USB cake design worst birthday surprise in history

Imagine this -- you walk into a custom confectionery and inform the design team that you want the image on a USB flash drive made onto a very special cake. In fact, you even leave the flash drive with them so they can really look it over. Sure, you'd think they would get to frost-brushing that unicorn flying through a rainbow right onto the cake, but apparently the artists in question had other ideas. Namely, creating a photo-perfect replica of a Lexar flash drive on the surface of what appears to be an otherwise delicious pile of sugar. Seriously. Too bad about that black icing, birthday boy.

[Via UberReview]

[zargon @ Feb 3rd 2009 7:08AM]

The rendition of the flash drive is not even good, in fact from this picture, it looks pretty bad. I would hate to see what they would have done with the real image.

[Julio @ Feb 3rd 2009 7:19AM]

What are you a professional baker? I think it's pretty good.

[zargon @ Feb 3rd 2009 7:32AM]

No, I am not a professional baker, but that does not change the fact the decoration is not good. Just look at the outside black ring, it is really bad. The black piping also leaves a lot to be desired.

It is not something I would expect a professional baker to produce and I would not pay full price for that decoration job.

[freshyill @ Feb 3rd 2009 7:36AM]

The real cake would have been printed with edible inks, not made out of frosting, so it would have looked just fine, smart guy.

[zargon @ Feb 3rd 2009 7:38AM]

Unless they airbrushed it... smart guy...

[Julio @ Feb 3rd 2009 7:44AM]

I prefer the pure sugary goodness of tons of icing than some form of edible ink, smart guys.

[matt @ Feb 3rd 2009 7:53AM]

I just figured if I replied up here, I could be a smart guy too...

[SOOPERGOOMAN @ Feb 3rd 2009 10:49AM]

He should have contacted "Butter Creme Babies", they're professional cake makers and friends of mine. do the old Google thing on their name, you will see some of THE BEST CAKES EVER. I'm getting them to help me with the next Engadget Birthday Giveaway. I will WIN FOR SURE, unfortunately these guys with their square, unoriginal cake making, Ultimately FAIL!

[giuliop @ Feb 3rd 2009 7:22AM]

Looks like a coffin to me.

[strider_mt2k @ Feb 3rd 2009 7:22AM]

Either way, we're going to need some coffee here!

[BdgBill @ Feb 3rd 2009 7:26AM]

Hillarious!

I wonder if there has ever been another time in history when there were such big differences in peoples knoledge of current technology. I can imagine people in 1911 sitting in a car for the first time yelling "giddyap" at the invisible horses.

[Matt @ Feb 3rd 2009 9:19AM]

Sadly I was having a conversation with someone over the weekend about people's grandparents learning to drive. Tractors, specifically. One drove through a fence when the tractor didn't respond to "whoa!"

[Soop @ Feb 3rd 2009 7:35AM]

Where are the images Engadget?

[Itchy Pajamas @ Feb 3rd 2009 7:36AM]

Mmm... frosting!

What was that about a USB drive?

[adml_shake @ Feb 3rd 2009 7:46AM]

Who cares, free cake!

[Julio @ Feb 3rd 2009 7:47AM]

Reminds me of this story:
I had been doing Tech Support for Hewlett-Packard's DeskJet division for about a month when I had a customer call with a problem I just couldn't solve. She could not print yellow. All the other colors would print fine, which truly baffled me because the only true colors are cyan, magenta, and yellow.

For instance, green is a combination of cyan and yellow, but green printed fine. Every color of the rainbow printed fine except for yellow. I had the customer change ink cartridges. I had the customer delete and reinstall the drivers. Nothing worked. I asked my coworkers for help; they offered no new ideas.

After over two hours of troubleshooting, I was about to tell the customer to send the printer in to us for repair when she asked quietly, "Should I try printing on a piece of white paper instead of this yellow paper?"

[Alex Gill @ Feb 3rd 2009 8:12AM]

Your story reminded me of another one.
A few years ago I was working for an ISP tech support. One time I get a call from this kid about some problem. Standard procedure - before inquiring about the problem I ask him to close all the windows on his computer. Some strange noises followed. After a few seconds I hear this kid being slightly out of breath and asking me: "Sir? Should I close the doors also?"

[Technex @ Feb 3rd 2009 8:17AM]

ROFL! Some people...

[wrabbit @ Feb 3rd 2009 9:57AM]

The kid closing all the windows in the house is pure gold! ROFLMAO

[pAT @ Feb 3rd 2009 12:29PM]

I love both the yellow-printer story and the "close all windows" story and I feel your pain.

I used to work for a web company that provided tech. support to a brick&mortar dating service with a website for viewing profiles. Most of the users were either serious Luddites or had bought and used a PC for the very first time just in the hopes of meeting that special someone.

