a fantastic name

A 19-year old British man has officially changed his name to “Captain Fantastic Faster Than Superman Spiderman Batman Wolverine The Hulk And The Flash Combined”.  His previous name was George Garratt.  He changed his name by deed poll, paying the required fee, so it’s now his real legal name.

That’s kinda cool, although I think I would choose something even better.  His name doesn’t really make sense.  I mean, it’s neat to use superhero names (although the potential for a huge lawsuit just increased), but I think he could’ve come up with something better.

BTW, his grandmother is no longer talking to him.  I reckon the elders would get upset when you refuse to carry on the family name.  I suppose that’s the price you have to pay to be weird / dorky / cool-to-a-few-people.  🙂

While reading up on this, I read of a girl born in Texas in 1984 who has the name of Rhoshandiatellyneshiaunneveshenk Koyaanisquatsiuth Williams.  Yes, that is her actual name.  I wonder how old she was before she could spell it or even pronounce it!

If you were going to change your name, what would you choose?

What happened to the ACORN investigation?

Remember the investigations about the ACORN group during the 2008 Presidential election?  Supposedly they were coercing people to vote for Obama instead of being non-partisan like they’re supposed to be.  And supposedly they were registering people to vote multiple times and also registering people who were already dead.  I haven’t heard anything about this investigation since Obama won the election.  I wonder why…

BTW, I heard that ACORN stands for “Association for Continual Obama Registration Now”.  That sounds about right…

the ultimate birthday cake

A lot of people are making birthday cakes with video game themes these days, but this one I’m about to show you really takes the cake.  (That was a really bad pun, wasn’t it?  Nonetheless, I refuse to apologize because some of you deserve it.   You know who you are.)   The design of this cake comes from the Nintendo Wii game Super Mario Galaxy (which is one of the best games ever, in case you didn’t know).  Not only is it cake, but it’s also animated.  There’s cake and Rice Krispy treats, but also electrical wiring, motors, MP3 players, a wooden frame, fiber optic lights, and so forth.  (Obviously it’s not all edible, at least for normal people.)

For starters, here’s a picture of it:

super-mario-galaxy-cake

But that picture is not a good representation of it.  At the creators’ homepage, you can see a lot more pictures of it, up close and from different angles.  (Just scroll past the text, unless you’re interested in that.)  But they also have a video of the cake in motion, as well as a few behind-the-scenes shots.  For your convenience, here’s the video:

I read the FAQ by the cake’s creators, and they’re not professional cake-makers.   In fact, they make just 2 cakes a year, or 3 if they volunteer one for a friend.  In the FAQ, someone asked them why they don’t start a cake business, because someone would pay a lot of money for that.  The creators said they don’t want to make it a business, though if someone offered them “a lot of money” they would build them a cake.  However, no one has ever offered them money for it.

The same people have made numerous cakes, with themes like Elmo, Halo, Wheel of Fortune, and so on.  That’s a lot of work for a birthday cake that gets destroyed rather quickly.   But, then again, there are sites that are talking about it (such as this one), so they are getting some publicity.  Maybe they feel famous.

I think it’s pretty safe to say I never got a birthday cake like that… but that’s okay, because I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and people like me.   I don’t need any fancy cake to tell me I’m special.

caption contest, Santa and Stormtroopers

It’s a Monday, and it’s December now, so how about a Christmas-themed caption contest?  It sounds like a plan to me.   It works like always (if you aren’t familiar with them, I’ll explain).   I’ll post a picture, and you write a caption to go with it.   The caption can be dialogue from the people in the picture or analysis or commentary or just something funny to go with it.   Since a picture is worth a thousand words, there’s a lot of potential.  🙂

For this week’s picture, here’s Santa Claus being escorted down an escalator by Imperial Stormtroopers.  I have no idea what’s going on there, so perhaps we can figure something out.

santa-imperial-troopers

(To see the other caption contests, click on the “Say What?” category in the sidebar.)