I love paperclips

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Putting together my 30th job application of the year so far, I realise that I love paperclips, in part for maintaining such a perfect balance between aesthetic form and practical function, in part for just making my life easier on a daily basis.

Post your appreciations of otherwise-overlooked, wonderful but humble, items of stationary or other objects, below.

― alext, Monday, 1 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

rubber knobbly finger-thing!!

― mark s, Monday, 1 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

thimble?

― RickyT, Monday, 1 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

both are def valid forms of office art

i have a paerclip that is tiger coloured - although looking closely at it i think someone coloured it in

i like the handles of scissors - strangely exotic or similar to the alien from alien if they are those sharp ergonomic ones

― born clippy, Monday, 1 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Has anyone ever used a brad for anything?

― Tracer Hand, Monday, 1 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

what's a brad?

― RickyT, Monday, 1 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

How about the Angle-Poise Lamp, the one-eyed creature that looks over your desk, keeping you company when you are on your own, brightening up those dark winter afternoons when all you want to do is go home. I always feel a bit sad when I switch it off to go home.

― davel, Monday, 1 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I am never "stationary" when watching Sophie Ellix-Bextor. My pen nib ROXX!

― Sophie #1 Phan, Monday, 1 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

could he mean "braddle" (i think) - that pointy carpenter's tool which is basically, um, a pointy thing for making holes in wood where you want to drill? i have one and use it for making extra holes in shoe straps when the straps are too long for my ickle feet/ankles.

blimey somerset cider has rotted my BRANE! i cannot make sense today.

― katie, Monday, 1 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

bradawl

― mark s, Monday, 1 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

you ppl are fucking sick

― Queen fo the buscuits in the oven and the buns in G's bed, Monday, 1 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

http://www.nyscreenwriter.com/images/brads.jpg

if you had plusieurs pages of three-hole-punched paper but couldn't afford a binder you could keep it all together with 3 of these brads. but shurely it's not only these tireless and destitute looseleaf writers keeping this particular brass fastener afloat?

― Tracer Hand, Monday, 1 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Queen G - oh yes.

― Tracer Hand, Monday, 1 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

the root of my obsession: i have like three boxes of these at home!

― Tracer Hand, Monday, 1 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I love my very own TROLL STALKER. Hugglez!

*bounces*

― Graham, Monday, 1 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Is the true the French refer to paperclips as petit trombones? If it is indeed true then my opinion of the French will be rising! A bull market on my opinion of the French!!

― lawrence kansas, Monday, 1 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

"hello I'd like to put 10% of the international high-risk stuff into lawrence kansas's opinion of the French" "are you sure you know what you're doing?" "it has to do with paperclips"

― Tracer Hand, Monday, 1 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Tracer: I think the bulk of brad-consumption in the US is arts-and- crafts related and typically involves 2nd-graders. (They work well with cardboard!)

― nabisco%%, Monday, 1 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I've got a soft spot for those things that you can extract staples with. Staple-extractors I think they're called... Ah the years I wasted growing my nails so I could get those little buggers out.

― Archel, Monday, 1 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Can we please stop beating around the bush and tell it like it is? ACCO MAKES THE BEST FASTENERS EVER!!!!!

My opinion of the French should never be sold short.

― lawrence kansas, Monday, 1 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Staples are more punk. Paperclips are for hippies to make little bracelets with! :)

― jel --, Monday, 1 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

binder clips= indie

― lawrence kansas, Monday, 1 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

loose paper = indie guilt

― Graham, Monday, 1 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

three-hole punch= laddism

― lawrence kansas, Monday, 1 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Has Nicholson Baker not written a chapter or two on paperclips yet.

One of my friends always claims that his job is filing paperclips.

― Martin Skidmore, Monday, 1 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I like paperclips. Indeed, my fave Viz photo story involved them.
It concerned a motorcycle courier whose g/friend was sore afraid of him getting kernoked down in his dangerous job that she finally persuaded him to work in the safe environment of a stationers.
Unfortch, only a few days into his new job he was killed when a large box of paperclips fell on his head.
A cautionary tale.

― DavidM, Monday, 1 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I actually had a job once that came down to 8 hours a day of taking paperclips off of things. The papers were meant to be archived, so anything degradable had to be extracted to avoid rampant oxidation; this included all metal apart from staples, plus rubber bands, but in the end 99% just paper clips. So I would go through dead academics' stuff and pluck off the paperclips and hope that maybe I would find something really embarrassing -- like torrid love letters or naked photos or notes on embezzlement schemes -- instead of the usual boxes upon boxes of photocopied articles from academic journals. Once I found a sort of cute flirty email correspondence between a single professor and a woman he was looking forward to seeing at a conference; he had sort of adorably printed it out and saved it. Another time I found a reimbursement receipt for someone who'd taken Saul Bellow out to lunch (Bellow had a sandwich, but I can't remember what kind). Another time I found a newsletter containing a cartoon by an 18-year-old Steve Albini.

― nabisco%%, Monday, 1 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

(I have been working on a short story relating to this job for upwards of four years.)

― nabisco%%, Monday, 1 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I like the computerized as apposed to hand click label maker.It comes in handly when you want to leave offensive messages to those you dislike around the office. You can correct you mistakes on the computerized one but if you misspell "cocksucker" on the hand clicker you waste tape...

― brg30, Monday, 1 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Oh the happy, happy memories:

http://www002.staples.com/images/products/catalog/products/ZFAB05 47.JPG

― felicity, Monday, 1 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

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