One day I took a call from a guy of indeterminate age who was clearly illiterate, using AOL, didn't know anything about computers and couldn't access the site. I was attempting to re-direct him to a back-door URL we were using on a proxy server. I had to slo-o-o-o-wly spell out the URL while he hunted and pecked for each and every letter, averaging about one letter per every 30 seconds. I had to re-spell "H-T-T-P" 5 times alone! The topper for me was having to explain what a colon was and waiting for a couple of minutes while he tried finding it on his keyboard. It took somewhere around 15 minutes to get the guy to type in a single URL. My co-workers listening in enjoyed every minute of it.

[tristank @ Feb 5th 2009 6:40PM]

Reminds me of a story from a friend of mine who was running a computer course for first time computer users.

One of the ladies had placed the mouse on the floor and trying to make the computer "go" by pressing it with her foot.

The most technical piece of equipment she had ever used was a sewing machine.

[Lionbacker steamID: detfan1957 @ Feb 3rd 2009 7:55AM]

This was a really hard article to read. I had to go to the source link to understand at all what was going on.

[eiki @ Feb 3rd 2009 10:47AM]

yea, a chimp wrote it, seems like!

[quandmeme @ Feb 3rd 2009 3:54PM]

Thanks for the heads up. After reading the link, it makes sense. I guess, sometimes, in an effort not to plagiarize, a writer substitutes words that are all synonyms, but the sentence comes out with less meaning.

[Julio @ Feb 3rd 2009 7:57AM]

THE CAKE IS A LIE!
THE CAKE IS A LIE!
THE CAKE IS A LIE!
THE CAKE IS A LIE!
THE CAKE IS A LIE!
Well, more of a misunderstanding, actually.

[Shinigami @ Feb 3rd 2009 8:06AM]

THE FLASH IS A LIE, its a cake actually :)

[Badger @ Feb 3rd 2009 10:42AM]

Actually, I *wish* this cake was a lie.

[liin @ Feb 3rd 2009 7:59AM]

Lazy arse, should have just print out the design.

It's not like the baker has an automated production set up that'll take a digital file and have an robotic arm do the deco.

[Othello @ Feb 3rd 2009 8:28AM]

Well, it's not a robotic arm, it's a printer.

[WL @ Feb 3rd 2009 8:02AM]

Not a smart move, why not just print out the image and take it to the confectionery? Its not like they where getting copies at Knikos

[Othello @ Feb 3rd 2009 8:29AM]

Because they use a printer to put the image on the cake when it's from an image.

[MarkG @ Feb 3rd 2009 8:03AM]

Cake wrecks is one of the funniest sites I've ever seen.

xD

[Shinigami @ Feb 3rd 2009 8:05AM]

Now we only need a cake PC to plug this into.

[Julio @ Feb 3rd 2009 8:11AM]

Or a big USB hub cake might work too.

[LJKelley @ Feb 3rd 2009 8:12AM]

Can you imagine the size of the PC if this USB Stick was going into it?

[Julio @ Feb 3rd 2009 8:16AM]

That's what she said!

[Homeboy @ Feb 3rd 2009 8:23AM]

Well deserved. That's one ugly ass USB drive.

[ryandurham @ Feb 3rd 2009 8:26AM]

The cake is a lie!

[Julio @ Feb 3rd 2009 8:28AM]

Please take a look up a few comments, beat you to it!

[superfresh @ Feb 3rd 2009 8:34AM]

The fail here is the tool who thought he could stroll into a grocery store bakery and walk out with edible art. C'mon people, these guys decorate cakes in a grocery store for cryin' out loud, they're not artisans. The douchebag took a flash drive to the grocery store baker..not even the baker, the icing spreader who gets no formal training other than their high school English class and a quick tutorial on how to squeeze icing. In that regard, the cake in the image above is so fantastically rendered that the guy should have paid double.

[Nelson @ Feb 3rd 2009 9:17AM]

OK... I'll give you that one.

How do you explain this one?

http://failblog.org/2008/06/19/pastry-design-fail/

I'm beginning to question the whole cake decorating community...

[Julio @ Feb 3rd 2009 8:43AM]

I agree, it's like taking your date to McDonald's expecting a gourmet dining experience.

[netposer @ Feb 3rd 2009 8:53AM]

That's not a Flash Drive. It's a media card reader.

[AMiSH PiRATE @ Feb 3rd 2009 10:33AM]

that's not a bakery, it's a failure station!

[deck2 @ Feb 3rd 2009 9:30AM]

ha ha, is it bad because its not apple logo baked? :))))))

[Savocado @ Feb 3rd 2009 9:39AM]

1. Old news is old.
2. Huge USB is huge.

[xdurus @ Feb 3rd 2009 9:36AM]

I think everyone has missed the point.The customer wanted the image on the drive/reader put on the cake, NOT a picture of the drive/reader itself.

[xdurus @ Feb 3rd 2009 9:48AM]

I should say an Image IN the drive/reader put on the cake.not a picture of the drive/reader itself

[rov947 @ Feb 3rd 2009 9:37AM]

I mean I had a Mario cake when i was 8 but come on a thumb drive cake? On second thought, that is a lot of extra delicious icing.

[rov947 @ Feb 3rd 2009 9:38AM]

Teaches me for skimming through the articles.