Spontaneously Appearing Cake: A Poll
Posted on June 23, 2010 Posted by John Scalzi 75 Comments
Went out yesterday to pick up the new chaise lounge for the office, and when I returned cake had spontaneously appeared at my door. How did it happen? You tell me!
The one alternate explanation is that my friend and neighbor Alisha sent it over in appreciation for getting Adam Savage’s autograph for her at w00tstock earlier in the month. But seriously, what’s the likelihood of that? Right, exactly. I’m voting for cake fairies!
it has to be fairies….. but the coke-zero is a might big for them to haul around so i assume that it was already there…. Hoping Athena feel better soon …try some hot tea for the ear ache and of course have some cake to make her feel better… hehe
Hey John did you feel an Earthquake in Ohio??
Had to evacuate the building here at work it’s the most disconcerning thing I’ve ever felt!! Felt it here in Kitchener Ontario.
The coke zero had nothing to do with the cake fairies. John actually built his house out of Coke Zero in its various forms, so that he’d never be more than a wall away from amazing zero calorie refreshment.
“The cake is a lie.”
I once got an unwrapped chocolate doughnut in my mailbox, but it was unglazed. I polled my friends on what I should do with it, but in the end, it was left on a piece of paper where it slowly grew a lake of grease, then went stale.
You got a much better bargain, and I bet you won’t give it a chance to go stale.
This is not the cake you’re looking for.
I assume it’s only a matter of time before someone links the “Found Cake” comic, so here I am to oblige.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2005/7/29/
Cake isn’t naturally occurring.
So that’s where my cake got to. I’ll thank you to go ahead and express-ship that to my address, which I will e-mail you later. We appreciate you’re cooperation, and apologize for any inconvenience, or cake-related withdrawl symptoms this may cause you.
Probably an obscure effect of writing “chaise lounge” instead of “chaise longue”.
“Cake isn’t naturally occurring.”
Bite your tongue. Cake is everywhere and arises whenever the circumstances are right.
You post a poll and then tell us your vote outright? Way to skew the results toward cake fairies. Sure, Occam’s Razor leads us that way anyway, but still…
The cake is definitely a lie.
That’s not a cake, that’s the ambassador from Wazenazz XIII. John’s been selected to be our point of first contact with the Galactic Union, no doubt because of his carefully reasoned political views, his above-average intelligence, and his healthy dietary practices. Fate help us if the Ambassador should be mistaken for a tasty but unhealthy treat and be eaten by a human too ravenous to know the difference.
Penny@2: US Geologic Survey data on that quake:
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsus/Quakes/us2010xwa7.php
About 33 miles from Ottawa, magnitude 5.5. We didn’t feel it in Rochester but that’s not unusual; this city is built on springs it seems.
John, John, John. It’s not the cake universe, it’s the Cake Plane. That cake could have gated over from the legend-and I hope you’re not lactose intolerant because the second half of that word is DAIRY Cake Plane. The only way to destroy an outsider from the tasty Cake Plane is to consume it in its entirety. The cake is especially susceptible to milk, which will do an additional +1d6 in damage to the creature with every bite attack.
Or the cake could be a lie. Either one.
If Bradford is NOT the Nexus of the multidimensional gateway to the Cake Universe, I think Adam Savage deserves at least half of that cake.
Just saying.
Dave H, the only way Wazenazz XIII could have gotten it MORE wrong is if he’d sent a bacon ambassador instead.
10,000 people simultaneously said “Wop!”
and a cake appeared on my doorstep,
a sofa skipped merrily through the fields,
and a potted plant reentering the atmosphere said
“not again”.
The infinite improbability drive is on the fritz again.
It could be one of those acts of random cakeness.
Perhaps the GFC didn’t ‘wildly misinterpret’ Her desires. If, on first bite, you discover that the cake is made up of tuna with liver frosting, you will know that Her minions got it right.
Did this cake taste like socialism? If so, it was probably ObamaCake. Socialicious!
How do you attract the cake fairies?
So I can summon them??
Lauretta, preparing a summoning circle of red icing
That is not a cake as you humans normally perceive it. It is built from Twinkies covered in chocolate frosting, and EVERYONE knows that Twinkies are a type of sea sponge that is (almost) edible. You can make a Twinkies cake, however, without using Twinkies:
http://www.livestrong.com/recipes/twinkie-cake/
But if you want to know what goes into real (?) Twinkies:
http://www.lostateminor.com/category/food/
Not sure what to say about the fake grass on your doorstep.
That cake is one scary cake and it’s orgins should be closely inspected as it may be linked to a more significant event!!
Which is why I voted that we should RUN because of those darn Ninjas!!
Don’t want to make assumptions, but given the background material… could that be a Coca-Cola Cake? I suspect not, or at least not made with Coke Zero if so, but I’m suddenly very jealous.
It might have been something that gated in from the 1974 AMC Gremlin Universe, but passed through an Improbability Filter on the way. In which case, man, are you lucky.
N.K. Jemisin:
It is in fact a Coca-Cola cake, made with Coke Zero.
“It is in fact a Coca-Cola cake, made with Coke Zero.”
Those sadistic, tricksy cake fairies! They’ve clearly fallen under the sway of the Artificial Sweetener-Plum Fairy.
Lucky it wasn’t raining, and that it was chocolate!
Does one add sugar to a Coke Zero cake, or does the space-age synthetic sweetener survive the baking process without breaking down into formaldehyde or xylene?
Nickp@30
The answer should be obvious: it’s sweetened by fairy magic.
