JAWS cupcake

Seeing as we're on the topic of sharks... here is a shark swimming in a cupcake. The cupcake is orange-flavoured but the fin is inedible.

This cupcake was baked and decorated for the 2009 RSPCA Cupcake Day.

Scribblenauts

For main course today: a study of which animals defeat which in the Nintendo DS game "Scribblenauts", and whether this is at all an accurate reflection of reality.

So for those of you unfamiliar with this exciting game, Scribblenauts features challenges in which you type in any noun, to obtain items, which solve puzzles. For example, if the puzzle involves an unhappy classroom teacher, you might obtain an apple, by simply typing in the word "apple". If the apple makes the teacher happy, you win that particular puzzle. Most puzzles are of a higher level of complexity however, for example, retrieving a sunken bus from the bottom of a lake, or transporting a beached whale back into the ocean.

(As a spoiler: for this last puzzle involving the beached whale, I climbed atop the whale, armed myself with a "jet pack", held on to a "lemon", and simply flew the whale back into the ocean, holding said whale between my thighs.)

However, the true fun in this game involves not working through challenges in the conventional manner, rather, much enjoyment can be had in the menu screen before the game even starts! I'll show you what I mean.

Type in "bear", then type in "hyena". The bear and hyena will fight, the bear will triumph, the hyena will collapse and disappear in a puff of smoke, and if you're not quick to get rid of the bear, the bear will kill you too.

Type in "bear", then type in "bear" again. Whichever bear appears first vanquishes the other bear.

Type in "bear" then type in "shark". Bears and sharks are equally matched, with the results of 4 fights ending in 2-all. Despite the fact that the battle takes place on land. This should clue you in to the fact that Scribblenauts doesn't always accurately reflect real-life situations. (If the whole holding-a-whale-between-your-thighs thing didn't already give away the game.)

Other results (thanks to my sexy research assistant David who used his DS to simulate these matches):

• Lion v Leopard = Leopard wins
• Lion v Bear = Bear wins
• Tiger v Leopard = Tiger wins
• Bear v Medusa = a very long, drawn-out battle, involving the Medusa repeatedly turning the bear into stone, before the bear managed to delivered the killing blow between attacks. Bear wins.
• Medusa v Mermaid = Medusa wins. Mermaids are generally non-combative creatures. However, if this were a competition on how to appear most attractive to a man, I'm sure Mermaid would have won, hands down.
• Mermaid v Shark = Shark wins, but needed a little persuading to start fighting in the first place. Perhaps the shark and mermaid just wanted to be friends.

This is one of two ways Scribblenauts is entertaining even before the game begins!

The other way, of course, is to do what you'd do in any other good video game: arm yourself with the most lethal weapon you can think of, and fire away!

Entree: a musing on Left and Right

Is it just me, or do other people have difficulty distinguishing left from right, without having to contemplate it for a moment? It's especially embarrassing if you're a piano teacher, and constantly call out your primary-school aged students for mixing up their right hand and left hand, while you yourself can't navigate a driver to save your life (and you often navigate drivers in a way which endanger both your lives...)

"Turn right at the roundabou- I MEAN LEFT!!"

*cue sharp swerve, the car briefly mounting a traffic island, annoyed horns beeping, and an irritated driver*

To circumnavigate this issue (excuse the pun) I use the terms "first-", "second-" and "third exit" when approaching a roundabout. It's a game I have called "pretending to be a GPS". (Which brings me to a job I briefly considered in my long-lost youth... being the voice of a GPS. This falls under the general umbrella category of 'wanting to be a voice actor', which was the result of discovering enjoyment in acting but realising I didn't have the face for TV).

Recently, in a bid to reduce the number of words uttered during a car trip (as I'm a woman of few words), I've taken to tapping the passenger-seat window to signify left, and waving my hand in the driver's face to signify right. Few drivers are patient enough to tolerate this form of navigation, but my spatial ineptitude is of the magnitude that it should really be considered a disability!

