Tuesday
Jan132009
Double Your Photos, Double Your "Fun"
January 13, 2009 Photo-cakes already enter the arena of good taste with a severe handicap, since they tend to look a bit funereal (I've had a "Funeral Wrecks" post on hold for months now, because so many of them ARE photo cakes - kid you not.), so it certainly doesn't help when the wreckerator goes and does something like this:
That's the SAME photo, used twice. I guess whoever ordered this gave the bakery two to choose from, so they chose...both. Aside from (hopefully) being blindfolded while arranging the photos, the wreckerator also misspelled Bubie and Birthday (if you consider failing to cross the 't' a misspelling, that is.) S/he also couldn't even outline the photos right, but I guess we can chalk that up to the blindfold.
Nice wreckporting, Z.
Reader Comments (67)
We can assume the spacing issue in the message is also attributable to the blindfold.
Maybe "Bulie" was decorating her own cake at the bakery??? Would explain the squiggly lines and misspelled words!
What do you think the odds are her name is really Julie?
Picture cakes: When you just can't bear to eat a sculpture of your loved one.
I hope I'll be happy enough to have an 85th birthday cake not to care if it's a little wrecked. So long as it's chocolate.
Poor Bubbie. We can only hope that at 85 her eyesight isn't what it used to be.
They also forgot to dot the i.
At 85, Bulie is probably blind anyway. Let's hope.
Wha? How could a decorator think the two photos ought to be there? And they aren't even placed in any sort of way that makes sense.
Somehow, the cake reminds me of a stamped letter.
Oh my. Poor Bubie.
Bear with me for a second here..I promise I have a point. About 18 years ago I had a very nice boyfriend who, most unfortunately, was not aesthetically pleasing. In fact, strictly superficially speaking of course, he was quite ugly. Now I'm not trying to compare my ex-boyfriend to that hideous cake (though he was very sweet indeed), I'm just saying that if somebody captured the expression on "Bolie's" face when she first saw the cake, that photo probably looks very similar to the photo I snapped of my father the second he first laid eyes on my boyfriend at the airport. Ouch!
UGLY!
Painful. These picture cakes never seem to work out. Also, the concept is so flawed. I mean, cakes are for eating, no?
~ Kathleen
Oh..no. But give them some credit. I mean what beautiful flourescent flowers. S/he must have thought that if the flowers were bright enough noone would notice the "T".
Word Verification
"COMETSAI"
The act of reviving from the sugar coma you were in while decorating this cake.
Where to begin...where to begin.
The atrocious outlining of the center photo. Oh my.
Poor Bulie!
Maybe she was a siamese twin.
now this is what my cakes looks like, flat with some stuff around the edges.
Actually, the double photo is a security feature. I have the same thing on my identification badge for work. It makes it more difficult for someone to arbitrarily paste a different photo into an existing name badge.
Clearly, "Bulie" works at an organization that uses cake for employee identification. (And at 85, too? I guess her 401(k) is doing as well as everyone else's.)
Kudos for this unsung decorator for clearly considering the security issues common to most photo cakes.
What kind of tree/plant has flowers of so many different colors like that? I also thought Bulie was misspelled Julie.
I'm hoping that splotch of orange on the front is just the shadow of the person taking the picture of this unfortunate cake...
(My word verification was "allized" - as if the decorator drank too much Alize before decorating this cake.)
Those aren't the best looking flowers I've ever seen either.
I suppose s/he never learned to dot your i's and cross your t's before sending this cake out.
My gawd...the floral work, handwriting, duplicate picture, overall design...I'm seriously at a loss here. ???
We had a photo cake at work, once -- granted, I work at Cornell university, and we were celebrating the anniversary of Spirit landing on Mars. It was decidedly less creepy to eat a Mars Rover cake than a person cake.
(Now I kind of want to see someone sculpt a Mars Rover out of cake.)
I'm looking at the cake a second time and see that Bulie could be having a "HaRRy" birthday and that in addition to being a sporadic t-crosser, the cake decorator is also a sporadic i-dotter (in birthday).
When I saw this it made me think of the photos that were mostly popular in the 70's and early 80's where you had a forward facing picture of the person (usually smiling) and a very serious profile shot mysteriously floating somewhere up in the upper corner.
I don't know why...maybe it seemed like a miserable failure at that general effect?
While photo cakes have their appropriate place (i.e. that much maligned Dr. Seuss cake we discussed) I don't think recreating cakey people are it necessarily.
