Well, it seems I never let you (whomever you may be) know how Attempt 3 went. Following the instructions on the tin (80g of egg replacer - which is a massive amount - and an amount of water that now escapes me), with 8oz of flour, margarine, and sugar + flavourings gave me something bearing a remarkable resemblance to cake! Problems: Lack of flavour (I failed to account for the amount of cocoa required to flavour an extra 80g of egg replacer), lack of height (I might try adding a little baking powder next time), and tasting a little too strongly of egg replacer (maybe more cocoa will solve that). I'm not sure when I'll try the next one.

As my warranty for my laptop expires on the 28th of this month, I decided that sending the machine off for one final warranty repair would be a good idea. The faults I highlighted to Novatech were the intermittent display corruption, USB port instability and the dodgy audio. UPS were a pain (collecting a day later than when they were scheduled to), and Novatech claimed delivery far later than they should technically have received it (not sure who to blame there), but I can't really complain as when I finally received the machine back yesterday (exactly two weeks after it left me, almost to the hour), not only had it had the motherboard and VGA cable replaced (as had been claimed on the phone to me and the repair sheet with it), but it had also had seemingly every other component bar the hard drive replaced. Perhaps a kindly Novatech tech decided to give me an early Christmas present. To whomever was responsible, thank you and a Merry Christmas (or other appropriate holiday greeting) to you too.

I should really have done some (academic) work this vacation, but have so far failed (mainly citing my lack of laptop as the reason, although procrastination was probably another contributing factor). For the first time in a while, I do have set vacation work, as well as trying to catch up with Quantum and revising for collections.

(I think there's a mouse in my keyboard - it's just started squeaking at me!)

Below is possibly the worst cartoon you'll ever see. Richard said it was good (he may have been humouring me), so I decided to inflict it on all 0 of you reading this. Have fun!

And before I forget, to try and give it a kickstart into the Google rankings, here is the website for the Oxford Students' Ice Skating Club - OxIce.

Have a great Christmas (or if you don't want to, don't).