(More) Problems only Steampunks have.

Every day we face new challenges that threaten to drive us to distraction.

~ Your Dad threatens to gatecrash the next meet when you mention it's at a steam museum.

~ Your Other Half steals your sewing machine's zipper foot to make a trigger for his new raygun.

~ You have no choice but to go shopping for more clothes, shoes and accessories when your personal asthetic has expanded beyond Goth.

~ Your friends don't recognise you when, after wearing black and solely black for a decade and a half, you turn up in brown outfit. With an ivory blouse. And brass accessories.

Brass cuts still ^%@*ing hurt.

Oooh, it went and deleted my post ):<


- You're forced to endure the horrors of fashion faux pas in which you show up with the same pair of goggles as the First Mate.

- Your significant other legitimately asks you if you'd like a miniature cannon for Christmas, and you ask him if it's functional.

- You refuse to drink tea out of anything but a proper teacup. Paper Starbucks cups? Please! (;

- You suddenly get distracted by anything with a brass colouring.

- You look at creating anything for everyday needs with gears.

- You realise everything would be so much better with robots.

Some of those aren't really problems but more ponderances of steampunks, still amusing though

You never have the parts for your latest invention.
When you're building something, theres allways one or two little things you need to continue building and nowhere sells them! Especially not the places you'd expect to sell them!
Is it too much to ask for a center off slide switch with 6 terminals Maplin!?!? IS IT!?!?!

Steamblast Mary wrote: ~ You have no choice but to go shopping for more clothes, shoes and accessories when your personal asthetic has expanded beyond Goth.

~ Your friends don't recognise you when, after wearing black and solely black for a decade and a half, you turn up in brown outfit. With an ivory blouse. And brass accessories.

These are very true for myself. I got a 'Holy S***, he's wearing colour', meeting some friends I had not seen in a few months.

- Having your roommate get mad at you because you've taken the cheese grater to destress parts of a garment

- Also roommate wondering why there is constantly the smell of burnt metal coming from your room (its the only place I have to work on things)

~ Your tea usually ends up tasting slightly sulfuric, since your 500ml Erlenmeyer flask is currently doubling as a kettle.

~ Your collection of curiosities has exceeded the capacity of its designated cabinet.

~ Your landlord threatens to evict you if you refuse to cease producing small explosions and maniacal laughter at odd hours.

~ Your wallet grows ever thinner, but your [insert expensive and time-consuming project here] is coming along nicely.

Passing a skip takes 5 times longer than it used to and there is always something useful - which is gone when you get back, having been unable to go into work with a 5ft long piece of Pipe.

Sir A Poiselamppe wrote:Passing a skip takes 5 times longer than it used to and there is always something useful - which is gone when you get back, having been unable to go into work with a 5ft long piece of Pipe.

How could I forget the skip problem!!! Yes! I know exactly what you mean!

Going to the local "Antiques Mall" (former nursing home that has been converted into an antiques/crafts store and cafe) wearing full NeoVictorian kit (down to petticoats and corset), and still feeling underdressed because one hasn't a matching hat for the ensemble. (I did happen to find one there, but quite out of my price range. However, I managed to pick up kid leather gloves and a functioning yet super-inexpensive pendant watch. Now to make a watch pin for it....)

(How the hell do you 'pass a skip'?)
-Despair at the rising cost of copper and brass.

-Getting into arguments over the comparative benefits of steam vs diesel power in vehicles.

-Loosing aforementioned argument, because of a lack of imagination on the part of the automobile industry.

-The general inability to afford the projects one would like to attempt.

-Attempting the project any way, and not being able to eat as a result.

Strange looks from professors who find you (alright: found me) hand sewing a corset before class.

Strange looks from librarians when I complained that their Jules Verne section failed because it was all Great Illustrated Classics and WHY DO THEY NOT CARRY BURROUGHS? All of this occurred while in full standard punk/goth gear. I settled for a 19th century feminist history book.

There is no good place to get lace in central Missouri small towns. I was lucky to find embroidery thread.

Figuring out how to fit a hidden dagger into a Victorian day dress, and in the cleavage doesn't count because all of my male friends will see it. I think I figured it out, but it will be a while before I can manage to make it.

Strange looks from friends when one arrives to the designated lair in a . . . a. . . SKIRT.

No one realy understands why you dragged a large patio umbrella frame that thad been hit by a car home.(Those fiberglassed ribs are going to make some every cool wings.)

Buying forty buttons at once is far too hard and means taking trips to multiple stores.

Stepping on a stray gear late at night and getting part of it stuck in your toe is no fun.

Packing a parasol when you realy need an umbrella. Wet parasols are heavy.

