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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
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Just for fun: http://www.rit.edu/~cyberwww/8.htmOr Google "The Lead Pencil Club" for several links. One thing to be said for lead pencils - they don't leak ink at high altitudes.
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 328
enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 328 |
Thanks so much for starting this thread, Helen! I love pens. My current favorites are the Pilot V-5 Extra Fine Point roller ball pens, which come in lots of colors. They're great for taking notes in class because they write smoothly and the ink dries super-fast.
I would like to get a fountain pen from Levenger (hi Alex) eventually, but I'm not sure it will fit into my student's budget at the moment.
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 315
enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 315 |
You can buy tons of pens, and put them around, BUT when you need a pen - usually near the telephone -
NO ONE is available. So - if you are lucky - you can steal the coloured pencils of the children, or the pencil for the eyes..
When it is too late, they suddenly appear again.
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
Dear Emanuela: many years ago I read a very amusing essay by Robert Haven Schauffler, entitled "The Malice of Objects." Alas, no can find on Internet. But someone has usurped his title, and some of his ideas: http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~pardos/ArchiveMalice.html
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Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 3,409
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 3,409 |
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Dear Max: I can't find the dates for Robert Haven Schauffler, but one of his princpal malicious objects was the collar button that always managed to find the darkest corner under the dresser. Outside of a few ministers I don't remember anybody wearing collar buttons in the thirties. I didn't mean "usurp" to sound harsh. I was just feeling frustrated at being unable to locate the essay I read, which was in an American magazine, can't remember which one. At that date American magazines were not as often read in UK as they are now, so I don't suspect plagiarism.
P.S. I finally found his dates:1879 - 1969. Seems entirely possible that he wrote the essay prior to the thirties.
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146 |
Pens are one thing; use of them is another. I'm hopeless at handwriting and always have been. It's almost as if I was born to be a doctor. When I was lecturing, my students awarded me the wooden spoon prize for the worst handwriting every semester. It got to the point where I would have been disappointed if it had gone elsewhere ... 
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 3,467
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 3,467 |
>collar button that always managed to find the darkest corner under the dresser.
OOOOH. You gave me a chance to tie two threads together. In our household it has been empirically established that our clothes dryer has transmutational qualities, some of which should bear warning labels relating to quantum physics.
The heat of our dryer turns socks into wire clothes hangers. That's why our socks disappear and we are overrun with hangers.
TEd
TEd
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
I agree with Emanuela's law! It also holds for flashlights and scissors and needle-nose pliers (why do I suddenly want to break into a chorus of "My Favorite Things"?). I'm hopeless at handwritingYou are not, sir!  Several years ago, my husband and my brother- and sister-in-law dragged me to see somebody I'd barely heard of, but he turned out to be pretty funny. I think it was George Carlin. Anyway, one of the things we still talk about is his explanation that, somewhere in the universe, there is a humongous pile of Lost Things: millions of odd socks, etc. So Ted, if you can just locate this pile, you'll find all the socks. Oh--also, it is not known how the things get TO the pile--they just appear.
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
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The thing I find mysterious - and I'm absolutely certain that it must be tied very closely to the physics surrounding Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle - is the way that physical and inert things turn up precisely one minute after you don't need them any more.  It must be related somehow to the mental situation where you can't remember a name when you meet someone, um and ah to cover up for the fact that you have forgotten their name, then remember it as you walk away ... 
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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