I know that my left hand makes an L shape, and my 'right' hand is the hand I 'write' with (being right-handed), but these don't serve to help my situation at all. I don't want to have to think about distinguishing left from right. I don't have to think about distinguishing up from down, so why can't this cavalier attitude to longitude also apply to latitude?

Although come to think of it, I often have trouble distinguishing male from female... hot from cold (temperature wise, I never seem to wear appropriate clothes)... nice man from molester-of-women... you get the idea. So perhaps I'm just perceptually challenged.

Always leave room for dessert!

So, no picture of Christmas pudding - I thought it would be intolerably cliche.

Instead, feast your eyes (and stomachs, if you're so lucky) on syllabub. I had the wonderful idea of making my own syllabub one day, before discovering that it required milking a cow into an already-prepared glass of fruit.

On social networking

For me, Facebook is a tool to temporarily assuage ennui. Depending on how interesting my Facebook 'friends' have been since the last time I logged in, I could be entertained for anything from 2 minutes to 2 hours. But besides posting the obligatory 'happy birthday' comment on the walls of people I've spoken to maybe five times in the last year, and sporadically uploading photos of my latest cupcake-baking spree, I feel I cannot tailor my Facebook profile to really reflect my life or personality. And I envy those who can.

For example, uploading photos. The process always eluded me. I don't own a camera, but this is irrelevant, as even if I did, the process of connecting said camera to computer via a USB cable is just a whole level of technical that I'm not comfortable with. I can surf the internet, use Microsoft Word, and create blogs like the best of them, but give me wires and plugs and I'm quite baffled.

Photos from others are another thing entirely. I shudder to think of the many photos floating around Facebook-space which I've untagged myself in, on the grounds of looking way too drunk or just unflattering in any other way. Friends don't tag friends in unflattering photos! I cannot emphasise this enough. (I, however, must admit to having quite a lot of fun tagging photos of random objects, i.e. cockroaches, pumpkins, troll dolls, with my friends' names.)

And another Facebook no-no: do not add people you have never met in real life. If you do, you are immediately a sex offender. Other people to not add include your boss, your ex, and your mum. I succumbed to my mother's friend request after a few valiant weeks resisting it, and now I never hear the end of it if I dare to do something so brazen as include the word "fuck" in my status update.

Another Facebook trap is the many requests to join groups and do quizzes (or start playing Farmville or that kitchen game, or join Mafia Wars...). The very bottom rung of the Facebook groups ladder is "Harriet lost her phone, give me your numbers please!" I never understood why the creation of a group was necessary for procuring lost phone numbers. Surely an email or private Facebook message would have sufficed... with the added bonus of not broadcasting the fact that you were stupid enough to lose your phone in the first place. And the very botttom rung of quizzes are those written by high schoolers. You can distinguish those as they are generally called "How 2 tell if a guy lyks u", or "How much do u luv the Jonas Brothers??????????".

And let's not get started on status updates! As someone with a keen interest in food and edible food-like substances, you may assume I'm one of the intolerably boring people who feel the need to update the world on what they ate for lunch. And I sometimes am. (I'm full of turkey right now. And pasta and prawn salad. Hey, it's Christmas.) And this isn't even considering Twitter... but to be completely honest, I often find the banality of Twitter quite amusing. But recently, I've found status updates useful for one thing, and one thing only - plugging my blog! You're probably here from Facebook, am I correct?

Three redeeming factors about Facebook are 1) events, 2) relationship statuses and 3) creating really cool groups which are closed, which people can only join if they personally request it from you, the admin, and refusing all requests.

Events is a great way to crash parties held by someone you met once at a club/went to high school with but never talked to/might be in one of your lectures at uni but you aren't entirely sure. And I can't begin to tell you how many relationship beginnings and endings I found out about via Facebook. This is especially useful if you have a penchant for playing Cupid, which I do, often with disastrous consequences. The cruel thrill of creating unflinchingly exclusive groups is self-explanatory.

