Good grief.

Why does this make me tear up?

Alamak(eris)!!

State of mind: semi-bitter
Current soundtrack: Gintama - Yuki no Tsubasa (redballoon)

Astute world citizens may recall, two years ago, Datuk Seri Hishamuddin Hussein took a keris into the United Malays National Organisation GM. He waved it around a lot during his speech(es).

Last year, someone thought it would be a good idea to have a live telecast of the UMNO assembly. It wasn't, because we got to see exactly how asinine some MPs happened to be, and how much they liked the taste of their feet. AGAIN the keris came in with Hishamuddin, and he waaaaved it, and braaandished it, and I think he even kiiiiissed it. Someone asked him if he was going to actually use it.

...Adoi.

This year...well, this is what our lovely Education Minister has to say. Thanks NST! The emphasis is mine, though.

Hishamuddin said the kissing and waving of the kris would be a standard feature at UMNO general assemblies.

"If we discuss this in a sane, intelligent way and explain what kissing and waving the kris means to Malays, people of other races will accept this."

Um, yeah, you tried explaining sanely and intelligently LAST year, remember? And some of us still think it was insane and unintelligent. Or, as Nazri likes to put it: "Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!" Sigh. Well, there's one way to solve this.

Since Hishamuddin says keris = Malay culture, MCA, you take thiiiiis...and MIC, you take thiiiiis...I'd find y'all something shorter and easier to flail around, but this is the best Wikipedia could show me on short notice. Something closer to the far-off motherland--yeah, that far off "motherland" some of us haven't even smelt, because Malaysia's the only country we've damn well GOT. One used to contemplate going to Japan, but stories of xenophobia, ugh. Besides, look how it goes with immigration now.

Obviously if we ALL start waving weapons around, it's a sign we're fighting for our respective races. [/sarcasm]

So who likes Saul Bass, eh? :D

State of mind: pondering
Current soundtrack: white noise

Today I partitioned my harddrive, downloaded some fonts, stuck some random doohickies back in and went searching for the grail of all grails, unbooked Ultraman Gekiden chapters...because I have no PS or AI yet on my yet-unnamed girl. (Laaaamster, I'm looking at you. ;))

So. Saul Bass. Is he not full of squee...why you all looking at me like I'm speaking Swahili? He's the supposed father of motion graphics, not to mention a fairly bitchin' graphic designer. If you've seen The Man with The Golden Arm, Psycho, The Shining's movie poster or even the AT&T globe logo, you're familiar with his work. Bell did quite a bit of handlettering, and a tribute site decided to duplicate his kinda-crooked-kinda-jiggly letterforms. The result was Hitchcock, in homage to one of the directors he used to work with, and was recently put back online. This means squeeing and font pimpage from yours truly.

You can get Hitchcock (and should get it nowhere else!) at http://typographica.org/001110.php. There's a sample there, too.

P.S. - Ken Taya's Super Ultra. SWEET LORDY LORDY. *collapses in laughter as the red-and-silver lean, mean dicing machines stare blankly*