The Avengers Has Turned the Internet Shawarma Crazy

Image: Shawarma near damascus from gomideast.com

Words cannot describe my love for shawarma, if you aren’t familiar with shawarma it’s chicken or lamb or more recently beef cooked on a huge rotating skewer rolled up in flat bread with some vegetables sauce (Garlic sauce or tahina depending on the meat) and occasionally french fries (Although I think the french fries are not part of the traditional recipe) and it is what I grew up eating. It’s a staple food in the middle east, it costs about 50p (I reackon 75 cents?) and it absolutely delicious.

I’ve had shawarma in London, Glasgow and even Tokyo I think if you told me I could only eat one food for the rest of my life I’d pick shawarma. But enough about that. I’ve noticed the internet has picked up on shawarma because of a passing reference to it in the Avengers.

This can only be a good thing as it will hopefully lead to shawarma being more mainstream, which means that I will have access to it wherever I go!

Image from Do-Nut-No
T-Shirt on Be Obscure
T-Shirt On Redbubble
Another T-Shirt on Redbubble

 

 

Why is Steel-Punk Not a Thing?

I saw the piece above entitled Pauldrons and Arm Braces by deviant artist vofffka and wondered to my self why there wasn’t a subculture of people who dressed up like knights? The concept of chivalry and honor are quite big in some geek sub circles, George RR Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones series is hitting it off big time both in the bookstore and on the small screen and it involves wearing armour!

Why is this not a thing? I’m not talking about LARP (Live Action Role Play) style costumes, dressing up in full plate would make day to day tasks completely impractical, I’m talking about incorporating things that look like armor into everyday outfits, a little like this Hoodie by Etsy seller SOFworks which was so successful it got the poor guys shop shut down…

Grey Knight Armored Hoodie

We have Steam punk, that’s a thing that’s been a geek subculture for quite some time, arguably for some people it just involves wearing brown goth clothes and gluing on some gears, but it’s a vibrant subculture.

Likewise there is cyber punk, cyber goth, and hundreds of other subcultures consisting of people who want to for one reason or another dress like they come from another time period be it the past or the future, people even dress up as anthropomorphised animals and believe that that is their true form (Weirder still there are double furries who believe that they are animals dressed up as humans…)

Why don’t we have Steel Punk?

Like I said I’m not talking about people wearing full suits of armor, that’s impractical unless you are LARPing or Cosplaying.

So wondering about with swords is probably out of the question because you will probably get stopped by the police pretty sharpish, but accessorizing normal clothing with pauldrons, bracers, maybe a knitted medieval helm or a knitted chain mail jumper (There is a pattern for this here)?

Or knitted armor:

I have found a few projects scattered about the web The following are undergrad projects:

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Undergraduate Lydia Hanchette created this cuir bouille cincher,
pauldron, and vambrace entirely of hardened leather.

 

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Body armor and pauldron/vambrace rig by second year Adrienne Corral
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As above but worn

They are all leather and maybe steel would be a little but less practical, but I still find it strange that there aren’t more people wondering about with bits of armor accentuating their outfits.

As I said actual metal would be preferable, and it’s not like modern fashion designers haven’t tried this like these costumes by designer Naty Chabanenko which are supposed to be android like but lets face it look like stylized armour:

Or this design from Alexander McQueen’s 2007 collection which has a lot of armor inspired designs but this is really the only one that fits what I’d call steel punk:

Or even these armored jeans by Acne Jeans:

Acne armoured jeans Acne make armoured jeans, world wonders why

Or these plate high heels by Nigel carren? He does armor fashion!

Maybe not this plate bra though…

All I’m saying is it seems really weird to me that despite there being a niche for this subculture and there being people who would fit into that niche the subculture doesn’t exist.

And no wearing articulated claw rings does not count, that’s just lame…

 

Throne of Screams

Throne of Screams by Brinkerhoff<br />
USD$10 for 24 hours only

Throne of Screams by Brinkerhoff imagines StarScream on the Iron Throne. The crown he wears in the Transformers movie is a nice touch but I can’t get past the fact that the colours on this image seem a bit too dark.

If it tickles your fancy you have 24 hours (Probably less by the time you read this) to get it off of Ript Apparel.

Via GameFreaks.NZ

Upcycled Geek Clothing By Bonga Chop Shop

Pac Man Halter Top OOAK Upcycled

Kendra of Bonga Chop Shop makes one of a kind up-cycled geek clothing and the like from vintage geek fabric. Like the above Pac-Man halter top (I think I had that design on a bed sheet…) or the Below Pac-Man skirt and Transformers mini dress.

Pac Man Highwaisted Skirt OOAK

Transformers Mini Dress OOAK

I was a mac user

I saw this T-Shirt on a tweet by Last Year’s Girl and though she admitted that it was not the case for her, I can (happily?) state that it is true for me. Tempted to get this T-Shirt as I was a Mac user from 1984 (we had a Mac 128k) through to about 1998. Technically later as I still used Macs on and off doing DTP stuff at my student union until about 2005. Actually the statement isn’t completely true I wasn’t a Mac user I was a Mac Zealot…

My progression as a Mac user went from the Mac 128k:

To a Mac Plus with a whopping 20 Mb external hard drive:

To the second of Apple’s “Pizza Box” budget Macs the LC II:

My divergence from the Mac Cause began when we bought a Mac Clone a Power Tower 200:

Then I went to Uni and bought a PC because it meant I could do my course work on a computer I could afford. I’ve not really looked back since, I’ve dabbled with Linux, but despite all my complaints with Windows I’ve now (for better of for worse) become a windows user. It’s funny how as late as 1998 I would religiously defend Macs they were just better. Now I’ve come to the opinion that all computers are just crap in different ways. All that changes is  what the computer is rubbish at and what it is slightly less rubbish at.

Although to be honest so long as a computer has a browser these days I can get 99% of what I want to do done on it…

Via dieselsweeties.com