My happiness depends on you

[venta]

Yesterday in my office there was a conversation about the "my happiness" adverts which Cadbury have been running, in which various fluffy creatures urge their people to eat chocolate. It was agreed that they are really quite irritating adverts.

I did concede, though, that I'd quite like to be followed round by a badger urging me to eat cake.

Today on my desk there is a small soft toy badger. It belongs to my boss and usually resides on his desk. Round its neck is hung a piece of paper which says "EAT CAKE".

I think my colleagues are bored.

Comments

[stompyboots.livejournal.com]

I want the cake badger!

[stompyboots.livejournal.com]

Can you upload a picture?

[venta.livejournal.com]

Only if I take a photo with my phone (poor quality) and email it to myself (compressed further).

So it looks a bit rubbish, but is there now.

[stompyboots.livejournal.com]

It is not rubbish at all! I definitely want a cake badger now.

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

I can bring my camera with me this evening, and do you a better photo tomorrow.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Depends if anyone feels they really can't work out what's going on from the blurry one and needs a better quality one. I don't need one, as I have a real cake badger to look at :)

[stompyboots.livejournal.com]

If one is made, could you please email it to me? I could do with a cake badger on my desktop.

[kissifa.livejournal.com]

But what happens when the happiness creatures go wrong?

What happens when the hyena starts saying, "Never mind the chocolate, eat her juicy FLESH!" And the cake badger starts trying to throw hot-sauce on your colleagues? It'd be madness, madness!

I can just picture Therapy Shark going down that road...

[sushidog.livejournal.com]

Fantastic! It's just a pity they didn't think to provide the cake too!

[j4.livejournal.com]

BADGER BADGER BADGER BADGER BADGER!

And CAKE!

I'm sorry, I think I just exploded with delight. :-)

[jiggery-pokery.livejournal.com]

Mushroom, mushroom etc.

I saw this post and thought of posting one of your usericons which had a picture of you, but wimped out. :-)

Is that bateleur's prize icon, by the way?)

As another aside, it's looking likely that I'll be in Cambridge next Tues/Weds/Thurs. Much of the time will be spent seeing LJ folk from another part of my Friends list, but would you have any gaps in your busy schedule?

You want to watch out...

[wimble.livejournal.com]

Soon it'll have a gun.

Re: You want to watch out...

[keris.livejournal.com]

Oh no, they're not following you around too are they?? davefish keeps seeing them all over his house...

Re: You want to watch out...

[wimble.livejournal.com]

They're not following me. I send them out occassionally though.

I do think that davefish's predate mine, although we may have got them from the same source.

[erming.livejournal.com]

I think you have good work colleagues.

But did the badger work and you eat cake?

[venta.livejournal.com]

Not yet, as I didn't have cake to hand. I plan to acquire cake later, though.

[phlebas.livejournal.com]

Wise badger, badgering you to eat cake.

[cardinalsin.livejournal.com]

A badger made of cake, that would be really good. It could even say "eat cake" on it in icing, so it would combine all the functions of the old version with those of the new.

Except for being cuddly, obviously.

[wimble.livejournal.com]

It could be cuddled.

Why am I thinking of elle_ here?

[cardinalsin.livejournal.com]

Because she _really_ likes cake?

Anyway, just because you could cuddle it, doesn't mean you should.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Hmm.
Well.
Next weekend, my mother is visiting. Among other things, she has promised to scrutinise my cake-making, with the intention of determining why my cakes don't work properly.
If she identifies and fixes the problem, I'll celebrate by making a badger of cake.
[Disclaimer: I have limited artistic skills, so it may be a very bad badger of cake.]

[wimble.livejournal.com]

Bad Badger! Go sit in the oven for an hour and stop being naughty!

[cardinalsin.livejournal.com]

[Disclaimer: I have limited artistic skills, so it may be a very bad badger of cake.]

Either way, you should photograph that as well!

PS Shouldn't that be cake-badger?

[venta.livejournal.com]

I'm referring to the little furry dude on my desk as a cakebadger, at present. I don't think an important disctinction like that can rest on anything so perilous and fragile as a hyphen.

There is an option that something I make from flour and eggs could be a badgercake, but that is open to the shocking misinterpretation that I've actually sliced and diced a badger in with the ingredients.

I think I'm sticking with badger of cake as a term.

[cardinalsin.livejournal.com]

Very well, but at least have the decency to capitalise in the following manner:

Badger of Cake (BoC)

Optionally, the BoC should have special powers, e.g. BoC +2, dragon slayer.

[venta.livejournal.com]

I think that's a reasonable request; Badger of Cake it shall be.

[marjory.livejournal.com]

Of course you can have a badger following around, urging you to eat cake... You just have to go into the countryside at the right point in Autumn, find the right kind of wild mushroom, dry it out and then... Well, Bob will be the relative of your choice!

Ha! My student just brought me cake. And I brought her cake. The last half hour wasn't so much an English lesson as a cake-eating seminar.