I believe that the hideous nature of the florescent flowers is supposed to detract from the odd photos of poor Bulie. And for that matter maybe Bulie is really her name, she is quite old and they did use strange names back in the day.
As for your story Tantra...that would make a great photo cake for your Dad's next birthday. Doncha think?
The rainbow poo-blobs are a nice touch.
I always thought that "make sure we dot the Is and cross the Ts was just an overused, annoying cliche, but I take back my criticism of it...we obviously do need it.
Im praying that this was the bakeries practice cake...no? Oh my!
There's just something so wrong with eating a picture of someone, cake or otherwise!
Whatever happen to crossing your t's?
Wow there are so many things wrong I can't even count.
I ate a photo cake at my friends' party a few years ago and the photo tasted awful! The edible image was so thick and nasty I had to scrape it off so I could eat the rest of the cake. Those should be banned.
Ha! I love jayspec's security cake explanation.
I love that they cropped the picture to use it again. My guess is that they either lost the second picture and didn't want to fess up. Or maybe they thought it was a bad picture so used the one twice.
As for the uncrossed t's and dotted i's. Is this a case of the cashier gets the job of cake writing? Poor cashier is nearly done, someone shows up to pay for their cake, someone else comes in to order their cake, etc. By the time, they return to this cake, they completely forget that they weren't actually done with the lettering (crossing t, dotting i) and slip it into the box. I mean, its not like anyone's going to proofread the poor cake.
I've officially looked at every posts. I've been in giggle fits all day long! Thank you for the joy. I will definitely be on the look out for more disasters.
Oh and this cake is just tragic.
--Kelly B.
I am not a cake decorator by any means. But I can assure you that I'd've done a much better job than that. MUCH.
Oh, and your blindfold comment killed me. Yet it makes sense...
Yep, I officially love this site.
PS....I think it's just a little beyond WRONG to eat a photograph of your child. Cannibalism much?
I'm guessing her formal name is Buelah (or some variation) and they call her Bulie. That still doesn't cover all the other issues on the cake. I'm so glad I mostly rake all the frosting off bakery cakes before eating anyway.
hee hee hee... security feature! That's good. Almost as good as my word verification:
glogrods
Feel free to create your own sentence.
Bulie is probably short for Beulah, a popular name back in the day.
No excuses for the rest.
I also thought "Bulie" was Julie misspelled, but probably because my name is Julie. :) I saw "_ulie" and thought "Hey!" and then was a little confused.
But probably not as confused as Bubbie. I hope she had a nice birthday, anyway!
But, look as the lovely swirly thing on the H. They tried to add a little bit of flair.....
It is sort of trippy, having two of the same picture one one cake, but cropped differently and different sizes. The vine of sweet-peas (I'm guessing?) floating between the two only adds to the WuuuuuuEeeeeeeeeeeUhooo* quality. Maybe turning 85 is like entering an alternate dimension, so these sorts of cakes are comforting to Bubbies everywhere?
*Spaceship noise
howdoicooksquirrel.blogspot.com
jayspec, you are hilarious!
Definitely looks like the bottom of the cake was scorched.
Perhaps Bulie hated it as much as we do!
Starts off with a lovely little flourish on the "H," and it's all downhill from there.
Bulie, in her picture, looks as if she's had one nip too many and is about to topple off her bar stool.
Other than that, it's a...disaster.
(I know, Dad- you always say, "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all," but LOOK at this thing!)
That shade of green for decorating gunk should be recalled and destroyed; it's just hideous. And the flowers...the flowers. ((SIGH)) Those wobbly borders...the double photo...
I just don't get it; maybe the cake-maker is also in his/her late 80's (or greater) and has a few issues with, maybe, vision...hand shakiness...
TASTE?
Oh, I don't know--I really like the flowers all being different colors. It's so....tasteful and looks so well thought-out. (snerk)
Maybe the photo in the corner was for the dear lady to take home to remember this fine cake. A miniature of the actual cake. Maybe? Just a thought. Not that I would want one to take home. It is kinda gross to think about eating myself.
Can we PLEASE have the funeral wrecks post? Plz?
Maybe...since they weren't sure of the spelling, the photos made sure poor Bubie/Bulie would know the cake was really for her.
WV: toodys...one more than onedys
WV: undhu...
Wreckorator should find a coworker to undhu the parts gone wrong before asking money for this cake.
Better yet, Wreckorator's boss should undhu said Wrecker's offer of employment in the bakery department.
Even worse yet -- what is up with the Diaper Cakes ad on the post?