But this?
This is a first.
Poor Jean/Sean."Ooo, sooorry, that is incorrect! We would have accepted '&', '+', or even the word 'and' written out. This, however, is so WTF crazy that the show key grips will now take you out back and shake you vigorously. Thanks for playing! Buh-bye, now!"
Emily W., your wreckporting skills > my expectations.
- Related Wreckage: Say What?
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Pity, 'cause the rainbow was nice
Maybe Alexandria is older than Jean, so she's celebrating a larger quantity of birthdays ...
I had to print this out and draw a pacman out of the "less than" sign to figure out which one was the bigger one. Stupid College Remedial Math!
WOW. That is one "lesser-than" good cake decorator!
Nanny, nanny, boo, boo! My kid's name is greater than yours!
::sticking out tongue::
WV -- sheemen -- It's the sheemen names that are honored! (I thought the first name was Sean.)
Let me guess, was this ordered online? Less than is shift-comma.
Would the book "Eats,Shoots and Leaves" helped this wreck?
Mocking
Maybe it was a comment on the length of the names?
Perhaps Alexandria really IS greater than S/Jean.
It's kind of mean to point that out on his/her birthday, though.
This is a wreck? A minor mishap perhaps, but a pretty cake otherwise and I am sure Sean &, +, < Alexandria didn't even notice.
Nice rainbow.
some people make their "and" symbols almost like a greek alpha. if you're going fast, i can see it resembling a <. on the other hand... dude, you're decorating a birthday cake! take your freakin' time.
this looks like the costco cakes! and I thought it was Sean so you've missed a joke somewhere - is it Jean or Sean?
I'll admit, form a distance, the cake didn't look that bad, albeit I can't read the (assumed) last name. Upon enlarging the picture, I work it that the cake is to a Sean (I used to do my capital 's' that way, just neater) but I have to ask what is used to make the clouds on the cake? Either they are deformed Mentos mints, or weird sea-life eggs, I am not sure. Either way, the cake is now off the menu of my mind.
Maybe Jean(/Sean) is a librarian? And the cake is just a gentle but firm reminder that her(/his) library is never going to be as good as the Library of... ...yea, I got nothin'.
i feel so sad for j/sean. it just doesn't seem right to be so judgmental ... and on a birthday cake at that!
sigh.
Awesome.
Perhaps "Jean<Alexandria" was supposed to be hyphenated, like "Anne-Marie" or "Mary-Kate". That is, ASSUMING that is "Jean" and not "Sean".
You're right, Jen -- this IS a first!
Maybe J(S)ean middle initial is L and they just couldn't quite get it to stand up straight (lazy L).
wv: trated - I think the cake decorator should be trated in for a new one.
< could be an arrow head, leading us to understand that there is a name and/or gender change going on here... "Alexandria" is becoming "Sean." Not necessarily a birthday celebrating an actual day of birth, so much as an announcement of the new you, but we know by now that there really is no occasion left that hasn't been spelled out for family and friends on a cake. Nothing new under the sun. Or the rainbow.
'Jean, Alexandria' wouldn't be much better, as some are suggesting as the real intention of the decorator. Unless the list continues on the back?
I have twins. the < child would be PISSED if we had a cake like this (and she understood what < meant)!
That is what happens when two competing moms have to share birthday party time, and one of them offers to order the cake.
Remember "I Love Lucy" when the Ricardos got Superman to come by? This stuff gets ugly, man.
"Less than" is bad enough, but the cake looks like it's covered in marshmallows... YUCK!
I just wanted to share a quick Cake Wrecks story that made my day yesterday.
I'm a college student supporting myself by working for a computer repair/retail company which can be a very stressful job. Yesterday, the cutest little elderly woman came in with a computer problem that was a very simple fix, but had her very upset.
In my attempt to calm her down and show her how simple it was and that she would be just fine, she mentioned that she wanted to get home so she could see the Sunday Sweets section of Cake Wrecks!
No less than 10 minutes later, we were laughing and exchanging our favorite wrecks and sweets while I sent her on her way with a fully-functional computer.
So, thanks for making my typically stressful job less stressful, Jen and John!
SkippyMom said This is a wreck? A minor mishap perhaps, but a pretty cake otherwise
If anything, I'd argue that this makes it even more of a wreck. It's like doing a perfect balance beam routine and then tripping over your own feet as you take a bow.
I'm pretty sure this is an example of a cake that comes to the store pre-decorated and someone in the bakery department writes on it. So as pretty as the cake is, the inscriber is probably not the one who decorated it.
Maybe...um...perhaps....no...I got nothin'...BUT, my word verification is 'oupst' which just about sums up the reaction to this cake..
