Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2001 02:18:24 -0500 Subject: Re: Spaghetti Ramen. Status: R In alt.religion.kibology, kibo@world.std.com wrote: Special K (requiem@socket.net) wrote: > > At the Asian supermarket in Sioux Falls, you can buy spaghetti > flavored ramen, imported from South Korea. On the package, > in a fancy italic script font, it reads: > > Italic Type Spaghetti > > I just thought you'd like to know. But WHICH italic script font? Details like that breathe life into a story about bad typography on imported convenience foods. I wouldn't write a whole article about Pickled Stingray Tail Flavored Spray Spaghetti Aerosol Version or Sea Cucumber Fungus Shape Face Cream or whatever without saying which font the list of ingredients was misspelled in, so why should you? At least tell us just how fancy the "fancy italic script font" was! Did it look curly? Swirly? Girly? Twisty? Twirly? Kinky? Swooshy? Swashy? Woozy? Wookie? Frowsy? Blousy? Spaghetty? Details, man, details! We want to know EVERYTHING about how bad that wrapper is so that, if need be, we can exactly recreate it if the manufacturer loses their printing plates and comes to us for help! If you don't know the precise name of the typeface, just describe it in perfect detail and I can tell you what its name is, or at least what its name will be from now on. Today at Ming's I aquired a package of "Sn Ron" brand gloves. At least I think it says "Sn Ron", but it's hard to tell because the brand name is in letters only about an inch and a half tall on the package. The "S" is drawn to look like an eyeless snake, while the "R" seems to be a stick with a ribbon next to it, and the "n"s and "o" are rectangular. I will wager "Sn Ron" was hand- drawn unless they spent weeks searching typeface libraries around the world to find a typeface that matched their corporate vision of one letter shaped like a snake, three letters with excess corners, and one letter that's just plain bad. Further down the package says (in Monotype Rockwell Medium or one of its close relatives) "WORKUSE GLOVES" and then in Univers 55 it explains: RVBBER GLOVES FOF WASHING KITCHEN WOR And, in a magenta circle, there is some Univers 57: ''Sn Ron'' Can Saving Yourhands ''Sn Ron'' -handy- Silky and Com- fortable Then I'm told I have to wash the gloves in "WRAM WATER". Could be worse, they could have required "WORM WATER". The most amazing detail of the typography is that at the bottom, in big letters, is printed "SIZE: 8 1/2 X 13" which is neatly typeset in a very bland sans-serif (which probably came free with some Chinese font) except for the "X", whose four arms are each a different thickness, weight, and style. The upper left arm tapers like a peg leg, the upper right arm has an extra-acute angle at its X-Acto-blade-like tip, the bottom left arm is normal, and the bottom right arm flares a little. Clearly someone was typesetting "SIZE: 8 1/2 X 13" but said "This 'X' is too boring! It's got four arms that are all the same! I'm going to spend three hours drawing an 'X' that's deformed in several different ways at the same time! This will show my contempt for the evil letter 'X'! Ptui! We of Sn Ron spit on the letter 'X' and also on all the other letters we left out of our name!" I have no idea what country these gloves originated in (there is no manufacturer's information except the name "Sn Ron", and the only writing on the wrapper is in fractured English) so they could have come from Taiwan or Commie China or Good Korea or Evil Korea or Bizarro England or practically anywhere. Wait, I just noticed there is one circle Chinese character captioned "TRADE MARK", so Sn Ron must be from somewhere where they write Chinese, and I am assuming this product is too shoddy (and poorly-translated) to be from Hong Kong or even Taiwan, so I'm going to bet my nickel that these gloves came from Commie China. Unless they were made by the Greatest American Hero. They're a very natural latex shade of pee-yellow, slightly translucent like a dried tapioca pudding stain, and probably made of such impure latex that if I opened the bag I would immediately develop a terrible allergy to latex and would never again be able to touch a pair of rubber gloves without first putting on a pair of aluminum foil gloves. Oh, and it's so small that nobody but me could see it, but on the Ming's price tag which is supposed to say "FOR $1.95 EA" (with the word "FOR" in tiny letters to cram the whole thing into one slot of the price stamper) the "FOR" is printed upside down so it says # # # # ###### # # ###### ##### # # # # # # ##### # # ##### # ####### I have no idea how you could get a rubber stamp to come out as a mirror-image without taking these gloves into the fourth dimension just to put on the price tag. Unless the rubber stamp was actually made backwards, but that would be just plain silly. I prefer my theory that these are low-quality extra-dimensional gloves. These are possibly worn by those scary disembodied hands that live in the eternal blackness and can go through walls move closer to you whenever you stop looking at them and your only hope is to trap then in a bucket until they turn into harmless Earth Play-Doh. These gloves are disturbing in lots of ways. The rubber makes a weird "crunch, crunch" noise whenever I touch the package, which I don't think I'll do again. My theory is that "Sn Ron" is pronounced "crunch, crunch". -- K. Maybe I can get Howie Mandel to put one of these over his head and then give him a shove so that he falls into the fourth dimension and comes back reversed left for right and with his glove on the wrong side of his head. Except this might also turn him into antimatter and he'd explode and the world would be destroyed by Howie Mandel just like they predicted in 1985.