One of the most offensively funny birthday cakes ever. Hmm...

Okay. Just hear me out. It was my friend Adam's brithday party today. He's a volunteer paramedic / 5th year medical student / diabetic / actor / kung fu champion / world debate champion / funny guy / Jew. We couldn't just get him a normal birthday cake. So his brother (Daniel, whom you read about a few posts ago) and I decided to do what we always do when we get together, think of the weirdest shit possible and decided to base the cake on Adam's actual birth.

Here's what we did:

We bought a lovely red velvet cake from Wolves.  

  

We then took a cupie doll and placed it in a pot.

 

We sterilized the doll. You'll see why later.

We then began to sculpt a certain female body part belonging to Adam and Daniel's mother out of the middle of the cake. The red colouring really helped with the reveal.

Next we had to recreate the inner lining of the "opening" by covering some of the delicious icing with the innerds from the cake, ensuring we were as close to the real thing as possible, from a confectionary point of view of course.

We then ripped off the cupie doll's legs, placed it in the "cavity" based on a photo of the birth we had in our heads and voila!

The recreated birth of Adam Hirschmann in cake form.

The craziest part of it all is that people couldn't get enough of this cake. There was barely any left. Even the birthday boy scoffed a few slices down and he's a diabetic! I can't imagine what his mother probably thought given the symbolism involved but I imagine she was either very flattered or extremely embarrasssed, in which case I'll never be allowed in their home again.  

So, thank you to Adam and Daniel's parents, Hillary and Jacob, and to the rest of the Hirschmann clan for being so understanding and thank you to our lovely audience of drunk med students, doctors, finance okes, security dudes and of course, to the two guys who introduced themselves as, and I swear I'm not making this shit up, "Glock" and "Guns." It was a great party!

Book the rainbow. Read the rainbow. Hmm...

Good for a laugh and a daydream about one day selling a client on ideas like theirs. Download the PDF here:
Skittles Brand Book

Self-publish your book on the iPad Bookstore. Hmm...

For all you wanna-be published authors out there, Apple just opened a new portal for independent authors to self-publish their books for the iBooks Store open to iPad (and soon iPhone) customers. Apple’s iTunes Connect program has a section where authors can self-publish their work under certain formatting requirements, of course.

The Hirschmann returns. Hmm...

My very good friend, Daniel Hirschmann (that's him eating cake yesterday), is back in SA for a few weeks. Besides hanging with his family and friends, he's here primarily to run an open-to-the-public workshop at Wits on what he calls "Media Arts." I call it, "How to create flippen awesome interactive art installations that make otherwise intelligent people feel really, really stupid."

And I plan on feeling stupid Tuesday night at around 6:30PM if anyone wants to join me.

Here's a little more info for you from The Mail & Guardian about the workshop: 

DANIEL HIRSCHMAN PRESENTS OPEN WORKSHOP AT SCHOOL OF ART

Wits School of the Art alumni Daniel Hirschmann will be giving an open to
the public workshop on the use of physical computing for artists and
designers at the Digital Arts Division of the WSOA. Hirschmann now living in
London, graduate from the New York University's Interactive
Telecommunications Masters Program after graduating with a BA from the Wits
School of Art. After his time at NYU, Hirschmann was selected to do a
residency at Beneton's Fabrica creativity institute. In London he is an
independent developer and artist; after working for some years with the
Jason Bruges Studio, where he designed and developed large public
interactive installations and environments. Hirschmann is a well know and
celebrated digital artist who continually contributes to the development of
the South African interactive digital arts scene. Hirschmann visits the
Digital Arts Division at least once a year giving workshops to students in
the interactive digital art masters program. This year's workshop is open to
professional developers, artists, designers and musicians.

The title of the workshop is Making the World Responsive with Arduino:
Physical Computing for Artists and Designers. The workshop will run over a
period of three days, starting with a lecture on the evening of Tuesday, 1
June 2010 and will run into a two-day weekend workshop on 5 and 6 June 2010.
For details please contact  tegan.bristow@wits.ac.za

Hmm... of the day

Trying to blend in is just plain stupid.