Nothing like giving Sean/Jean an inferiority complex on his or her birthday!
And may I suggest to Taylor@MyOlderBrothers that he try the hungry alligator teeth next time (it takes up less space).
I don't mean to be to critical, but I was surprised to see your choice of abbreviation. I love your blog because it's hilarious and clean. I would rather see naked clown cupcakes than naughty word abbreviations. Just my opinion. I really do love the blog.
@Taylor@MyOlderBrothers-- we always drew a shark. :)
Uh... hmm... nope, I got nothing. I am well and truly stumped.
Maybe they meant <3 ?
If you enlarge the picture and check out the top right corner, you can see the order form with the instructions for personalization. It looks like the first name is supposed to be "Sean" but it is hard to make out what the symbol in between the names is supposed to be.
I had to look up hungry alligator teeth. http://www.selah.k12.wa.us/LE/MathScience/2009-11.pdf
We just did little end litle big end big back in the dark ages.
I support WTF as a minced oath no more scandalous than Gosh, Darn or @$*! It stands for What the Firetruck?
I do not support the less than sign as a substitute ampersand. I do think the customer filled out the form with a quickly-written α-like plus sign and the wreckerator didn't magically know what was intended.
Is it sad when I recognize that the cake is from Costco because I have bought the same one?
Looks like Jean is less than Abxandria to me.
Oh, the high-tech industry is in such shambles that programmers are becoming cake wreckerators these days?
In Unix, and IIRC old DOS as well, "<" means "from". E.g. "sort < scrambled.txt > sorted.txt" means "Sort the text from scrambled.txt and put the result in sorted.txt".
WV: resque - Some people think that "WTF" is too resque.
To Taylor@MyOlderBrothers:
I always remember because the bigger side is the...well, bigger side
Big>small = greater than, small<big = less than. If you see what I'm saying.
I think Jean/Sean & Alexandria broke up. And it's a cake celebrating the fact that Jean/Sean can expect a rainbow a day now that Alexandria is history.
Jean/Sean < Alexandria = reason to celebrate with rainbow goodness
The blog has officially changed my life. I spent time in a grocery store bakery today ordering a birthday cake for my beloved and beautiful granddaughter who will be ONE on Wednesday. Did I spend my time being creative? quizzing the cake decorating? Carefully explaining what I wanted?
No, there was a very unfortunate clown cupcake cake (I know CCC) and I spent my time wishing for my camera.
So, for good or ill, Cake Wrecks has changed my life.
I agree with ryglights that it looks like maybe it was supposed to be a hyphenated name, Jean-Alexandria.
I have always felt I was "more than" Jean. Or Sean.
Am I the only one to see that there is a blue ink-dot above the n in the second name, like the cake decorator started to spell it incorrectly and then removed it? Jenn, another missed opportunity for teasing!
@Spanky:
Huh? I think you just erased every useful thing my third grade teacher ever taught me with that explanation! lol
It's obvious that S/Jean and Alexandria are twins. And that Alexandria ordered the cake. Trust me, I'm the mother of twins...the sibling rivalry NEVER dies.
Wow, so I like this blog a lot less since I became a cake decorator at a big box store. At least when it's nit-picky things like this.
It looks like the person who took the order used the 'and' that looks like a plus sign with the left and bottom points connected, and the decorator did their best to interpret.
People want some weird stuff on their cakes, so the decorators follow the orders as closely as they can. You never know.
Also, in response to " ...on the other hand... dude, you're decorating a birthday cake! take your freakin' time."
Maybe 1 in 10 orders that we get *isn't* a birthday cake. When you have a huge pile of orders (anywhere from 1 to 50) to get through in 8 hours (amongst other things), you don't really have time to slow down.
I agree with Doubleryfamily in that WTF is inappropriate. I also was surprised at the clown porn since the rules for submission clearly state that obscene cakes are not allowed. It's one thing to have an anything goes policy, and it's another to have a rather strict policy in writing then push at that boundary like a middle school kid.
-- Vanessa
To those of you offended by the WTF,
When did Cake Wrecks become a children's site?
Okay folks, here's the deal. There will be sexual innuendo on cake wrecks. Occasionally, icing looks unintentionally naughty and we joke about it. You'll never see fondant ding dongs or anything else blatantly obscene but there will be suggestive cakes. Sorry.
And there will be the occasional strong language if you consider words like ass and abbreviations like WTF to be strong language. Again I am sorry.
We go to a lot of trouble to make sure the content we publish is safe for work and I seriously doubt that any child would ever see any of our cakes as anything but cake. We aim for a pg rating on all of our posts so plan accordingly.
