Sith Happens
Status: A possible contender to my Borderlands tee
Purchased: www.kapoww.co.uk
Score: 4 out of 5 Kombis
Description: As Qui-Gon Jinn slow passes his Geiger Counter like device over this tee it would almost certainly emit a very high level of Midi-Chlorians. And for good reason too as this is a great geek’s tee shirt and comes in many variations. You have the one with just Darth Vader’s helmet all hollowed out to look like a skull (my one). Also the one with his head bent down in shame. Even Darth Maul makes an appearance in another version, but my favourite is this one with Vader pointing at you almost like an Uncle Sam warning you of certain doom.
But what really makes this work is that it appeals at so many different levels. The most obvious one is the Karma aspect that is embedded in the Sith way of life, you do bad things and bad things will certainly happen to you. You could play with the word Sith and as you try to make it sound like “shit” it suddenly becomes blindingly obvious that shit was an anagram for Sith in the first place. Or you could delve deep into the doctrines of Buddhism and discover that “life is pain”. This may sound like a pessimistic view that life should always be about suffering, but they also believe that when something good happens you should relish, savour and celebrate that moment. So did George Lucas dream all this up or did 26 centuries of Buddhism have some influence here?
Whatever level(s) of Karma you believe in just enjoy the tee shirt knowing that Sith really does happen when you put Qui-Gon in charge of finding “the chosen one”.
Moe’s Tavern
Status: Re-blogged from “spokeart”
Purchased: Would make an awesome tee shirt
Rating: 4 out of 5 Kombis
Description: At first glance I saw Moe’s sign and thought, “it might be the Simpsons”. But what really drew me in was the amazing transition of colours depicting an early evening dusk sky and the detail of power lines contrasting with the high cloud was amazing. But as soon as I saw the donuts sign and the cartoon character (Homer perhaps?) playing the saxophone it could only be Moe’s Tavern the only tavern in Springfield where everybody knows your name. No, that’s Cheers silly.
Anyway, this would also make a great tee shirt … I want one.
spokeart:
Last year, artist Tim Doyle changed the pop-culture landscape, literally. His hand screen printed posters of iconic TV locations are amazing, here’s a look at a Simpsons-inspired one, “Amanda Hugginkiss”
Check out all of Tim’s re-imagined TV locations here - http://store.spoke-art.com/collections/tim-doyles-unreal-estate
Alderaan - 5 Day Forecast
Status: Available from Snorgtees
Purchased: A possible future purchase
Rating: 3 out of 5 Kombis
Description: To the layman it just looks like a projected weather forecast for some place they’ve never heard of. Maybe it’s in the Mediterranean as it looks warm there. 15,000 degrees warm? No, any bonafide Star Wars fan will quickly tell you that this is the Earth-like planet home to Princess Leia which was destroyed by the Death Star in Episode IV: A New Hope.
A bit mean of them to do a weather forecast on that very week. But at least you would get extra geek points for knowing it all happened on a Wednesday.
The Hypercolor Tee
Status: Never owned one
Purchased: Available in the early 90’s
Rating: 1 out of 5 Kombis
Description: where there is good there is always bad, so let’s just get this out of the way. The Hypercolor Tee seemed like a great idea at the time. It would change colour based on changes in heat, typically body heat. You would put it on and straight away and it would start looking like a tie-dye tee from the 60’s or you could leave random hand prints all over it or worse you could be a teenager brimming with hormones and have colours changing where you least expected. To create this effect the shirts were dyed twice, first with a permanent dye and again with a thermochromatic dye. You know how some foods or drinks have an indicator on the package to tell you if it’s cold enough? Well that’s the same ingredient that made the shirt change colour.
The nail in the coffin for this tee and the main reason it only gets 1 out 5 points is that after a few hot washes its magical qualities disappeared and the shirt was permanently morphed into a purple-brown colour. Now for 1% of the population they would say, “hey I love that colour, it’s so me”, the other 99% would be saying, “Oh no, this looks like sh*t! now” On top of all of this it would have never taken off outside of the USA as you guys can’t even spell “colour” correctly (cheesy-grin)!
Pluto - Never Forget
Status: Link from http://plutoneverforget.com/
Purchased: Considering it and it does have glow in the dark ink technology. Thats gotta be good right? … lol
Rating: 3 out of 5 Kombis
Description: Definite geek points if you knew that in 2005, Mike Brown thought he had discovered a 10th planet (Eres) in our solar system. Turns out, it was not technically a planet because of its size and since it was larger than Pluto, that meant Pluto was not technically a planet either. It sparked a huge controversy (Brown even got death threats from school kids). Eventually, Eres and Pluto were downgraded to “dwarf planet” status. This t-shirt honours the icy little orb of our elementary school science classrooms. And the ink glows in the dark!
p.s. The bit about death threats from school kids sounds very made up to me.
Millennium Falcon Blueprint
Status: Owning two of these seems about right
Purchased: thehut.com
Rating: 4 out of 5 Kombis
Description: This should be a 5 out of 5 but the quality of the cotton is nowhere near the standard of a Gearbox tee, for example. Having said that this should still be the prize possession of any geek’s tee shirt collection . Even Sheldon Cooper would be speechless if he saw this. Of course he would want this to be completely unique and insist on having it signed by George Lucas himself at, “whatever means necessary”. In the process yet another restraining order would be added to his growing collection from Leonard Nimoy, Carl Sagan and Stan Lee :-)
NASA NERD
Status: Twitter post by The @Verge
Purchased from: I definitely want one
Rating: 4 out of 5 Kombis
Description: At first glance it looks like a NASA tee but on closer inspection … Oh!
shortstackphotos: I WANT DIS
Soft Kitty Tee
Status: Considering it
Purchased from: n/a
Rating: 3 out of 5 Kombis
Description: Not something that Sheldon would wear but great if you are a Big Bang Theory fan.
Mmm Donuts
Status: Currently a fridge magnet
Purchased from: n/a
Rating: 4 out of 5 Kombis
Description: I’m hoping someone has made this into a tee shirt already
Cookie Monster
Status: Still like new
Purchased from: Farmers, Wgtn, NZ
Rating: 2 out of 5 Kombis
Description: A fun tee that is hot. No, not that sort of hot. The picture of Cookie Monster is in fact a thick transfer that acts as a large plastic bag across your chest. Within 5 minutes of putting it on you’ll be complaining about the heat. Save it for those cold wintery days.