Let them eat cake

Two of our local Scrabblers have birthdays today, so before I even get started, happy birthday to Shelley Schiavone and Jim Merrill! If it seems unusual that two people in a group share a birthday, it really isn't. In fact, it only takes 23 people in a group for the chances of this happening to exceed 50% - and only 57 people for the chances to exceed 99%. (I like counterintuitive math problems.)

Since Aaron McGuffin's birthday is tomorrow, and NSA Club #767 met today anyway, it was turned into a birthday celebration complete with Scrabble cake. Here are a couple of pictures for those who missed the fun at Java Joint.

Here's the cake. It was a very dense chocolate sponge cake with gooey icing in the shape of a Scrabble board. It even had tiles atop which read: "HEY HAPPY BIRTHDAY SHELLeY". The cake board underneath was a real Scrabble board - one of the cardboard ones, which I'm told is now ruined.

Here we see Dr. McGuffin making an incision into the patient. Please note the Scrabble logo peeking out at the bottom left of the photo - the aforementioned cake board.

I don't know what the "tiles" were made of, but I think it was something close to 100% pure sugar. I think I heard someone say there was cream cheese in the icing also. If so, I certainly blew my calorie count for the day - but it was fantastic.

Kudos to Jason at Java Joint for creating this masterpiece, and kudos to Amber for serving us with her usual aplomb and grace.