A very Hobbity Birthday to you!

It is a time-honored tradition here in the Shire that one gives birthday presents on one's birthday, rather than receive them. In that spirit, I am going to give out some gifts to my online friends who may or may not want them.

Simply comment on this post or @nerdheroine a 'Happy Birthday' before midnight (CST) on February 20th and I will spend part of my birthday (the 21st) handing out presents. I'll send you a DM or email as applicable to arrange shipping. Sound good?

This is ONLY open to people currently following me on twitter and people who read my blog. Please don't RT this, I know exactly who my last follower was (because I just wrote it down) and I have a fair idea of who reads this blog. This is a just a thank you for being around and being funny/interesting folk these past six months or so.

So what are the prizes? Mostly things I have around the house I somehow manage to have two of. All are brand new, I just have two (or more) of them due to a series of bizarre circumstances. Did you know I got four copies of Star Trek for Christmas? Yeah, like that. Let's see...





Star Trek (2009)










Chew "Taster's Choice" - includes Chew Issues #1-5









Darwin's "I think" journal entry from the Museum of Natural History, London (poster/print, approx 50x70cm)

One box of mystery and excitement. A miscellany things too small to offer on their own. Includes but is not limited to cards, comics, pins, figurines and/or books.



So if you think you might like to have any of the above drop me a tweet on twitter, or a comment below.

Happy Birthday to me!

Data is my homie

Kind of a drive-by blog post for anyone who doesn't follow my Twitter.

Everyone needs a friend like Data.

Also, a Death Star wedding cake.

Happy Halloween!

Why hello Mr Pumpkin, how are you today?


My goodness. You're not looking well at all, How about we remove some of that excess?


What, you felt okay to begin with? No need to make faces.


This is the Calvin (of Calvin and Hobbes) pumpkin I carved and then mailed to The Amazing Lauren. That's right, at some point in the last couple of days, one of my friends received a pre-carved pumpkin. I am currently accepting applications to be my friend, but the requirements are strict. You need to be a minimum of half as awesome as me.

Oh, also, she got a cake.

You can't tell in the picture, but that is a four inch tall seven-layer cake. I told her to take pictures when she ate it, I will update accordingly.

I, unfortunately, have no reason to dress up for Halloween. I am not currently working (house remodeling is taking precedence), not attending school and no one I know is having a party. To combat this, I will have a party later this year and it will involve costumes. Anyway, since you don't get to see me dressed up in a costume (and since looking at my computer I see that I have no previous Halloween pictures [what's up with that?]), have this instead.

Senior year, high school drama production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. I played Hippolyta. I was deemed a natural queen. Thank you, thank you.

Note: Faces have been blurred to protect the innocent.

Gorilla discovers cooking... bakes bread

This hilarious caption comes from The Daily Mail. Why am I not surprised?


Damn right he invented cookery. Hell, in the time it took you to write this article he discovered bread as well. Good for him. What good's cooked meat if you can't have a sandwich? Am I right?

Flying

There is much to say about my vacation to sunny southern California. The most important is the sad state of the American education system particularly when it comes to Airport security.

I shall explain.

I had to go through airport security exactly twice on my trip, once on each end. I am a seasoned traveler, an international connoisseur of airport security if you will. By far, the best airport security in the world is at London Heathrow Airport. They are quick, the are efficient and they know what the fuck they are doing.

None of the airports on my vacation knew how to accomplish any of those things.

Part One: It's not a Liquid

For backstory, my cheapest airport to fly out of from home is this podunk operation where livestock can delay a landing and the personnel feel as though the safety of the nation rests on their shoulders. It is small, small, small. On my flight outbound, I was carrying all my luggage as it’s only a week’s worth of vacation and the silly buggers at the airline want to charge me to check baggage. In my luggage was a cake and a container of icing as it was my mother’s birthday and celebrations would be in order.

I did not expect the Great Icing Fiasco of 2009.

“Ma’am, all liquids must be in containers of a maximum of three ounces.”

I look to my baggie of liquids (and seriously, we all know how ridiculous that whole thing is) and they are in 3oz containers. He points at my frosting.

“Ma’am, you’re going to have to either put that in a smaller container or throw it away.”

You have got to be shitting me. At this point, hand to Cthulhu, I was looking for hidden cameras – like maybe I was on best dumb airport security moments.

“That’s not a liquid.”

“I’m sorry ma’am but you’re going to have to either repackage it somehow or leave it behind.”

“That’s not a liquid. It’s frosting.”

“Ma’am, I’m going to have to ask you not to take that tone. You cannot pass through security with this.”

“But it’s not a liquid! I mean, really, it’s not.”

