At MilitantGeek I see a lot of TShirt designs week in and week out. And while most places have one shirt that’s rather witty or clever its rare when I stumble across a store that I fall in love with. Retropolis, though, is one of those newly discovered finds.
The idea is to take the romance and swashbuckling set design of Flash Gordon, channel it through a talented designer, and then press it onto lovely shirts for the world to wear. Items, like “the Volto-Vac Retro Robot” are simply too unique and wonderful not to celebrate. This unique pieces of art will run you $25.99. However, when compared to the $30+ for yesterday’s Wordart piece, its a bargain.
Stateside geekdom owes a lot to Japan - and I’m not just talking about J-Rock Groupies or Yatta. Whether is gadgets to fawn over or reliable cars to commute to the cubical Japan is responsible for a major portion of this country’s productive output. And, in an irony that exists only to me, it destroys that productivity with each and every video game import.
Split Reason celebrates this bevy of time wasting triumphs with this lovely design. The shirt will cost you $18.95. L33T skills to pwn N00bs with is extra.
Microsoft has money. Lots of money. So much money, in fact that they can afford to blow a big wad on lame promotional videos starring celebrities. It’s that way today and most definitely that way during the launch of Windows 95. Gaze in horror at this complete train wreck of a promotional video starring (the then gainfully employed) Matthew Perry and Jennifer Aniston. Wince in pain at the Seinfeld-esque base guitar ’stings’ after each attempt at humor. And knowingly nod at the revelation why this was the first and last Cyber-Sitcom.
Microsoft circa 1978: That HAIR! The BEARDS! The flannel! Of course there is that natty young man with the feathered locks in the lower left; he could be going places…
Ah, another timeless classic in the spiritual strata we call ‘Ghosts of Geeks Past’. While the photo technically showcases nerds it comes from an era when the Geek and Nerd sub-geniuses hadn’t yet split. In 1982 Life magazine rounded up all the world video game “champions” they could find and posed them. You’ll notice that the photographer brilliantly placed an imposing wall between the no-doubt-sex-starved winners and the row of duped cheerleaders. Really, the most female play any had gotten up until this point had been with Ms. Pac-Man.
An now we cut to a fictional recreation outside a high school gymnasium:
Cheerleader:“Give me an S!” Cheerleaders:“S!” Cocaine Snorting Photographer“Hey, girls! Over here! How would you like to take a photo with some world campion athletes?” Cheerleader:“Really! Oh my gosh! That would be, like, totally awesome! You mean like Pete Rose? He’s so virtuous.” Cocaine Snorting Photographer“Um… sure. Ok! The set is right over here…” Cheerleader:“Um… Who are these guys? And what’s that smell?”
One of the reasons I started the ‘Ghosts of Geeks Past’ feature is that there is simply too much embarrassing flotsam on the waters we tread. I remind lest we repeat. Take today, for example: what begins as a fairly boring Microsoft 386 marketing promo (Accounts! Spreadsheets! Corporate Blah!) becomes a sinking ship of c(rap)-tastic portions at the 7-minute mark (my suggestion is to hit the play button to begin downloading, immediately hit pause, go read the rest of your email while it buffers, come back and jump to the magical 7 minute mark). Jaw dropping will ensue.
Todd Bishop, the Seattle PI’s Microsoft Reporter, has a great roundup of Microsoft videos available online. When you’re as large as the Redmond software giant there apparently are plenty of opportunities to do awkward commercial parodies (not unlike this place):
While we’re on the top of Billy G., it’s important to remember he’s got a whole drawer in the ghosts of geeks past file cabinet.
There’s a reason that the modern sub-species of erectus-geekius isn’t portrayed as the strong, virile class of human that they are. Mostly because our fore fathers weren’t. As a public service we at Militant Geek are pointing out this potentially painful past lest we repeat it:
At MilitantGeek I see a lot of TShirt designs week in and week out. And while most places have one shirt that’s rather witty or clever its rare when I stumble across a store that I fall in love with. Retropolis, though, is one of those newly discovered finds. 
Stateside geekdom owes a lot to Japan - and I’m not just talking about 