The agonizing wait for the boot order to ship. (Two pairs of granny boots are coming for me but I just don't know when)

I feel you pain about the lack of craft supplies in in MO Mlle. A. aurantia. Oh and if you can get past their minimums http://www.cheeptrims.com/ Has some lovely lace and other interesting trims.

-Breaking your sewing machine because it's too weak to sew through several layers of upholstery fabric, which you bought because it was the ONLY THING that could possibly work for you airship captain trench coat.

-Being stymied for months on making your goggles because Home Depot is perpetually out of the dremel bit you need.

-Trying to figure out how to make several pieces of copper refrigeration tubing stick together without breaking down and buying a welder.

A.G.Morgan wrote:(How the hell do you 'pass a skip'?)

For our bretheren (and sisteren?) on the western side of the pond - for "skip" read "dumpster"

And you can imagine the problems inherent in passing a skip. Much, MUCH more difficult than passing a kidney stone!

Trying to explain to a hardware store employee that you need the minimum expanding foam and that the latex type doesn't have the tensile strength that your skulls will need...

DB

Lady Penelope wrote:And you can imagine the problems inherent in passing a skip. Much, MUCH more difficult than passing a kidney stone!

But not nearly as difficult as skipping a kidney stone in one pass.

Captain McCannon wrote:functional.

- You refuse to drink tea out of anything but a proper teacup. Paper Starbucks cups? Please! (;

Thank god, it's not just me! No one I know understands that tea out of anything but china is an enormous bucket of wrongness. It doesn't even taste right, and don't get me started on polystyrene cups.

Plum Phlogiston wrote:

Captain McCannon wrote:functional.

- You refuse to drink tea out of anything but a proper teacup. Paper Starbucks cups? Please! (;

Thank god, it's not just me! No one I know understands that tea out of anything but china is an enormous bucket of wrongness. It doesn't even taste right, and don't get me started on polystyrene cups.

xD I suppose that casts me out of the tea drinker's guild. I just drank a pot of tea (read: about 20 ounces) right out of the pot. Which is actually a miniature coffee pot from a miniature coffee maker because I'm too lazy to find out where I can find a pot for a reasonable price, since I'm too tight fisted to pay shipping for something I can't inspect in person.

B. R. Wilson wrote:

Plum Phlogiston wrote:

Captain McCannon wrote:functional.

- You refuse to drink tea out of anything but a proper teacup. Paper Starbucks cups? Please! (;

Thank god, it's not just me! No one I know understands that tea out of anything but china is an enormous bucket of wrongness. It doesn't even taste right, and don't get me started on polystyrene cups.

xD I suppose that casts me out of the tea drinker's guild. I just drank a pot of tea (read: about 20 ounces) right out of the pot. Which is actually a miniature coffee pot from a miniature coffee maker because I'm too lazy to find out where I can find a pot for a reasonable price, since I'm too tight fisted to pay shipping for something I can't inspect in person.

Your guild papers are OK in my book. Glass is perfectly acceptable!

DB

Dusza Beben wrote:

B. R. Wilson wrote:

Plum Phlogiston wrote:

Captain McCannon wrote:functional.

- You refuse to drink tea out of anything but a proper teacup. Paper Starbucks cups? Please! (;

Thank god, it's not just me! No one I know understands that tea out of anything but china is an enormous bucket of wrongness. It doesn't even taste right, and don't get me started on polystyrene cups.

xD I suppose that casts me out of the tea drinker's guild. I just drank a pot of tea (read: about 20 ounces) right out of the pot. Which is actually a miniature coffee pot from a miniature coffee maker because I'm too lazy to find out where I can find a pot for a reasonable price, since I'm too tight fisted to pay shipping for something I can't inspect in person.

Your guild papers are OK in my book. Glass is perfectly acceptable!

DB

Excellent!

-Hands always a mess from pricks from wire and cuts from copper foil (those suck)
-trying to explain to dorm building RAs that technically there are no rules against soldering irons
-sweating in heavy victorian garb in hot weather (I just embrace the anachronism and wear short (but interesting) skirts)

and most of all
-explaining to other people why i'm dressed like this

[quote="KatarinaNavane"]-Hands always a mess from pricks from wire and cuts from copper foil (those suck)

-Yes pricks from wire not fun!
-your mom wants to know why all the metal and cardbord recycling is in your room and you don't throw any thing out.
-no one you know understands what steampunk is,or why you want to get a hoop skirt.
-and you go to yard sales and buy a bunch of odds and ends just to take up more space,because you had no idea what thay were for you just liked the look of it.(I will use it for somthing)

-and yes the tea thing it is just uncivil to drink tea out of a plastic cup.