Thanks,
john
Hilarious!
I agree with John, and I will go one further by saying that I think it's great that families can share a good laugh over CW *MOST OF THE TIME,* but maybe it would be wise to look at it first to make sure the day's content is something you wish to allow your children to see.
It's like not counting on a PG rating to cover everything that offends your senses, and so perhaps you should watch movies before allowing the kids to see them. It's much better than being angry afterward, and it's part of parenting.
Think of the days you'd rather not have the kiddos read Jen's blog (as in, 'the blog belonging to JEN') as being what we in the 1980s might have known as "a very special episode of" CW. Unless/even if you are paying them big money as a sponsor of the blog, it's not your time in the sun.
If it is you, as an adult, who are offended by this mild content, I recommend you look elsewhere for your amusement. The internet is a big place.
P.S. As an American public school teacher, I promise you that your kids already know what WTF stands for, whether you want them to or not. And they'd probably be able to explain even more than that, I'm sorry to report.
wv: sayarosp-- Ooh, I didn't say, "Simon says."
I'm imagining Drew Carey saying WTF as he hosts The Price is Right, and probably on a daily basis. Maybe not as they tape the games, but on commercial breaks? Definitely.
Tsk, tsk. I think Vanessa definitely has her knickers in a bunch. I also don't think John has anything to apologize for. It's icing, folks! Loosen up!
John:
What do the fondant ding dongs look like?
... On second thought, never mind.
The newest addition to the language of texting...
Oooooo, Jimmy is soooo > Bobby!!!!!
I suppose this could have been based on a note that said "Happy Birthday to Jean from Alexandria." But that would have probably been shorthanded as "Alexandria > Jean"...or something. And that seems like an awkward message to put on a cake, anyway.
*sigh*
At least they didn't divide by zero. The last thing we need is some wreckorator tearing a hole in the space-time continuum and opening a portal to a parallel dimension. It's not all badly spelled cakes and afternoon cups-of-tea in those places - I saw 'The Mist,' I know what goes down. I hope next time it's just a misplaced integral or a poorly drawn cosine graph.
Angry about the treatment of warped baked goods? Don't come cryin' to me, for one. Who-TF cares?! :P
You guys don't have anything to apologize for. Your blog is consistent, and you do good work. You just did a great charity drive (how soon they forget!) You seem like fun, interesting, and overall decent people. Sometimes clowns happen to play with tinkle toys. And the world just keeps turning, you know? It's not your fault that some people aren't ready to deal with it.
The sad thing is that I still, at 39, still can't remember which way is less than and which is greater than. Does the alligator eat the bigger or smaller number/person?
I always thought that WTF meant "where's the fudge?"
:)
Perhaps S(J)ean and Alexandria are both gamers who share the same birthday and S(J)ean just got pwn3d?
VW: hersor - the wreckerator's hersor wasn't working properly on their computer screen and they accidentally hit shift+comma on the order form.
Hmm, I believe that IS a Costco cake. I recognize the lil form stuck on the side. I suppose I got lucky the cake I ordered from them recently for my parents' anniversary was spelled correctly.
This Girl Scout leader says, yes, that's the Costco rainbow cake which serves 48 little girls for pennies each! And the more frosting the better so bring on the clouds that look like marshmallows!
Yeah ... Where's That Fruitcake, anyway?
Mrs. Malcolm: The alligator/dog/shark/Pacman is very greedy, so he always bites the bigger quantity, and his mouth is always open toward the bigger amount, while he turns his back on the smaller one.
And now Jason is destined to spend years in therapy for low self-esteem.
"Even my *birthday cake* said Alexandria was 'greater than' me!"
It looks like an out-of-work computer nerd took an 'odd job' as a cake decorator, and can't stop writing code :)
I'm thinking the decorator didn't want to do an ampersand or maybe their ampersands don't look so great, so he or she just did the < thinking it would look better. But come on, a plus sign would have been a lot better.
Looking at the label it appears the derator wrote exactly what was ordered. I'd blame this mess on the customer. Anyone can be stoopid.
I might be mistaken but this may be the an "and" symbol from formal logic. If so there's is the last laugh
It might be a cake for a guy named Sean who is transgendered and changed his name to Alexandria..maybe the < is someone's way of saying they accept the "new" Sean/Alexandria.
Clearly, Alexandria is the favorite child...
The use of < to mean 'from' is well-established. Therefore, the order for this cake came through a time tunnel from ancient Greece: "Happy Birthday Jean from Alexandria".
Or put another way, What does it all mean?!