Maybe I should bring a badger next time...

[beckyl.livejournal.com]

Well, the hapiness post on my LJ never did turn into a meme, so I suppose an alternate resurfacing amidst the Weird and Wonderful World of Venta's Journal is a good second best.

If you get good at making BoC, we may need your talents for a launch party sometime in the New Year. Possibly. You never know.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Er, I don't expect a BoC of a sufficiently high standard, but will get back to you when I have evidence of its quality.

Incidentally, am I the only one who thinks that the person responsible for the happiness adverts has been reading too much Phillip Pullman ?

Pullmania!

[marjory.livejournal.com]

I've not seen these adverts of course, living in Germany (although we do have a pleasantly surreal one involving people being hypnotised with slices of Leerdammer...), but having followed

[Error: Irreparable invalid markup ('<ljuser="beckyl">') in entry. Owner must fix manually. Raw contents below.]

I've not seen these adverts of course, living in Germany (although we do have a pleasantly surreal one involving people being hypnotised with slices of Leerdammer...), but having followed <ljuser="beckyl">'s meme, I <i>did</i>think of the Daemon theme.

There is a game which we used to play in the pub, which I would put up as a meme if I had that sort of LJ, but I'll put it here (without the solution for now) and you can ignore/excise/abuse it at your leisure!

1) What earthly creature, other than a human, would you most like to be?
2) #1 being out as an option, what would be your 2nd choice?
3) #1 and #2 being out, what would be your 3rd choice?

It is often quite interesting to follow people's lines of reasoning (or lack thereof) with these questions.

My answers (before I knew what the solution was) were:
1) dolphin - they are beautiful, intelligent, friendly creatures. This outweighed polluted oceans, fishing nets etc. (which is the way my mind works...).
2) <a href="http://www.naturalworlds.org/thylacine/" target="Main">thylacine</a> - no longer exists, but I simply find them fascinating for no rational reason (at this time I had a thylacine screensaver etc.).
3) little fluffy American ferret - I'd just seen a website full of blowdried, fluffy ferrets, some of them in outfits. This is not to my taste, but they looked as if they had a good life whilst still being able to offer a sharp nip...

Ha! Jammed up your comments!

Re: Pullmania!

[venta.livejournal.com]

(before I knew what the solution was)

I'm confused - are you implying that there's a "correct" answer to the question of which non-human creature I'd most like to be ?

Re: Pullmania!

[marjory.livejournal.com]

Damn! Bad vocabulary choice caused by lack of... something or other...

There is no correct answer. Just pick your 3 top creatures according to the criteria and it is the nature of the... hem...'analysis' thereafter which is what I meant by 'solution'. I just didn't want to give the game away too much in case that influenced anyone's answers.

Sorry about the prolixity of the comment. I don't think I've ever seen slidey sidebar things on an LJ comment before...

Pullmania!

[marjory.livejournal.com]

I've not seen these adverts of course, living in Germany (although we do have a pleasantly surreal one involving people being hypnotised with slices of Leerdammer...), but having followed beckyl's meme, I didthink of the Daemon theme.

There is a game which we used to play in the pub, which I would put up as a meme if I had that sort of LJ, but I'll put it here (without the solution for now) and you can ignore/excise/abuse it at your leisure!

1) What earthly creature, other than a human, would you most like to be?
2) #1 being out as an option, what would be your 2nd choice?
3) #1 and #2 being out, what would be your 3rd choice?

It is often quite interesting to follow people's lines of reasoning (or lack thereof) with these questions.

My answers (before I knew what the solution was) were:
1) dolphin - they are beautiful, intelligent, friendly creatures. This outweighed polluted oceans, fishing nets etc. (which is the way my mind works...).
2) thylacine - no longer exists, but I simply find them fascinating for no rational reason (at this time I had a thylacine screensaver etc.).
3) little fluffy American ferret - I'd just seen a website full of blowdried, fluffy ferrets, some of them in outfits. This is not to my taste, but they looked as if they had a good life whilst still being able to offer a sharp nip...

Ha! Jammed up your comments!

Re: Pullmania!

[venta.livejournal.com]

Ha! Jammed up your comments!

Er, yeah, you did - but posting it twice is cheating :)

Re: Pullmania!

[marjory.livejournal.com]

I didn't mean to post it twice, but my portable pooter gremlins decided otherwise.

I also seem to be in long confessional mode this week.

Time of life. :)

[(Anonymous)]

All my line manager has is a small cow which plays "When Irish Eyes are Smiling" in moments of line mangerial stress, but we do have cake.Every Wednesday. This week it was Swiss buns, with both cream and pink icing.

[venta.livejournal.com]

It is a great disappointment to me that the bakery we go to from work does rubbish Swiss buns :(

Workplace Mascot?

[(Anonymous)]

My actual office didn't have one -- unless you count the hippo given at a HIPAA training, & somehow government-mandated mascots are not quite the same -- but my college's newspaper office had stuffed animals for libel (bunny) and defamation (armadillo).