Merry Christmas everyone. No entree today because I've just had Christmas dinner so I'm pretty full. Never too full for dessert though. (Unthinkable!)

Dessert!

So there you have it, a nice three-course meal, at a significantly lower price than what you'd pay at a restaurant.

Stop salivating and eat something for real now.

Lateral thinking puzzles unsettle me.

For example, take this classic:

A man lives on the eleventh floor of an apartment building. To go to work, he takes the elevator all the way down to the ground floor. Upon coming home from work, he takes the elevator to the fifth floor, then takes the stairs the rest of the way. The only time he doesn't do this, is if there is someone else in the elevator with him, or if it is raining.

Answer? The man is short-statured, and without the aid of another, or an umbrella, cannot reach the 11th button of the elevator.

This is unsettling for a number of reasons.

Number 1, we automatically assume that the man in question is able-bodied, and anything which disproves conclusions we make by revealing the fallacy of our assumptions is unsettling.

Number 2, why does this guy live on the eleventh floor anyway? Did he inherit his apartment? He surely would not have chosen to buy it, given the difficulty he encounters using the elevators.

Have a look at another puzzle.

George and Susan are found dead in a room, surrounded by broken glass. However, there are no marks or injuries on their bodies, and an close study of the bodies reveals nothing to suggest they've been poisoned. How did they die?

The answer? George and Susan are goldfish. The fishbowl fell off a table and shattered, causing their suffocation.

Again, unsettling, notwithstanding the death in this puzzle.

Firstly, we assumed that George and Susan were humans. Again, with the fallacy of our assumptions being revealed to us, the entire lateral-thinking exercise becomes something of a nightmare. Who names their goldfish "George" and "Susan" anyway? Why not "Nemo" or "Dory" or "Goldie" or "Sushi"?

Secondly, why was nobody in the house alerted by the sound of breaking glass? Surely someone would have heard, and come to the aid of the poor defenseless goldfish. Unless they did arrive on scene, only to find that it was too late. Which is a possibility. However, another possibility is that the house is completely empty at the time. Which raises the question - how did the goldfish bowl fall off the table in the first place? (a perfectly un-scary answer to this is that there is a cat, and the cat knocked it over... but then wouldn't the cat have then eaten the dying fish?!)

And another puzzle:

The police receive an anonymous tip-off regarding a serial murderer on the loose. They have only two pieces of information: his name is John (last name unknown) and he is currently at a certain address. When the police raid the address, they find a mechanic, a plumber, a truck driver and a carpenter playing poker. Without any communication, they immediately arrest the plumber. How do they know they have the right man?

And no, these people are not wearing name tags on their uniforms.

Answer? The plumber is the only male in the room. The mechanic, truck driver and carpenter are all female, and thus unlikely to be named John.

Well the only unsettling thing about this is that we assumed they were all male. Honestly, what's a woman doing, being a mechanic or a carpenter? Go back to the kitchen.

Ready for another one? A man and his wife are speeding towards the hospital in their car. The car breaks down, so the man leaves, locks the car, then runs to the nearest building for help. When he returns to the car, his wife is dead, and there is a stranger in the car. Explain.

Again, the unnecessary death in this puzzle is unsettling, but only the least of our worries. There is a STRANGER in the car! Is it some crazy psycho murderer who broke in with a coat hanger? How did he kill the wife?

Answer: they were speeding to the hospital as the wife had gone into labour. While the husband was away from the car, the wife gave birth, but unfortunately died of blood loss. The stranger in the car is the baby.

Now all kinds of unsettling things come into play! Firstly, this poor guy has to clean all that blood off his car seats. Secondly, his wife is dead, and he's probably not very happy about that either. Thirdly, now he's a single father. What will he do with the baby? How will he feed it? Will he have to remarry? Fourthly, the baby too is probably going to die unless this man hurries the f*** up and gets them to the hospital for some medical attention. Fifthly... imagine referring to your own baby as a stranger.

So the moral of this story is: always take your car in for regular servicing.

