a big fan of motorcycle racing. I like F1 too, but it's hard to beat the adrenalin of motorbikes overtaking at crazy speeds on corners. This season I'm paying particular attention to Moto GP, World Superbikes and British Superbikes results as I've got a 'fantasy team' in a league with friends. (I seem destined for mid-table mediocrity, but that is partly due to my choice of Capirossi - what was I thinking?!).

Unfortunately, the fact that I work at GameSpot means that I can't enter our competition to give away tickets to the World Superbikes UK round in August! But if you're over 18 and live in the UK (sorry Danny and Sidburn) then you can!

Games-wise I'm still playing away at Professor Layton and the Curious Village. It's curiously addictive

One of the great joys of doing The GameSpot UK Podcast -- other than the fact we're really lucky to get paid to sit around talking about games and gaming for an hour or so each fortnight -- is the guests that we have on the show. They've become an intrinsic part of what the podcast is all about, and I really love that. Sometimes it's about learning more about a specific game, but often it's about finding out more about all the different things that people do within the gaming industry and how they ended up doing them.

You just never really know what you're going to get with a guest. Sometimes, as with the BBFC's game examiner Jim Cliff, it ends up being way more interesting than the idea looked on paper, and that's always a great result. I don't have a favourite guest -- meeting new people or catching up with 'friends of the show' like Leo or Lee is inevitably fun, and there's always something to learn.

The last episode of the podcast featured Haze scriptwriter Rob Yescombe (already notorious on the site because of that Start/Select interview) and we knew we'd be in for some insanity pretty much from the moment he arrived at the office. And not just because he said I had nice feet...

The show was certainly different to any we've done before, and all credit to Guy for editing it down into something approaching a sensible length and vaguely on-topic. What's really been surprising is the reaction we've had from listeners, which can definitely be summed up as completely divided. It's like the whole love/hate Marmite thing -- people either thought Rob was really funny, or really didn't. We've never had so many comments on the podcast page (at the moment we have more than the HotSpot, but I'm sure that won't last ) and there have been quite a few emails as well. We read them all, and we'll be featuring quite a few on this week's show. Can't wait! And if you haven't already commented/emailed, it's not too late...

In not-entirely-related news, Start/Select should now be available on iTunes. Let me know if you can't find it...

I know that the whole world has gone GTA IV crazy, but this weekend I settled down with a copy of Tomb Raider Anniversary that I picked up pre-owned last week (sucked in by the 'buy 2 for £40' ticket). I've never played all the way through a Tomb Raider game before (I know, I know) so I was intrigued to give it a proper go. So far, apart from the fact that I have to do everything about five times, I've been really enjoying it. Now if I could just kill the T-Rex I could move on...

At least this means I have successfully moved on from Puzzle Quest on XBLA. I've got all the achievements, and completed the story, so that feels like a good time to leave it until the expansion pack comes out and sucks me in all over again. I can't wait

Also taking up large chunks of my time is Apollo Justice (which was dated for release on May 9 in the UK, meaning it'll be out before Phoenix Wright 3. What's that all about?!). Without wishing to give too much away, the fourth case is brilliant and involves time travel. I'm going to be gutted when I've finished it. What else is out there for the DS/PSP right now?

And then we were two...how it's been two years already, I'm truly not sure. It really doesn't seem like that long ago that Alex and I spent a very long Sunday watching the London marathon go by outside the office window while trying to update box shots and release dates so they'd be correct when we launched.

It's been a busy few years really. The podcast is now around 18 months old, and Start/Select has been going for three months. Even I have managed to do a review! To celebrate, we had some cake (more accurately, we had two cakes, four packets of sweets and two packets of chocolatey things!) but don't worry, we shared them with our CNET.co.uk and SmartPlanet.com buddies. Otherwise we'd be breaking the Wii Fit board trying to work off all the calories.

We also recorded a podcast, and after some technical wizardry, that should be live pretty soon. Possibly with a new banner, but probably without, as Alex isn't here today and he's the only one who knows how to upload a new one (honestly, who signs off these holidays?!).

There are tons of highlights when I look back over the last couple of years--our Capital Punishment UK tournament was great fun, and I enjoy all the community nights (although they are much better when we play Worms and I win), and Guy and Alex in those ridiculous cosplay costumes will make me laugh just to think about it. I'd love to know your favourite bits since April 2006!

Happy GSUK birthday everyone!

[Update: link to a photo of the cake added!]