Said cake is obviously the last surviving member of planet Cokecake, which was wiped out by invading Chocolodites, and has come seeking refuge on Earth. Sadly, it would have found safer refuge in a diabetic commune…
Man, I want cake fairies in my yard. Instead, I just get Japanese Beetles.
Because you opted for cake rather than death, of course.
I was hoping that Athena was feeling better and made you a Coke Cake to celebrate.
I’d be concerned that it was left by Captain Hook, filled with green poison, and therefore much too damp and rich for you.
You get cake fairies, I get dishwasher gnomes. This is so not right.
(Even if the gnomes did mysteriously install my dishwasher yesterday while I was at work.)
Hmm.
So the SFWA President voted for the Cake Fairies.
Interesting…
“Because the night before he looked in the mirror and said the words “Tasty Cake!” three times”
Does that work? I’m going to try it tonight. Although I’m sure any cake that would appear at my door would be a lie.
Mention of “Tasty Cake!” will cause certain east coast readers like me, who grew up with the Philadelphia-produced Tastykake line of little cakes and pies sold at groceries and convenience stores, to immediately wax nostalgic. Unfortunately they’re way too expensive these days, i.e., a package of three cupcakes that cost 12 cents in 1967 costs 10 times that much today. (Moreover, an argument could be made that Tastykake lost its mojo when it changed the product name Tandy Takes to the anodyne “Kandy Kakes,” but that’s another story; see yummy recipe at http://www.cookingwithjoey.com/2008/04/tandy-takes.html.)
Cake Fairies at your house.
Brownie Brownies at mine.
There is a mysterious pan of double chocolate brownies with chocolate frosting at my house.
The mysterious part is that the pan has lasted more than 3 days now.
Course, I’ve been at work most of the last three days, but I’m sure that has nothing to do with it…
Ah, Perry the Platypus, you’re just in time to witness the first use of my dastardly Cake-inator…inator. It will baffle the entire tri-state area when everyone finds…What? Oh for crying out loud. I had it set on OHIO? Why would…I mean that’s just pointless.
This is clearly due to a government bureaucratic error. That cake was supposed to go to some deserving poor person who was out of bread.
doofenschmirtz evil incorporated
I might guess that Wil Wheaton had a red velvet cake delivered to your door with a mysterious, disturbing note.
@14 Actually, the cake is dairy-free, because I made a double-batch and have a dairy allergic child. And I vote for cake fairy!
Coke cake, it’s what’s next in fungible commodities investments!
GlaDOS followed through after John’s repeated and mysterious sabbaticals. Left unsaid is how a portal gun is sitting in a miscellaneous box I’ll tech toys awaiting review on the blog.
I wonder whether there’s some kind of ‘hell dimension’ which is like our own but without cake.
That’s not a cake, it’s a very, very confused Pie.
Please don’t tell me someone left the cake out in the rain. I don’t think that I can take it, ’cause it took so long to bake it, (someone, help me!) and I’ll never have that recipe again… (help!)
Oh, noooooooooooo!
#40: Tastykakes are real?!? I thought Janet Evanovich made them up so as not to use a real brand name. That’s hilarious.
Cake or death? obviously you have chosen cake.
Hey, the Peanut Butter Cookie Fairy visited my house this evening! w00–I say, I say–w00t!
It’s the pastry singularity! Cake is now spontaneously created from the elements freely available around us.
I, for one, welcome our new tasty overlords.
Things randomly appearing on your doorstep? Two words; Velvet Wesley.
Spontaneous Cake is going in the band name file.
Question: Where do I sign up to become a baking ninja?
Cake. A good thing always. Surely though, ‘Chaise Longue’.
I have a question or three for any of the almost 20% that picked…..
“OH MY GOD THE NINJA BAKERS HAVE FOUND US RUN”
Run?
From ninja bakers?
Are you ill?
Ninja bakers are the BEST!!!!
Don’t run from the ninja bakers, you’ll only eat tired….
Clearly the cake is a cry for help, a physical manifestation of the displaced U in the “lounge/longue” debate. Please stop your fighting; think of the U.
So my choices are “or death”?
“Tasty Cake” has an entirely different meaning on the East Coast. Saying that 3 times will normally get you a Twinkie.
http://www.tastykake.com/
Doh! make that a Krimpet. Twinkie is Hostess.
Don’t be fooled!
This is really just a new type of advertising, purchased from John Scalzi by Valve to get people excited about Portal 2. This is a a type of subliminal marketing, which is illegal.
So not only is the cake a lie, its illegal!
Illicit cake is the sweetest kind…
THE CAKE IS A LIE. always. Jonathan Coulton has damn near ruined cake for me. When we were at our cake tasting for our upcoming nuptuals, I kept wanting to shout the important 5 words, but thought better of it.
@67 “Illicit Cake” is an even better band name that “Spontaneously-Appearing Cake.”
If you try to make it more succinct than that though, you risk entering copyright infringement territory.
It’s obviously a gift from the blind cakemaker.
The cake IS a lie. Someone has been playing “Portal”?
“The experiment is nearing its conclusion. The Enrichment Center is required to remind you that you will be baked, and then there will be cake.”
Just another example that we live in a Steady Cake Universe…….
Mmmmm… Illicit cake….. GLAAAGGGHHHHH…*drool*
As always, the solution can be found in Quantum Mechanics. Cake/anti-cake pairs are constantly forming in the universe, mathematically created out of the quantum cake-batter foam. Within milliseconds, though they recombine and annihilate each other.
Obviously, a small black hole briefly formed on your doorstep and swallowed the anti-cake, allowing the cake to continue existing. This happens more often than you might expect.
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