At this point we have attracted the attentions of the one other person in the security area. “What’s going on here?” says Doofus2.

I point, “That is not a liquid.”

Doofus1 and Doofus2 confer over my can of frosting. Seriously. People in line (all three of them), begin to join in. There is no sending people around me. I have the full attention of the only two guys on duty.

“Dude, let her through.”

“It’s a can of frosting, she’s not going to hijack anything with it.”

“Let us through!”

“Ma’am, the rules are quite specific. We cannot let you onboard the aircraft with this liquid.”

“It’s not a liquid!”

This argument could have gone one forever. It was only a buck fifty can of frosting, but it wasn’t a liquid and I sure as hell was taking it to California now. However, two events happened simultaneously. One, the two Doofuses superior showed up and two, he arrived.

You ever see those Dos Equis commercials with the most interesting man in the world? This was that guy.

“Excuse me, might I be of some assistance?”

Had anyone else stepped forward, I think the Doofuses would have had them arrested. They were about ready to have me arrested and put on the no-fly list, I swear.

Quite calmly, TMIMITW gestured to my frosting. “Icing such as that exists as an amorphous solid, a sub-state of solid matter.* It is not, in fact a liquid.”

The Doofuses and their supervisor looked at him. They looked at each other. Finally, the supervisor made an executive decision. “As long as it hasn’t been opened, let it through.”

I do not know why TMIMITW was in Louisiana. I don’t know why he was on my flight. I just know that he is awesome.

*Also, yeah, he was totally making that up. I Wikied that shit. But you know what? That makes him even more awesome in my book.

Part Two: If it looks like a computer and quacks like a computer....

After my outbound flight, I felt sure nothing could top it. I mean, this is Los Angeles, not Louisiana, surely they will be the efficient, capable security staff I always hope for.

Alas... they were not.

All things went as planned for the most part. My computer goes through without a hitch, as do my bags. However, in my bag, is Johnny 505. Oh the chaos you have caused.

It seemed to go well to start. I wasn’t stopped for any suspicious (and delicious!) containers. I was putting my laptop away and found myself the object of airport security scrutiny.

“Is that a Kindle?”

I bristled on behalf on Johnny and corrected him. “Actually, it’s a Sony ereader. Same concept,” at this point maternal pride took over. I flipped the cover open and turned it on, “See how well the text shows up?”

The security guy made appropriate ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhs’. Of course, this was way too good to be true. We caught the non-cool guy’s attention.

“Ma’am, all computers need to go through the x-ray machine separately.”

“That’s not a computer, it’s and ereader.” Deja vu anyone? I’ve totally done this before.

Luckily, before we could restart my Vaudevillian act again, my ereader admirer came to my defence. “We don't send iPods through. Same thing.” He handed me back my ereader, “Have a nice day ma’am.”

Aw, I was kind of hoping the most interesting man in the world would show up again.

Tauren Cat Cake

Oh-Em-Gee. That was both easier and significantly more difficult than I thought it was going to be. And the final product? Lordy, he’s cute.

(For the back story and Stumpy head thataways.)

To start with on Tuesday morning I made my own buttercream icing but since I’m never going to do that again you get no pictures. Okay, here, you can have one.

This was way more trouble than it’s worth as I used two sticks of butter, a pound of powdered sugar, half and half, and a lot of time to get half the amount you can buy from Betty Crocker for a buck fifty. I’m all for homemade, but seriously, where’s the sense in expending a lot more effort, time and money to get half the product? None, that’s what I say.

The shaping of the Tauren-Cat was actually pretty easy. Even though you can’t see it, the bottom layer actually came out of the pan in about three pieces. But it’s the bottom layer so plbbt! Who’s going to know?

Here’s what Tauren-Cat looked like all shaped up. Notice the clever use of cupcakes to fill in at his neck and to make his tail. Go ahead, notice.

Dear Lord, isn’t he cute? That round little nose is going to be my undoing. When we start eating him, I’m going for the snout.

I had to protect him overnight on Tuesday since I wasn’t going to put on the fondant until Wednesday (today?). There was nothing for the cling film to stick to so I held it down with virtually my entire spice collection. If you ever wondered what my spice cabinet had in it, here’s your chance.

And this was what was left.

From forty cakes to four. Jeez.

Next morning came time to ice. I had bought three containers of buttercream icing, and they covered approximately 85% of the cake.

Of course, I had to do what I was trying so hard not to through very careful planning. I had to go out and get more. I bought two more containers of frosting but only ended up using half of one. The other is spare, I’m sure I’ll use it eventually for something or other.

And here he is all iced up and super-cute.

