Goram Kinder Surprise.

When I was younger, I used to love Kinder Surprise. The chocolate itself is pretty disappointing, but I cared more for the prize hiding inside. The toys themselves are admittedly rather useless, but you don't buy a 99 cent chocolate egg expecting a remote controlled helicopter or a transformer - it's the excitement of opening the egg to see what you've gotten and assembling the pieces, adding stickers, etc., to end up with your tiny creation, that is why they were so cool. Bonus if you actually like the plastic chocolate.

I'm not sure if it's because I've grown up and become a little disillusioned, or if Kinder Surprise has just stopped producing good toys, these new ones are honestly lame. Most of them you don't even get to build anymore, it's all one piece, along with a confusing illustration that usually involves a couple kids having a great time chucking their new bit of plastic at a wall, or trying to throw it at their friend's equally useless bit of plastic. Most of the time the thing that tells you how to play with your toy requires you to have a friend with a toy from the same set, meaning you both have to go buy eggs until you each have one, and then proceed to play what appears to be one of the most boring and pointless games ever conceived.

Just the other day, I walked into my the cafeteria at my University, and they had a bunch of Kinder Surprise eggs. Hoping for a tiny car or perhaps a many-pieced animal I bought one, only to find a little plastic yellow thing that vaguely resembles a lion, and these instructions:
Step 1: Find a friend unfortunate enough to get one of these amorphous animals as well. Put your toys on a table, then blow on them.
Step 2: If your toy falls over, you win. Congratulations.

Gee, what a thrilling time. Sounds easy enough, right? The only problem is, aside from the fact that I could have just as much fun blowing on rocks or bits of wood, I couldn't even get the darn thing to stand up in the first place.

Shown here: my lion sitting on its head. I guess I won...?

It seems like the only things that you are able to 'build' from modern Kinder Surprises are tiny 12 piece puzzles. Because kids just love puzzles, am I right? This is what happens when child safety goes so far as to suck the fun out of things. Whatever happened to the little toy cars and boats and dragons with 8 pieces and stickers? I miss my childhood, and I feel sorry for the kids growing up in today's world of plastic playgrounds and rounded edges.

I am addicted to typing games

93 words/minute
Here's the link if you want to try!

Granted, the words they use are I think some of the more commonly used words in the English language and they're presented randomly, without sentence structure, so you don't have to use much punctuation; still, it's a nice, quick test to at least give you an idea of whether you might need a personal secretary, or have a future as one.

Mutants, not zombies!

I grew up using Mavis Beacon teaches typing like it was a game, so don't feel too bad if I've destroyed your score. If you're interested in improving your speed with something that actually is a game, go for The Typing of the Dead: they took an old arcade shooter and replaced the gun with your keyboard. The words you have to type are pretty entertaining. Blood and curses abound, and the storyline is ... interesting, to say the least!

Cake Decorating

Yesterday was my 19th birthday, so really I should be posting pictures of all the alcohol I can now (legally, anyway) drink - but, in the spirit of celebration, here are some sweet cakes I've come across.

I can't imagine how long it must have taken to make this! So much fondant.

For some reason, I imagine this was made in Japan.

Snorlax cake! He's clearly the best pokemon, and I'm sure
he would make a delicious cake as well.

This one just made me giggle.

In Soviet Russia, cake eats you!

Alright so I snuck the last one in there, I made that one when I was a cake decorator at Dairy Queen during high school. I miss that job ... nothing better than coming home every day smelling of ice cream and chocolate. Unfortunately I completely lost interest in eating icing ever again - even smelling it makes me feel a little sick. I don't think ice cream will ever get old, thankfully.

Face Composites

I thought this was pretty neat. These are the faces of a large sampling of women from various countries, mashed together to make one image that is an 'average face' for each country. I do wish they had done Canada and the US as well - it would be interesting to see how they relate to each other, and to England, France, Spain etc.

Face composites - click for fullview