And a final, somewhat gratuitous lateral thinking puzzle:

A man is found hanging from a noose in the middle of a large barn, locked from the inside. His feet are hanging several feet from the ground, but there is no furniture in the barn he could have stood upon to reach the noose. There is a small puddle of water below him. How did he manage to hang himself?

So everyone has heard this one. He climbed upon a massive icecube, and waited for it to melt. I heard this first in primary school, and could not sleep for several nights after it.

From where did he procure this giant icecube? This would've taken a lot of planning! Does he have an industrial-sized freezer? Is there a business which supplies massive chunks of ice (and if there is, do they realise that their product killed this man, and probably killed a lot of other men, who tried to emulate this first man?)

Also, death by hanging is caused not necessarily by strangulation, but by a sharp breaking of the spine at the neck. When someone hangs, after having a trapdoor beneath them removed, or having kicked a chair from underneath them, the sharp fall will (hopefully) break the neck, resulting in a somewhat faster death than the death this guy suffered, waiting patiently for this ice to melt.

It sounds like some diabolical trap from the Saw movie franchise. Oh wait, it is.

Qualifications?

You might ask: 'what gives you the right to blog on food? Are you a chef? Have you appeared on Ready Steady Cook? Do you even cook for your family?' You might have asked that. But perhaps it didn't cross your mind. In which case, now I've brought it to your attention, and you can begin questioning my motives and qualifications starting from... now!

The answers to these questions, is that I am quite unqualified in the area of food and food preparation, and I'm not a gourmet, though that's not to say the profession escaped my contemplation.

But I do like to eat. In fact, I like it so much I do it every single day.

And I can also bake cakes, cupcakes, and cookies, which don't always turn out burnt, and are sometimes tasty. So I will take your Bachelor of Gastronomy, and raise it... with this tray of chocolate-chip and apricot peel cookies. They are soft and chewy and melt in your mouth.

So, occasionally there will have to be a non-food related post

Like this one.

Nobody thinks about food 24/7. Times you might not think about food include:

• When you're not Asian
• When you're watching a colonoscopy on TV
• When you're delivering a baby

Otherwise, whether you're sitting an exam, donating blood, or having sex, it's perfectly normal to think about food. Sometimes even necessary.

To extend the metaphor, I might call this post the entree, but there is quite a marked lack of appetizing food on offer, so this is probably the stage where you choose which restaurant you'd like to eat at. Which, if you're like me, can take upwards of one hour.

The topic of this post is: numbers I do and don't like. While I don't buy into new-age fortune-telling enterprises like numerology, certain numbers do appeal to me, while others just don't. Like colours, or family members, or... FOOD.

I distrust prime numbers. I feel their lack of factors makes them somewhat arrogant. Additionally, who wants to split 17 spring rolls between any number of people besides 17?

I like numbers which are multiples of three. Perhaps stemming from my upbringing in a family containing only my mother, my father, and myself, I have always found it easy to divide things by three. And if you're two people just cut one in half.

Even numbers (multiples of two) are acceptable, but even MORE acceptable when they are also multiples of 12. Perhaps because in primary school, learning your 12 times table was something of an achievement. Therefore, numbers like 36, 48, 60 and 72 convey a sense of intellectual superiority.

I approve of square numbers, for similar reasons. 25, 49, 64, 144... Hells yeah, I got an education.

Multiples of 5 (and 10) are definitely superb. No explanation needed here.

Multiples of 7 and 8 not so much. As a kid, I was probably more concerned with airing my knowledge of my 9 and 12 times tables to focus on 7 and 8, so I'm not always entirely clear what multiples of 7 and 8 actually are. Though I do know that 7 multiplied by 8 gives us 56, which seems to be a nice, solid, number.

And decimals, fractions and percentages... well, they are RIGHT OUT. Perhaps I should've been clearer about this. I am talking about integers. Positive integers. As someone who elected to NOT study maths in high school, decimals and all related abominations completely elude me.

Stay tuned for the entree.