This is one that we had at my Pirates Vs. Ninja's party, which was a going away party for my badgerific friend Lisa. She's defending her thesis on Monday, good luck Lisa! This might fit in well with the rest of the geeky cakes...
Let see what we got going on here. First, pirate-speak ("We'll miss you matey! Yarrrrrr!"). A ship with a ship's wheel, and a couple of knarly pirate-types. A tentacle reaching up from the depths, for those so inclined to that type of thing. Several ninjas sneaking around, including not one but two ninja penguins (Lisa hearts the penguins). There are two small ninja swords sticking out of the cake, which I couldn't find the name to. It was almost a shame to eat it. Oh, and we used the ninja swords to cut and serve it, which was a bit clumsy, but being able to lick frosting off a ninja sword more than made up for it.
Now come on, won't you vote for me now? :D
Comments
I could never understand why pirates and ninjas are put together in geek culture, until I read the entry about this apparent meme on Wikipedia.
Those ninja swords are called "Sai", which I get a kick saying because in Chinese it sounds like defecate. On that note, all the best for the scholarship! ;P
Posted by: Kevin | October 12, 2007 12:45 AM
The 'ninja swords' are called sai. My one time teenage love of TMNT has finally come in handy for something.
Cool cake btw.
Posted by: Stephen D. Moore | October 12, 2007 3:42 AM
Thanks Kevin and Stephen for the swords' name. I bow in ignorance. :)
There is also this website which helped popularize the pirate vs. ninja saga (decidedly from the ninja side): www.realultimatepower.net. Its the ultimate in lo-fi humor.
Posted by: Shelley Batts | October 12, 2007 4:27 AM
My brother-in-law once threw a ZombieNinjaMonkeyPirateRobot party ("The five coolest things I could think of - come as one or a combination").
Oh and sais, if anything, are anti-sword weapons...
Posted by: Ed Yong | October 12, 2007 4:58 AM
I thought the cake was so great that I wanted to post this blog entry on Facebook. But I noticed that if you do that, the posted item is called "Retrospectacle: A Neuroscience Blog", rather than having the title of the blog entry. Maybe you could change it so that individual blog entries have their own title? Otherwise Facebook will forever miss out on pirate versus ninja cakes...
Posted by: Frank D. | October 12, 2007 7:03 AM
Frank, feel free to post it! I could use the traffic and the votes for the scholarship thingy. Unfortunately I don't have any control over how Facebook wants to display my blog, is there no way around it? The individual blog entries all do have their own name, so i'm not sure why Facebook is registering it like that.
Posted by: Shelley Batts | October 12, 2007 7:07 AM
I think Facebook just grabs whatever the title of the page is (that's what's displayed at the top of your browser). If you look at, say, one of PZ Myer's entries, like this one, the title includes the name of the blog entry, so Facebook would call this "Pharyngula: Friday Cephalopod: Luminescence!"
But it's not really important, I posted it anyway. Just thought I'd mention it.
Posted by: Frank D. | October 12, 2007 11:52 AM
Sai actually aren't swords either; they're more like a cross between a stiletto and a dagger and commonly used to deflect and trap others' swords, in addition to their offensive capabilities. (Trap with one sai, poke with the other.)
Posted by: Warren | October 12, 2007 11:54 AM