judyonthenet

There won’t be any posts for a while, since we’re officially on our way to our honeymoon. The only flights to Fiji are from LAX, so we’re kicking it in the City of Angels at Sandra’s place for a day. (Thanks for taking us around and letting us sleep over, Sandra!) I’m super excited, though not exactly super prepared… might try to do some last minute shopping in LA. Anyway, a basic map of some places we’re planning to go to:

I’m unsure about internet access during our trip or if I’ll have time to post, so I’ll have to see y’all in December! :)

New thing I learned today: In New Zealand driving, “Yield” is instead called “Give Way”.

Warning: This post is not safe for work, kids, or people against gay marriage. This post is an expression of disgust towards the recently-passed California Proposition 8. I understand that some people (even those who share the same beliefs as me) may find this post offensive, possibly even think of less of me. But that’s okay, because this is an honest representation of how I feel right now. To find other bird-flippin’ people like me, check out the list here (Diary of a Modern Matriarch), the person who started it (Eating Out Loud), and who I heard it from (Offbeat Bride).

I’m generally a pretty indifferent person who cares a lot about what people think of me… so why am I posting this? My mind’s already been really out of whack the last several weeks because of my own wedding. Being in California, the battle for Prop 8 has also been at its peak during the same period. Staying up late doing last minute crafting projects, I’ve had to constantly hear that stupid “Mom! Guess what I learned in school today!” commercial during every break of the Craig Ferguson Show. When I went to get my marriage license, I saw lesbian couples lined in front of us, rushing to get married because people were going to vote on whether or not their love is valid or equal. As I ran around Cupertino gathering supplies for my wedding, I watched a thousand Silicon Valley citizens march for Yes on Prop 8, carrying signs telling people to honk for Yes on Prop 8. And disgustingly enough, people honked back.

I got married on Saturday, not really thinking that in a few days, not everyone I know can get married where I got married. I woke up Wednesday morning, finding out that Prop 8 had passed. I felt sad, disappointed, and angry with my state. Really? Even in California?

So in my current not-so-stable emotional state, I shall take my newly gained bling and vulgarly express what I think about Prop 8. This is not meant to convince anyone of anything. I’m just making use of my first amendment rights (go america.) to show how fucked up I think this is. Gay marriage does not make my marriage any less sacred.

Pardon my already-flaking French manicured nails.

New thing I learned today: Depression cake is a cake recipe commonly made during the Great Depression that doesn’t use butter or eggs, ingredients that were hard to get during that period. Thanks to Eating Out Loud for the educational tidbit.

In my effort to show my fiance how much I love him along with trying to get linked in a gaming blog (ZOMG KOTAKU LOOK CAKE), I decided to spend quite a bit of cash to get Kelvin a surprise groom’s cake that was video game related. I know his favorite game of all-time is either The Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past or Super Metroid (I forgot the order already), so I wanted to do one of those. I’ve already seen some pretty awesome Zelda cakes, so I’d figure I’d go for something Super Metroid related. The only Metroid-related dessert I’ve ever seen that was any good was some super-cute gelatinous metroid, so I was curious what something would look in the realm of cake. For this task, I enlisted the highly-Yelped cake artisan Debbie Goard of Debbie Does Cakes.

My first instinct was to go for Samus’ helmet, but then I thought that maybe it’d be weird to pretty much be eating Samus’ head. So I originally sent a request to make a cake looking like Samus’ gunship, based off this First 4 Figures statue. Oftentimes, her ship shares a lot of similarities with her helmet, so I thought it’d be a good substitute. But after some thinking (and consultation with other folks who’ve played Metroid), I went back to the helmet because it was more recognizable, even to gamers who haven’t played Metroid games. (For the Metroid nerds that suggested I do metroids or Mother Brain… come on, there’s a bunch of non-gamer old people at the wedding…)

I sent Debbie links to another First 4 Figures statue page and the Metroid Database, but she was still having a hard time deriving the shape. What I ended up doing was, when Kelvin wasn’t home, busting out Super Smash Bros. Brawl, going to the trophies section, and taking video of relevant Samus trophies, zooming in and rotating so that the helmet could be seen at all angles. I even went through the effort of beating Classic Mode to get another trophy for more reference. I made the videos flv and sent links of the videos to her.

Debbie was cool with the idea, despite being a non-gamer and having no clue as to what Metroid is. All communication was through email, though once the payment, reference links, and order form was sent and all details were finalized, I didn’t hear from her ever again. I never got a preview of the cake (though it seems like she posted it on her flickr the day before my wedding), but based on her past work, I was fairly comfortable she could pull something together. And indeed she did. The final product at the reception:

Awesome. I didn’t get to see Kelvin’s expression seeing the cake since he ditched the bridal party to hang out in the reception area prior to the official bridal party entrance, but I’m told by groomsmen and other nerdboys that he was pleased to see the cake. Kelvin told me that, before he saw it, people kept asking him about what the cake was, and he had no idea what they were talking about. Ever wondered what the inside of Samus’ head looks like? Well, here ya go:

Samus brains = chocolate cake with chocolate chips and mint buttercream. Kelvin’s a fan of mint chip stuff, so this was best closest custom flavor I could get with Debbie’s repertoire of flavors. The cake is a bit on the sweet and heavy side for me, especially in comparison to the main wedding cake from La Patisserie, but it wasn’t bad at all. You can see from the cake slice some sort of weird sugary clay stuff used for sculpting the front. (It’s the yellowy stuff in the slice picture. It tastes like… sugary clay.)

Overall, I’m pretty stoked with the final product. The restaurant originally thought it was the wedding cake, so it hogged the wedding cake table spot until the real wedding cake people arrived and had to convince the restaurant otherwise. Too bad I didn’t maximize my nerd cred by having a Metroid wedding cake as well. Yeah, too bad.

Note: I’ll add more pics from other people (from pro photog, different angles) when I get them.

Picture yoinked from Debbie Does Cakes’ flickr, prior
to exposure to high humidity (it POURED that day)

Edited 11/11 to add: Apparently a couple people have discovered the cake through Debbie’s flickr, including Geekologie and Metroid Quarantine, with the latter getting on Kotaku, and then GoNintendo and back to Metroid Database (we’ve come full circle!).

Debbie told Metroid Quarantine:

The cake was a mint chip cake hand carved from round cakes, stacked, and iced in buttercream and then covered in fondant. The metallic parts were made of belgian modelling chocolate and painted with silver highlighter dust. The entire cake was airbrushed to add color and dimension to the metallic parts as well. The cake was a surprise for the Groom, he and the bride are huge fans of the game.

And yeah, all the parts that were neither cake nor buttercream didn’t taste too good. (Fondant in general is quite nasty.) I don’t remember how the modelling chocolate tasted, but I still have half of the helmet in my freezer, so I’ll have to make note of how it tastes later.

New thing I learned today: The idea of a groom’s cake originated in the South. It’s a cake separate from the frilly main wedding cake that often reflects the groom’s interest. The legend surrounding the groom’s cake is that if a single woman takes a slice of the cake and puts it under her pillow the night she receives it, she will dream of her future husband.

And freaking exhausted! What a day yesterday, with the whole getting married, seeing a bunch of people I haven’t seen in a while, and massive rainstorm. Overall, it was a great day. The whole thing was an interesting experience, so expect a lot of blog posts coming up. Especially since now I actually have some frickin’ time!