Next, came fondant. I’d show you how I colored it but I wasn’t about to go picking up my camera with food coloring all over my hands. Just imagine the most strenuous kneading process you can imagine and go with that. But with color. Next, you roll out the fondant. I’d heard to use cornstarch to keep the fondant from sticking, but I used powdered sugar which worked fine and was yummier.

They sell a special rolling pin for this, but I used this one I got a buck at Christmas. As long as there’s no seam on it, it’ll be fine.

Also, I broke the cardinal rule of cake decorating. I covered him in pieces. Ordinarily, you should roll out one big sheet and lay it over the cake, then trim off any excess. But look at him, He’s all funny shaped. So I did the head, legs and tail separate.

There were some flaws mainly around the neck, but I knew no one would see the neck area so I didn’t sweat it too much.

Then came more coloring, so no intermediary pictures again (Sorry!), but the mane was made by starting halfway down his back and gluing down triangles of brown fondant. To ‘glue’ down fondant, just mix up a little bit of gumpaste in some water and the stuff will stick like you were using super-glue.

And here is he 98% complete. (He still needs his horns)

Hey! We haven’t heard from Stumpy in a while, let’s check in shall we?

In the last few days, Stumpy has gotten some detail work done. His loincloth is snazzier and he can see now, so that’s good.

But what you really want to see isn’t Stumpy, it’s the final Tauren-Cat. I’ll finish off with the picture but I want to say this, if I had a better eye for detail and wasn’t so prone to losing my patience the cake would have been a piece of… well… cake. I’d totally do it again, and I learned things.

1. Own a paintbrush to use in the kitchen. This is for dusting powdered sugar off of fondant, or any number of other uses, but that one springs to mind.

2. Fondant is not so difficult to work with as one might think. Seriously, once I got the hang of rolling it, it was a cinch.

3. I am the coolest friend ever. We all already knew that, but I totally am.

Remember what we started with? Let’s do a before and after like they do on reality shows.

Before:

After:

Update: R liked his cake, although I forgot he was on a diet so probably not so much with the eating. The SO was very impressed, thus not a total wash. Also, Stumpy's arm fell off as we were leaving the house. Also also, I got a job offer for a pastry chef position from someone at the restaurant. But with very little pay and very early hours so that's a no. Yet very cool.

Deep Breaths

Over the course of the next couple of days I will be attempting to turn this...


Into one of these...


Those of you who are of a religious inclination, pray for me.

(I will be posting about the process, but probably in stages as Holy *Shark* this is going to be interesting)

Creating Life

My skills tend to be somewhat less than I believe they are. I over-estimate my baking prowess. While I can make a decent cake / cookie / pie, when it comes to gussying it up I fall flat.

So why am I cursing at a package of gumpaste at 11 o’clock on a Saturday night?

Because I’m a good friend, and a friend’s birthday is fast approaching. I had originally planned on cookies and the thought was to make World of Warcraft the theme. This was before the Valentine’s Day cookie debacle (of which there were no survivors). Since it turns out I can’t decorate a heart, I almost immediately had second thoughts about an army of edible Taurens and Night Elves. But R is a good friend and he needed something awesome. And something awesome is what he shall have.

It was time to make my creative side for a road test.

I knew what I wanted to do for the cake (more on that later), but I also wanted something supercool as a side decoration. To distract from the cake if necessary. Something the likes of which the world has never seen. Something like… an edible version of R’s World of Warcraft character.

Let’s take a sidetrip here for a second – R’s character is called a Tauren. It’s a little like a minotaur and looks something like this.

R’s specifically looks like this.

Don’t say I’m not ambitious.

Has anyone ever heard of gumpaste? It’s about twice as appetising as it sounds (which is admittedly not much) and if you’ve ever been to a wedding chances are at least part of the cake’s decorations were made of the stuff. It’s rather like edible modelling clay (parents take note!). You can dye it to whatever colour you like, although you’ll get carpal-tunnel trying to knead in a dark colour. And I don’t care how many times I’m told you can create a decent brown using other colours, invest in a bottle of the stuff. Much like having black on hand – this will save you heartbreak down the line. Gumpaste looks like this out of the package.

And then it looked like this.



It's alive. Alive!

Since it was midnight before I got the hang of this and nearly one before I finished I have no intermediary pictures. My bad. But this is what it looks like 75% done – 75% because next week I’m going to break out the food pens and and give him so minor details. Like eyes.

Gumpaste is a little tough to work with at first but becomes much easier as you knead and work with it. Almost too easy. The poor Tauren’s legs shortened quite a bit as I tried to stand him up to dry out. I think I’ll call you Stumpy.

He’s missing something though…
Got it, every Tauren worth his horns needs an axe.

And tell me that nose ring doesn't rock your socks.