Useless But Fun Stuff 

Musical cartoons:  When I was in high school I picked up some really cute drink coasters featuring humorous musical cartoons.  Even today, more than 20 years later, they are among my most treasured posessions.  I have selected two of my favorites to display - one of a French horn player who has muted his bell a bit too aggressively, and another of a percussionist who experienced one of his occupational hazards.

   

Funniest cake you'll ever see:  In December 1997 my son's Cub Scout Pack held a father-son cake baking event.  My kids had grown fond of some glasses that we've had for many years featuring skiing cartoons, and they wanted to reproduce one of the cartoons on the cake.

 I thought this was a great idea, but wondered how in the world we were going to draw this design on the cake.  (An easy task for professional bakers, but not for us!)  We started baking the cake, and I was still wondering how we were going to make this idea work when it suddenly occurred to me, "Let's do it in 3D!"  We sliced the cake in half prior to icing it.  Here's the result.  If you look closely, you'll see that my son thought of molding Tootsie Roll slices into miniature skis for the poor victim.

   

His cake generated a lot of conversation.  As we were roaming around the room admiring the other really nice cakes, it was especially fun to look over and see the crowd hovering around the cake and laughing.