BEWARE THE CON RATS
July 9, 2012 Summer is the reward students get for successfully completing another year of educational excellence. Or for partying all year and flunking out. (Nobody said life was fair, kids.)
So while graduation season may be over, I think it's time our bakers had a little summer schoolin'.
Bakers? Welcome to "How-To-Spell-'Congratulations'-101."
;)
I can see it's going to be a long day.
Alright, let's practice: C-O-N-G-R-A-T-U-L-A-T-I-O-N-S. See? Now you try.
;)
I dare you to read that aloud.
("Comgratatum?")
Try again.
;)
G, you shouldn't have.
No, really.
And don't think I'm not on to your latest scheme, bakers. You know, the one where you just pipe a heap of scribbles halfway through the word and hope no one notices?
;)
Cheater.
;)
;)
The best part is how you can still clearly see those last two are misspelled. Next time just chuck some High School Musical flotsam on there.
;)
At this point, even I have forgotten how to spell it. I would "COHGRADULITTE" you, bakers, but I don't think I can handle that level of irony.
Let's try a new approach: just shorten it to "Congrats!" That's easy enough, right?
;)
*sigh*
;)
DING!
What is wrong with you people?*
For a wild, hopeful second there I thought this had something to do with San Diego Comic-Con this week:
;)
"Watch out for those Con Rats!"
...but then I realized I it was a different kind of "con." Rats.
Well, you've all failed the course, bakers. So, hey, get out there and continue collecting a paycheck for brutalizing the English language! Woo! Yeah!
Oh, and kids? Stay in school. Or don't.
Honestly, your bakery manager probably won't give a con rat's @ss.
Thanks to Nancy H., Jessica E., Julia L., Michelle W., Meghan H., Amanda N., Julie D., Elizabeth B., Anony M., & Bailey for the pep talk!
*Update from john- Apparently, Ding! Grats is a World of Warcraft thing so this cake is not as wrecky as it first appears. Bwoops.
Reader Comments (69)
@ScaperMama I love you in a non-stalky kind of way. U shuld bee gratefull Theardare wuzn't playing Ellie Vader operator- he playz ABBA at half speed.
@Andrea you win the interwebs with the Dr. Seuss/Godfather mash up. I seriously need to see that in print in the children's section of the library!!
"Ding" is generally said in multiplayer games when a character levels up. Graduation = level up.
DING! GRATS you leveled dude.
The cake makes perfect sense, it's just nonsensical to the older generation. :)
Based on other posts, the ratio of correct letters to cakewrecks is about 5 to 1. For example, "birthday" has 8 letters so has the potential for 1.6 wrecks per word. "Congratulations" with 15 letters has the potential for 3 wrecks. Get it?
(Please don't ask me to explain falkersatherhood.)
As a public service to bakeries everywhere I want to make big signs/posters that will go on the walls and have common 'cake phrases' spelled out. Maybe they'll also have a cursive alphabet on them too.
Well I will cheerily eat cheetos while hiding in the bunker seeing as how many comments for that Ding cake are a coming your way lol. I have never played WoW so wouldn't have known a thing. Other than staying in school and spelling congratulations the right way are very important lol.
I think that before anyone begins a career in cake decoration, they need to learn to spell the word “congratulations” properly. That top cake looks like the decorator wrote “C-O-N” and then filled the rest of the row out with random runes that kinda sorta looked like letters in the hopes that the buyer would think it said “Congratulations.”
None of this alters the fact that they seemed to think writing “Happy Congratulations” on a cake was a fine and dandy idea.
Actually, you're pretty close with the Con Rats/Comic Con connection; for many years now (since at least the mid-80's, when I started going), "Con Rat" was/is the nickname (sometimes derogatory) for those young Con-goers who literally NEVER LEFT the Con the entire four days, except to scout hotels for parties and to refresh ourselves with Mountain Dew, M&Ms and stale chips at the Con Hospitality Suite. In those halcyon days, there were 24-hour film rooms in the Con hotel, and the programmers tended to play the "mellower" genre films from 2-6 AM, so poor nerds could have a place to crash for a few hours. Then you just went to the hotel bathroom, had a bit of a "whore's bath", changed your shirt/undies, and made the scene. Ah, misspent nerdyouth!
About that *Ding* *Grats* cake....does the label say brown cake with icing? What flavor is brown? Now I'm considering the light spectrum and the associated flavors.......
I'm sorry to disabuse anyone, but Hylton is an acceptable spelling of the name - it's a local surname where I live (County Durham, UK) and it's also an ancient place name, with a medieval castle, not far from Washington - which some American was named after ;-)
On the other hand the rest of the spellings in this post are NOT acceptable
I just had to note the incredible laziness of the one with the chocolate roses - they wrote in green but didn't bother to make the leaves green too? Come on - brown leaves are NOT appetizing.
I can't have my beloved EverQuest insulted! Yup, I've been "ding-ing" and "grats-ing" for ages. Then alternate advancement came along, and I started "ping-ing", too. Hm, this is a cake blog, so to return to the subject, I think I'll eat that last cupcake in the kitchen....
@ Aussie Ana: Thanks for the info. The two boys that told my Mom that fact could have had their Mom making her mustard from scratch. I do know that they were Aussies though, since my Mom was in Melbourne at the time.
That's EXACTLY what I mean. Our society is going to Hades in a handbasket.
Why are we wishing Nancy a Happy Quesadilla? Inquiring minds want to know.
I prefer conga rats. They're much more fun.
"Ding!" actually started with the first EverQuest, when I was about 12. World of Warcraft - pffft. What a rip off.
I know this is a little late. (I haven't visited this wonderful site in quite some time)
I can't help but comment on the people claiming 'ding' and 'grats' are references to WoW. I've been playing MMOs for years. We used those two words long before WoW existed. It may have originated in EverQuest where you actually hear a ding when you level.
This is from WoW? It looks like the cake was both based on and made by Mr Saturn from Earthbound. Zoom!
I have the hiccups from laughing so hard!!!